Using the toilet on Shabbat

Factual Questions
81

Turning appliances on and off: This is why I caution people against the word “using”, in favor of “operating”. Using them is okay, as long as we don’t operate them, i.e., turn them on or off or adjust them in other ways.

Heat and a/c: We set them before the Sabbath. If one forgot or the weather is unexpected, it often becomes a big enough health issue to warrant asking a non-Jew’s help. Especially in winter.

Refrigerator: You hit the nail on the head. Just leave it plugged in, and you’re not operating the cooling elements. But the light is indeed a problem. We unscrew ours; some people put tape on the switch. If one forgot, it will depend on what foods are available outside of the fridge. If one can manage without the stuff inside, great. But if declaring the fridge to be off-limits will make a severe enough impact to ruin one’s enjoyment of the day, it will probably be grounds for asking a non-Jew’s help. This is an example of an area which is easily abused or misunderstood. If one lives alone and was only planning on a peanut butter sandwich anyway, he is not justified in asking a non-Jew to get the cold soda from the refrigerator. But if he has a whole family and guests, and the appetizer, main course, and side dishes are all trapped inside, that’s another story.

Bathing: There’s lot of details, but basically you nailed it perfect.

Shoelaces and ties: Sorry, Chronos, good guess but wrong. The distinction goes by the permanence of the knot. Two factors are critical: The intention for the knot to be temporary (i.e., one plans to undo it within 24 hours), and the style of the knot to be temporary (i.e., one does not need to pick the the strings, but simply by pulling at the right place the whole thing will fall apart).

The shoelace knots often in use (where two loops are joined by a simple knot) are a good example of this. If one pulls on either end of the lace, the whole thing becomes loose. Some people add an additional loop for security, and that pushes the whole thing into no-no territory.

Similarly, there are different styles of necktie knots. The one I use, if I reach under my collar and pull the narrow part of the tie up and out through the knot, the knot falls apart, and that is okay. With other necktie knots, if one does that he is left with a knot in the tie. That’s no good. People who don’t have the knack for my kind of knot will tie the tie on Friday afternoon, and then on Friday night they’ll loosen it off their head without untying it, so that they can easily put it back on Saturday morning.

Elastic bands on a pony tail: No problem. Rubber bands of all sorts (and their even more modern cousins, the metal keep-tie) are great solutions for many Sabbath situations.

82

Nope, and for the exact reason you suspect. “Lighting” includes adding fuel to an existing fire (such as adding a log to a fireplace, even if it will not catch fire immediately), and “extinguishing” includes removing fuel from an existing fire (such as removing a log from the fireplace, even if not burning yet).

If a flame is already burning on one’s gas stove, and he turns it up or down, that’s the same as above, but even worse because it is immediate. And ditto for a dimmer switch.

83

I used to work tangentially to the financial service industry, so I can give an informal confirmation of this. Broadly speaking, the Islamic mortgage is a deal whereby the bank (etc) buys the property at the sale price, then sells it back to you on an instalment plan for a higher price. No interest is being charged, naturally; it’s just that part of the deal is that you will buy the property for the agreed higher price. :wink: Meanwhile, you’re allowed to live in it and so on.

84

Slight hijack – what’s a ballpark figure for the percentage of American Jews (lumping reform, orthodox, essentially non-practicing, etc. all together) who conscientiously follow the rules of the Sabbath as fastidiously as possible?

Does that percentage change appreciably if you exclude Jews who live in the major urban centers of the east and west coasts ot the U.S.?

I ask this because I’ve never heard of a lot of the fine points of these laws, even though there is a not-insignificant Jewish minority in the New Orleans metro area. The one and only thing I’d ever seen that was a clear expression of the Sabbath laws was that Jewish folks would walk to synagogue instead of drive.

Are there a significant number of Reform (?) Jews who essentially throw out all but the bare bones of the Sabbath laws, all the while feeling like they are in compliance? So they’ll walk to synagogue, and maybe leave selected lights on in the house and not cook on Sabbath on the one hand – but on the other hand, they’ll open/close the fridge without regarding the fridge light or they’ll tear TP without giving it a second thought?

85

It’s clear that the rules evolve over time. Is there anyone looking at these rules and loopholes with modern constraints in mind? Keeping lights on throughout the Sabbath, so they need not be turned on or off, for example, seems like a waste of electricity. And we all know we’re not supposed to be wasting electricity.

86

This is a good example of conflicting values, as I mentioned above. Wasting electricity is bad both for the environment and for the wallet. If one feels that strongly about it, he has the option of simply leaving all the lights off, and using just a few nightlights or candles for safety. But these reasons are not strong enough to justify violating the Sabbath by turning the lights off.

Modern times do give us these problems, but fortunately, we get solutions as well. I have quite a few timers scattered through the house, which are pre-set beforehand, to turn the lights on and off automatically, to save electricity as you point out.

87

Up here, cold water often means using an electric pump in the well. I guess folks would need to collect water ahead of time and sponge bathe on the Sabbath?

88

How about a automatic flusher that was rigged to go off at random intervals throughout the day? The result is beneficial, you know that it will happen, but you don’t know for sure when it’s going to happen.

Alternatively, what about a toilet that is constantly cycling water through the bowl so it need not be flushed? I’m thinking that this WOULD be kosher in the same way that Shabbat-kosher lamps are (the switch is turned on and the bulb is lit before Shabbat, and there’s an opaque shade that can be opened or closed to let the light through).

89

Most of the things we’ve mentioned here are done within the home, so its not surprising that the only one you’ve noticed is the outdoor activity of walking to synagogue. Please rest assured that those who walk to synagogue probably do most of this other stuff too.

If there are any Reform Jews in this thread, I hope they’ll respond. But it is my understanding that the basic philosophy behind the Reform movement is that all or most of the laws we’ve been mentioning are outmoded and have no relevance today. They are unlikely to walk to synagogue unless they live so close that walking is more convenient than driving. They do stress synagogue attendance and some other rituals, but in general consider the Torah’s laws to be man-made and non-binding.

90

cwthree, all your ideas are okay. In addition, the randomness is not needed - it can be programmed for a specific schedule, as long as the Jew is not adjusting the schedule on Shabbat. But even that is superfluous, except for the guy in the OP who thought that there’s a problem with manual flushing. All the rest of us simply push the lever to manually bring new water in.

Then again, that could be a problem with gigi’s wells. I have no idea what people in those areas do.

91

Thanks for your answers, Keeve. You’ve got my curiosity wound up :slight_smile:

Are there a significant number of Jewish folks who (a) do not self-identify as Reform, but (b) nevertheless selectively apply the Sabbath laws. Kind of like the example I gave – walking to synagogue and being aghast at the thought of using the stove during the Sabbath, while at the same time obliviously skipping over the subtler rules like toilet paper, soap lather, tying shoes, etc.

In Catholicism, this is known as being a “cafeteria Catholic” :smiley: Take a bit of this ritual, and a bit of that … but ignore what you don’t care for.

92

One related thing I’ve seen-many new york office buildings have one elevator that is sometimes called a “sabbath elevator”-it runs automatically, stopping at every floor on friday/saturday.

How does that fit into the rules? it seems to come from the same concept-having something set to run automatically so it requires no input when it would be impermissible to (I assume-it would be using electricity), press buttons.

93

bordelond - Yes, definitely, but it is very difficult to quantify, because as you noticed, a lot of the subtler stuff is more private. One common example is going to synagogue, but also going to work and not bothering at all with these “work” rules. A lot of people in the Reform and Conservative groups do this. Another would be following most of the “work” rules, but not bothering with the ones that appear too arcane, such as carrying objects outdoors. Or they wouldn’t cook fresh food, but don’t care about the rules on how to properly reheat food. There a definitely people in the Orthodox groups who do this. Sometimes this is because of not properly understanding the rules, and sometimes because of not caring; but most often one causes the other.

But it is really hard to give numbers because no surveys are done, and the eyes tend to focus either on what you don’t want to see, or maybe on what you do want to see.

94

Yep, you figured out the logic right. But I’m surprised to hear that you’ve seen them in office buildings. I know they’re in apartment buildings and hospitals, but offices surprise me – unless some of the floors in the building are residential.

95

Another hijack, this time for gentiles … especially New Yorkers:

How many of these Sabbath rules did you know about before reading this thread? Is this all common knowledge among pretty much all New Yorkers, or do many gentiles remain ignorant of the subtler points, even if you know many Jewish people?

96

Such systems will often have an elevated tank, to keep the water at a useful pressure. When the tank gets too low, the electric pump will automatically kick in to re-fill it. So any given time that you draw water, you know that you’ll be contributing to the pump eventually turning on, but you don’t know that it’ll turn on that particular time that you draw water. Is that good enough?

About timers, it looks to me like that’s “putting the finishing touch” on something. Now, the timer is set before the Sabbath, but goes off during the Sabbath. I take it, then, that the relevant time is when a human initiates the action, not when the action takes effect?

Also, most interpretations seem to hold that monetary transactions on the Sabbath are forbidden. Which of the 39 categories does that fall under? And assuming it didn’t violate any of the other categories, could a Jew do something to earn a living on the Sabbath, provided that he arranged for payday to be some other day of the week?

97

Coming at this from a position of complete ignorance … it seems at first glance that acting, singing, and playing sports may well be allowed during the Sabbath. How about teaching/tutoring – both traditional academics and teaching of “non-work” skills such as acting and singing?

Then again, didn’t Sandy Koufax not pitch during the Sabbath? But doesn’t current MLBer Shawn Green play during the Sabbath (though he has taken some Jewish holidays off)?

98

It varies from one category of work to another. For example, one could set a timer the minute before Shabbos starts to turn on and off one’s lights. However, you could not turn on your oven and stick raw food in it the minute before Shabbos starts. The laws of cooking are different, and other categories of work may also have different laws.

Actually, it doesn’t come under any of them. Monetary transactions are forbidden by rabbinic decree to preserve the unique identity of Shabbos and to not have one engage in activities that resemble those of weekdays.

This is a topic in Jewish law that is relevant to babysitters, cantors and other people who must “work” on Shabbos. Usually, the solution involves some work that must be done during the week as well, or else being paid for the whole week, rather than specifically for the service rendered on Shabbos.

Zev Steinhardt

99

Actually, that was Yom Kippur. Nonetheless, a similar principle is involved.

I think it’s a fair assumption to say that Mr. Green is not Orthodox.

Zev Steinhardt

100

I think so. It sound to me identical with opening the refrigerator door, which lets warm air in. Eventually the thermostat will kick in. Some rabbis do have a problem with it, but most say its sufficiently indirect.

When I first started out, this “finishing touch” business made me worry that I shouldn’t make my bed in the morning. Eventually I learned that the prohibition refers to the object’s manufacture, not its normal usage. The classic example is removing stray threads from a new suit which should have been removed by the manufacturer.

Hold on for this one. You’re not gonna believe it. Monetary transactions do NOT fall under ANY of the 39 categories, and are ALLOWED on the Sabbath by Torah law. The rabbis forbade it, mainly to prevent someone from accidentally writing a receipt. (Writing IS one of the 39 categories.) Getting paid for doing permissible work on the Sabbath (such as a rabbi or babysitter) is subject to very complicated rules.