New range - what is "Sabbath Mode" for?

[Chronos]

Wouldn’t an electric oven be (if anything) less problematic than a gas one, assuming that they both lack the timer etc.? Or is turning on the gas feed to the pilot light just considered feeding an existing fire, rather than starting a new one?

[kanicbird]

@Chronos

Wouldn’t an electric oven be (if anything) less problematic than a gas one, assuming that they both lack the timer etc.? Or is turning on the gas feed to the pilot light just considered feeding an existing fire, rather than starting a new one?

Most gas ovens now use a electronic ignition and not a pilot light.

[Melbourne]

@carnivorousplant

There is a difference in using city power lines to mark a boundary and declaring that they are something to be worshiped. A better comparison would be using city streets to denote the area inclosed by a parish.

Actually, I have a religious taboo on passive involvement in religious ritual from other religions, even when the other religion explicitly states that the activity is non-religious in nature.

I would have thought that a religious group with a religon that specifies taboos would have understood that, but then, I tend to over-think things.

[carnivorousplant]

@Melbourne

Actually, I have a religious taboo on passive involvement in religious ritual from other religions, even when the other religion explicitly states that the activity is non-religious in nature.

I would have thought that a religious group with a religon that specifies taboos would have understood that, but then, I tend to over-think things.

So you are a Scientologist?

[Mister_Rik]

@cmkeller

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.)

Anecdote: I worked as a cook at my city’s convention center. The other cooks told me about an event they hosted a few months before I started, a convention for Orthodox Jewish rabbis.

Apparently, the Orthodox interpretation of the “work on the Sabbath” rule includes a prohibition on asking other people to do work on your behalf. So, since the convention included dinner on Saturday evening … the cooks had to prepare Saturday’s dinner on Friday, making sure the work was all completed before sundown, and then place everything into the hot-holding warmers and just leave it there for 24 hours until it could be served Saturday evening.

I just gotta wonder about the quality of the food after sitting in a warmer for 24+ hours…

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@Mister_Rik

I just gotta wonder about the quality of the food after sitting in a warmer for 24+ hours…

Having eaten more than a few of those big hotel convention dinners serving a few hundred people at once … this wouldn’t make much difference to the quality!

[Little_Nemo]

@Mdcastle

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.

@t-bonham@scc.net

What about the new light switch sensors, which use motion detectors to turn the lights on when someone comes into the room? The clearly use electrical ‘sparks’ to operate the sensor, and to trigger the lighting circuit. Must Jews who are observant of these silly taboos not use such light controls in their home?

Some Jews feel automated motion sensors are prohibited because it’s the movement of your body which activates them and therefore it is a form of work just like pushing a button or flipping a switch.

[Little_Nemo]

@runningdude

Jewish people are not allowed to actively do work, including cooking and even turning on/off lights or alarms. However, they may be the passive recipient of an oven programmed to turn on and off at a certain time.

I believe the principle is that you just cannot do work on the Sabbath. But you can use the benefits of work you preformed on other days. So you can’t build a house on the Sabbath but you can live inside a house you built. That same principle would apply to the ovens described here. You did the work before the Sabbath began and now you’re just eating the food that was made from that work.

[BigT]

@cmkeller

Dr. Strangelove:

No, the inclusion of a “non-Eruv-able” space inside an area demarcated by the walls and pseudo-walls that are familiarly used for an Eruv would render the entire demarcated area to not be a valid Eruv.

Re: “spirit” of the law vs “letter” of the law: The thing about Torah laws is that we Jews believe that humans can’t understand the thought-processes of G-d, except through the outlet that G-d has revealed. The letter of the law IS our only guide to what the “spirit” of the law is. As an example, there is the Torah commandment to not take the eggs of a bird while the mother is still at the nest. In human understanding the “spirit” of this law would seem to be an act of mercy toward the mother bird. But the Talmud says that one who refers to G-d as “the one who has mercy on the mother bird” is doing wrongly, because it presumes to know the full breadth of G-d’s intentions in making the law, and that’s not within the human scope. An attitude that certain acts seem to be “circumventing the spirit” assumes that we know more about the “spirit” than the “letter” has revealed. But this is a false attitude in Judaic thought.

But, if you don’t know, how do you know you are not violating His intent with your circumventions? I agree that you can’t assume what God’s intent was. But how do you know that God doesn’t want you to be merciful to that bird, and would be upset with you if you, say, threw a rock at it, knocked it out of its nest, and then took its eggs before its injured body returned?

It seems to me that you are actually assuming the intent of the law. You are assuming that God doesn’t have any other overarching intent behind what He says. Heck, quite a few in this thread are assuming that His intent is that you show your creativity and work around it.

That’s what seems so weird to me. I’d think you guys would be going out of your way to put a hedge around the law, not doing anything that was even close to breaking it, like how you interpret the kid in its mother’s own milk prohibition. Or how you don’t type out the word “God” for fear that someone might print it out and desecrate it.

I honestly have a hard time figuring out how the legalism and hedge concepts can coincide.