We got a new range this weekend and it has a “Sabbath Mode”. According to the manual, “The Sabbath Mode sets the oven to remain on in a bake setting until turned off. When the Sabbath Mode is set, all cooking and cleaning cycles are disabled. Only the Bake cycle will operate in Sabbath Mode. No tones will sound, and the displays will not show messages or temperature changes.”
Wikipedia has a list of activities prohibited on the Sabbathand one of those is cooking/baking. So I don’t really understand what the “Sabbath Mode” is supposed to accomplish. It sounds like it disables everything except the oven, which you can turn on and adjust the temperature, but the display won’t display the temperature and the light doesn’t turn on when you open the oven door. But if you’re not allowed to bake on the Sabbath, what does that get you?
Many Jews aren’t allowed to use the oven (amongst other things) on the Sabbath. As a workaround, they can turn it on before the Sabbath begins and just toss food (precooked?) in as they need it. IIRC, the display goes dim so that they can adjust the temperature and still not be using something electronic.
It’s a misnomer. It’s actually used for Jewish holidays, when cooking/baking is permitted, but some of the other fancy functions of the oven are more questionable.
It can be useful for the Sabbath because it also overrides the standard 12 hour shutoff which most ovens have now, so you can keep food such as cholent warm overnight.
I wish I had bookmarked it, but I didn’t and now don’t know where to find it, but one of our Dopers once explained that “work” (as in, they don’t “work” on the Sabbath) is more accurately translated as “works of creation or works of destruction”. It’s okay to keep previously made food warm in the oven, because you’re not creating or destroying anything, just maintaining it. But to press a button, causing an electric circuit to complete and energy to light a bulb or set a timer - that’s an act of creation, and thus forbidden when not necessary to save the life or health of a person.
I’ve got no dog in that fight, but it always seemed like there were a lot of odd little loopholes or more specifically purposeful ignorances in the whole Sabbath Mode thing. A fridge with Sabbath Mode will leave the light off so the person opening and closing the door doesn’t directly turn the light on. But opening the door will make the compressor turn on sooner. The oven keeps the display off so the person doesn’t alter the display because that would be involve the circuitry…but who cares about all the relays that come into play to turn on and off the 220 volt element, as long at the 5 volt LED doesn’t turn on or off.
Do I recall light switches that had a 30 second delay in them before they turned on just for this? Same idea. You wouldn’t hit the switch, wait a few seconds and then the light would turn on and you could claim you didn’t directly affect the light. Something along those lines.
On the one hand I get it, it’s sort of and out of sight/out of mind thing. You can push the temp up/down button on the oven (or open the fridge door or flip the kosher light switch) and not feel like you’re doing anything because it doesn’t beep and you don’t see the changes OTOH, it seems like if you’re observant enough that you’re, um, observing this stuff, then you’re cheating if you’re using these workarounds. Again, I don’t care either way, if the workarounds work for you, that’s great (or if I misunderstading the rules, let me know). It just always seemed a bit…off, to me.
High rise buildings where many Jewish people live often have elevators that operate in Shabbat mode. The elevators go up and down and stop at every floor regardless of whether anyone is using them. That way an observant Jew can step into the elevator that was going to stop at his floor anyway and say he did not cause the elevator to do any work because he didn’t have to press a button and he didn’t cause the elevator to stop there. There has been some controversy about these and one group of rabbis has ruled that they violate the laws. Not everyone agrees.
I asked about that issue some years ago. As I understood the answer, G_d encourages this sort of work-around, as it shows you to be* using *your G_d-given imagination and talent to make the world a better place (even if only for you and your family).
Using your talent is one way of expressing praise to G_d.
The “Sabbath mode” feature has nothing to do with loopholes. The rule, as stated fairly clearly in a biblical verse and explicitly in the Talmudic literature, is that you are permitted to cook on a holiday. The “Sabbath mode” allows you to disable a few features of the oven which involve activities which may not be permitted - for example, displaying the numbers on a screen might be considered writing, which is forbidden on the holiday.
My wife came across the Shabbat lift in Jerusalem recently. Of the four lifts in her hotel, one was in Shabbat mode, and the rest working normally for the Gentiles.
Presumably these were ones where you had to push a button to get a walk cycle. Automated pedestrian sensors are under development too, since having to push a button is getting a backlash from the anti-car urbanist types.
I am not Jewish but I thought the prohibition was against lighting a fire on the Shabbat, so an oven that was still on was OK.
And as for the Shabbat elevators, I remember seeing one when I was picking my mother up from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. (It wasn’t Saturday, so it wasn’t in Shabbat mode, but one of the elevators had a sign that it would be the one to operate in this mode.)
That was me, and the staff report had, regrettably, vanished from the Straight Dope web site when the Chicago Reader changed ownership and the website then underwent some radical changes. But a link to it can be found using the internet “wayback machine” archive: Straight Dope Staff Report: Can traditional Jews do no work at all on the Sabbath?. And just for the record, the Torah prohibits only creative acts, not purely destructive ones. (The Rabbis prohibited destructive acts so people won’t mistakenly do creative ones that appear similar.)
Dewey Finn:
It’s OK to have an oven on all Shabbat, but to actually cook raw food is also prohibited, even if the fire is already lit. But heating up cooked food is OK. (And on Jewish holidays that occur on weekdays, cooking is totally allowed.)
As always with Jewish law, one should also remember the old saying “Two Jews, three opinions”. Some Jews will consider all oven use to be acceptable. Some will consider all use of an electric oven acceptable, since it doesn’t strictly speaking involve fire, but will have restrictions on a gas oven. Some will consider any sort of oven acceptable in itself, but will only use it in particular ways. Some will consider an oven with “sabbath mode” acceptable but not one without. Some won’t consider the “sabbath mode” acceptable, either. And so on, in every possible combination you can think of and several you can’t.
I am amazed this thread has got this far and there are still no jokes about Ozzy or heavy metal! (I have been trying, but I can’t come up with a good one. :()
There are strange definitions of what is ‘work’ and what is not. Something like to catch a lamb, if it goes inside and you close the door it is work, but if it goes inside and you kick a rock that holds the door open is it not work and now OK.
I also remember a thread (I believe on the SD), where sabbath mode on a oven set up a situation where one obstructed a light beam which in turn (though light sensors) turned on the oven, avoiding work.
The strange thing in all of this is the Hebrew for work and worship (AVODAH) was the exact same word, so worship would be also prohibited on the sabbath.
As opposed to what? Aren’t all street corners on automated cycles?