Avodah Mailing List

Volume 31: Number 114

Sat, 15 Jun 2013

• 1. non-Jewish housekeeper (Eli Turkel)
• 2. Re: Shelach Gems - (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi)
• 3. Re: electricity on Shabbos - R. Asher Weiss (Chana Luntz)
• 4. is this muttar (saul newman)
• 5. Chibah Yeseirah (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: hotel doors (Chana Luntz)
• 7. Re: is this muttar (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: Shelach Gems - (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: electricity on Shabbos - R. Asher Weiss (Micha Berger)
• 10. illegal parkers (saul newman)
• 11. Re: [Areivim] Landau's shul policy (Micha Berger)
• 12. computers and shabbat (Eli Turkel)
• 13. Re: computers and shabbat (Micha Berger)
• 14. Re: computers and shabbat (Zev Sero)

<<Whenever there is a hefsed meruba>>

I recently read a claim that whenever the Ramah allows something for hefsed
merubah he means the case is really allowed but that in general (without
hefsed merubah) one should be machmir.

I once heard from RYBS that he doesnt answer questions on netillat yadaim
(except unusual cases).
In the old days to get water the maid trudged down the hill and carried the
full bucker up the hill and so one was careful about using water. Today
when the water comes from the faucet - be machmir

-- 
Eli Turkel
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Moshe Rabbenu was DaAs Torah. Yet he permitted the Meraglim to go and
return with a report, in spite of HKBHs obvious displeasure with the
proposal.
I don't think we can say they contradicted Moshe.

Was their misdeed not that they spoke LH or were Motzi Shem Ra?
Did they have an argument that it was LeToEles and they ticked off all the
necessary conditions?

In that case are they not to disagree with DT?

Rashi teaches that Gd did not want us to simply accept His word and enter
the Land without questioning and exploring the offer of the Land of Israel.
In the Sages' mind this exchange between Gd and His People is to be
compared to when we engage in a business transaction with an acquaintance
with whom we have already had a positive experience in such transactions.
Once we are given permission to "test drive" the product in whichever way
we like, it is insulting to actually take the product for the "test drive".

So this is not about not trusting Gd. It is about not being a Mentsch.

Best,

Meir G. Rabi
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RAK wrote:

> Say what you will about electricity,
> but you still can't take your money and go to the store to buy
> a candy bar. ...

And I replied:

>> Today I do probably 95% of my shopping on line. ...
>> ... probably about the only thing I still buy in a store on a
>> regular basis is bread and meat (and I could use Just Kosher for
>> that too, we just don't).   I don't need to take money, nor my
>> wallet - Paypal and these various sites know who I am, and all I
>> need to authorise a sale is a few keystrokes, not really
>> different to those used in texting or emailing ...

> All these things will work only for bo bayom. If your store will make
> same-day deliveries (or next day, if you order it Friday night) AND the
> product is something that you'll be using ON SHABBOS, then go right ahead.

So we seem to have agreed that there are mechanisms for electronically
buying your candy bar on shabbas (and Yes, tescos will quite happily take
an order before midnight the night before for a delivery the following
day, so one can have it still for shabbas). I still maintain that is a
huge violation of the fabric of shabbas - and part of what every posek
of note (today and since electricity became an issue) have been working
against, even if they struggle to find the actual melacha or issur.

RAM wrote:

>> One might use the phone for texting, but I'm not so sure about
>> voice calls - making sounds could still be a problem. Ditto
>> for one's radio or television.

and I then asked:

>> Why, what makes the sound of the human voice any more
>> problematic than the view of flashing LEDs that enable texts?

> The specific issur d'rabanan of Hashma'as Kol. As I recall, the Aruch
> Hashulchan cites this as a reason NOT to set up one's record player
> immediately before Shabbos, so that it could play nice Shabbosdik
> chazzanus while Shabbos begins.

Firstly, whether hashma'as kol is a problem at all is a machlokus
between the Shulchan Aruch and the Rema (Orech Chaim siman 252:5),
so non applicable even in its most extreme form (placing grain into
the mill before shabbas and running the mill on shabbas) for Sephardim.
Secondly even if you hold by the issur, there are several issues which
militate on extending the sound of a grinding mill to the human voice.
Yes, Rav Moshe Feinstein does make the leap (Iggeros Moshe Orech Chaim
chelek 3 siman 55 and chelek siman 4 chelek 84) - but it is a huge leap,
(IMHO) much bigger than saying LEDs are aish or the computer key strokes
are writing.

Firstly, have a quick look into the basis for hashma'as kol. Rashi says
(Shabbas 18a) that this is due to avsha milta - the Agur says that it
is due to it looking like you are doing an issur on shabbas (and hence
setting a clock to ring on shabbas is not a problem, because everybody
knows that one sets them before). The Tur quotes Rashi.

So, while grinding mills are clearly something associated with people
working and workday activity - people speaking is clearly a legitimate
shabbas activity, so Rashi and the Tur's reason (and hence most likely
the Rema's reason) just doesn't apply to the sound of the human voice.
And the Agur's reason presupposes what we are discussing, ie that
the activity is assur, and hence there is a problem with presetting
and making a noise making it sound to other people like something was
done on shabbas. If it was agreed that stam uses of electricity were
mutar on shabbas, and that the sound of the human voice was known to be
something produced either by electricity (mutar) or by people speaking
(mutar) then according to the Agur there would be no prohibition, and
neither according to Rashi.

The only difference between the sound of the human voice and flashing
LEDs enabling texts is that Rav Moshe Feinstein lived in an era where
the sound of the human voice was already being produced electronically,
and flashing LEDs enabling texts weren't. There is absolutely no question
in my mind that he would ban LEDs, computers and texts even more strongly
than that of the human voice, had such things existed in his time.

But remember Rav Moshe was a posek who appears to hold that if it is
clear that if such a device had existed in the time of Chazal, Chazal
would have banned it, then that seems to give reason to assur today.
He says so close to explicitly regarding timers in Orech Chaim chelek 4
siman 60 although he then tries to say that perhaps it could be considered
to be part of the ban on amira l'akum, since if telling a non Jew to do
ones' work is assur, then how much more so setting a timer by means of
his own action. And then when challenged about the fact that everybody
does it with lights, he says well, the olam has got used to lights, so
that is OK (even though one should be stringent with lights vis a vis
non Jews), but don't extend it to anything else. A psak that it seems
to me, the olam has chosen not to follow.

So it really seems hard to see hashma'as kol as being the real issur
regarding the production of the sound of human voice -if anything it
epitomises the relatively weak halachic arguments that characterise a
lot of the discussion surrounding this area.

RAM further wrote:

> I see a big difference: They were looking for a specific leniency
> for a specific purpose, and may not have foreseen the unintended
> consequences. In contrast, we are NOT out to find leniencies. Our goals
> (or, mine, at least) are to learn Torah, to understand what it is that
> HaShem wants of us, to avoid permitting what is assur, to avoid forbidding
> what is mutar, and to let the chips fall where they may.

Well there are a whole host of different issues intertwined. One of them
is increasingly, looking for a specific leniency for a specific purpose.
The problem, as I have been trying to explain, and something to which
RAW is fully cognisant (as are all these Israeli poskim commenting on
these motion sensors), is that we are moving into an electronic world
where even going about your normal daily shabbas business, as it has been
done for millennia, everybody is going to increasingly find themselves
inadvertently tripping these things.

Here is another example. My locksmith up the road (who is close to
retirement, so sanguine about the changes) reckons that in 20 years his
profession will not exist, because it will all be fingerprint recognition
(based on you know what). OK, so maybe the only locksmiths left will be
men with hats and beards. But that is going to a) make Jewish houses
a real target for burglars; and b) might lead to Jewish houses being
refused house insurance, because just like today they require certain
types of locks fitted, tomorrow they may require these fingerprint locks.
And I am not at all convinced that even having somebody inside manually
open the door will help, as in doing so, you will disconnect the circuit.

Secondly there is an issue of the fabric of shabbas. I personally
(for what little it is worth) do not think that opening one's door by
means of fingerprint recognition would alter that fabric of shabbas (or
having one's water measured by means of a water meter, whether manually
or electronically, especially if I am not able to access the data until
after shabbas) - I am absolutely sure that texting and communicating on
line (and playing computer games, which is what my son would like to do,
if he had his druthers) would.

> Has anyone suggested tzove'a (coloring) as a basis to forbid these
> devices?

Well tzovea always comes to mind if we are anywhere near ksiva (and
kesiva vis a vis texting and computer use would seem to be a real
question) - but, is the production of light photons really tzovea -
much bigger step, it seems to me, that makeh b'patish, or LEDs being
light and hence ma'avir.

>Akiva Miller


[Email #2. -micha]

RAM wrote:

>> One might use the phone for texting, but I'm not so sure about voice 
>> calls - making sounds could still be a problem. Ditto for one's radio 
>> or television.

and I then asked:

>> Why, what makes the sound of the human voice any more problematic 
>> than the view of flashing LEDs that enable texts?

> The specific issur d'rabanan of Hashma'as Kol. As I recall, the Aruch
> Hashulchan cites this as a reason NOT to set up one's record player
> immediately before Shabbos, so that it could play nice Shabbosdik
> chazzanus while Shabbos begins.

I earlier sent a post on this which discussed the Shulchan Aruch and
Rema in Orech Chaim siman 252:5, but perhaps what RAM was more thinking
about was the issur relating to klei shir and I should perhaps have
therefore added the Rema in Orech Chaim siman 338 si'if 1 - who states
that if made by the human voice it is not an issur of klei shir. Now I
know there are those who try and apply the prohibition of klei shiur
to the human voice via the telephone, as opposed to the Rema's case -
but again, it is a big stretch, and I think RSZA and the Tzitz Eliezer
disagree with this stretch.

Regards

Chana

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/168808
to have  women deciding who dayanim will be?
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A thought from RRW I wanted to share.
http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/2013/04/avot-314-daat-and-cheebah-
yteirah.html

In Avos 3:14 (a/k/a 17), R' Aqiva says "chaviv adam shenivra betzelem",
but it's a chibah yeseirah that man was told we were created betzelem.
Similarly, Yisrael are chavivin because we are banim laMaqom, and it's a
chibah yeseirah that we informed so. And third, we are chavivin because
we were given the keli which which the world was created, and its a chibah
yeseirah that Hashem let us know that the world was created for it.

RRW derives the following mussar haskeil:
     It's one thing to Love Someone
     It's another to Tell them that you Love Them.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure.
mi...@aishdas.org        It preserves health, promotes convalescence,
http://www.aishdas.org   and helps us cope with adversity.
Fax: (270) 514-1507         - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei"

On Wed, Jun 05, 2013 at 12:21:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote:
: R. Wosner has a teshuva that if there are lights that are turned on when
: one is walking home that it is allowed. Basically Psik Reisha De LoNeicha
: Le, though he goes into much more detail.

And R' Micha Berger replied:
> In general, we're repeating much of the thread "If you have an electronic
> water meter, can you turn on the faucet?" at
> http://www.aishdas
> .org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=I#IF%20YOU%20HAVE%20AN%20ELECTRONIC%2
> 0WATER%20METER%20CAN%20YOU
> or http://j.mp/14gTQhq (see the next entries as well -- minor
> variations in subject line).

Actually, we are possibly closer to the thread
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol26/v26n101.shtml#07 of goy vrs chilloni
-- were RET brought Rav Zilberstein's novel chiddush of mavriach ari.

The thing is, one might, in theory be able to collect up enough water for
Shabbat that you don't need to turn on the tap and use the water meter
(our ancestors presumably did, they didn't go down to the well to draw
water on shabbas). The motion sensors are getting even closer to not
letting us live or go in and out of our houses.

> In 11 months ago, I mentioned R' Josh Flug's paper "Motion Sensors and the
> Concept of P'sik Reishei",
> <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/rjfMotionSensors.doc>
> but I didn't have the footnote pages until later, when so I rewrote it
> toward the end of July '12 with inserted references at
> <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol30/v30n103.shtml#09>.

> Summarizing shitos from qula to chumera:
> The Arukh (as cited by Tosafos) permits PRDLNL for deOraisos.
> The Terumas haDeshen, R YE Spektor, ROY permit when the issur is
> derabbanan.
> The MB explains the Rama as permitting only in a case of combined
> derabbanan, and concludes that way himself. (The MB gives two cases, the
> more common >one is eating a cake with lettering on it. Derabbanan
> #1- the mechiqah is not al menas likhtov, #2- it's derekh akhilah.)
> Tosafos and the SA hold PRDLNL is assur derabbanan.

Yes, that is the classic analysis of Psik Resha -- and to rely solely
on the Aruch is really difficult in this context.

But, as I have been saying, there is also the concept of misasek - if one
intended to do something mutar, but one actually did something assur,
then one is completely patur. The classic case of mesakek is if one
intended to cut something that was detached, and they cut something that
was attached (see Krisus 19a, Shabbas 72b, Rambam Hilchos shabbas perek
1 halacha 8) -- or even more so, if one intended to lift something up
and not cut at all, and ended up cutting that which was attached (this
is Abaye's position, and we follow Rava, but Rava's position seems to
regarded as less stringent than Abaye, so if we hold like Rava, Abaye's
case should be all the more so).

Now why is this not Psik Resha? You intended to do something that
was permitted, but an inevitable part of your act was to do something
prohibited. Why is this different from dragging a bench when there is
inevitably going to be a furrow? The main answer seems to be, at the
time you get ready to drag the bench, you know (or ought to know) that
it will create a furrow -- but I wonder if that it all there is too it.
Is it not, that inherent in nature is the fact that benches dragged
over soft ground create a furrow? It is part and parcel of the act of
dragging as built into creation.

Now mesasek clearly seems to help you when walking in front of a motion
sensor you don't know about -- because all you are doing is intending to
do your completely mutar act of walking, and bang, on goes the motion
sensor light -- so you would seem to be completely patur in that case
based on mesasek. But, what about your (non Jewish neighbour's) motion
sensor light that you do know about, but can't avoid if you want to go
in and out of your house. You know that if you walk outside your house,
you will trigger it. This is where I wondered if we could logically
extend the idea of mesasek, or limit psik resha, in that -- it is one
thing for an act of G-d to be a psik resha -- ie if you cut off the head
of the chicken, it will certainly die, which is how HaShem ordered the
creation, it is another to say psik resha when the psik resha was created
by somebody else (eg the non Jew) linking one action to another action
-- ie walking to a light going on. HaShem didn't create this link,
even you didn't create this link -- the link was created by the non
Jew next door. In theory he could delink the two (by leaving his motion
sensor light off, something over which he has control but you do not).
Can we argue that in that case it is NOT psik resha -- ie all the cases of
psik resha involve HaShem controlling the world determined links (and/or
possibly you determined links), but not other people determined links,
in which case all YOU are doing is being mesasek -- you are trying to
walk, the fact that lights are going on and off left, right and centre
around you is irrelevant, even if you do get benefit from them, in the
same way as when you lift up the thing that you thought was detached,
and it turns out it had been attached, you might get a benefit from now
having a detached item.

> Given that it is only the Arukh who permits PRDLNL when the melakhahis
> deOraisa (eg incandecent or hot-filament fluorescent bulbs), with none
> of the acharonim that RJF disccusses supporting, I think R' Wosner's
> detail is going to prove important.

I don't know what R' Wosner's detail is -- but as you say, I can't see
him relying solely on the Aruch. I think we need to -- well it is not so
much redefine, as further define psik resha to deal with a totally new
situation, where the non Jew next door links an ordinary mutar action of
mine to something that if done intentionally would be a melacha d'orisa,
and say that is not what was meant by psik resha throughout the Talmud and
halacha, as they were only dealing with divine links, not man made ones.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

Regards

Chana

On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 08:44:30AM -0700, saul newman wrote:
: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/168808
: to have  women deciding who dayanim will be?

RAYK held that voting is serarah, so he prohibited. Rn Dr Nechama Leibowitz
never voted, because of this pesaq.

R YC Sonnenfeld was meiqil, and holds that since everyone votes, it's not
holding authority over another even though voting is about governance.

Here it's different, because it's representative voting, not open to
everyone. But I would think (miqal vachomer) that RAYK would assur;
I just don't know who today follows his pesaq on voting anyway.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Strength does not come from winning. Your
mi...@aishdas.org        struggles develop your strength When you go
http://www.aishdas.org   through hardship and decide not to surrender,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      that is strength.        - Arnold Schwarzenegger

On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 05:20:35PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote:
: Moshe Rabbenu was DaAs Torah. Yet he permitted the Meraglim to go and
: return with a report, in spite of HKBHs obvious displeasure with the
: proposal.

My question was: If the gedolim are posited as having DT (something I do
not in real life take as a given), how did so many meraglim produce an
answer different than Moshe's, Yehoshua's and Caleiv's DT? Doesn't that
mean that in these 10 cases, DT was wrong, the people followed it anyway,
and were punished for doing so?

One can't posit, as we hear WRT the DT telling people to stay in Europe
where they were slaughtered by the Nazis, that it was Hashem's plan to
mislead them, unless we also explain how they were accountable for doing
so. Hashem didn't just say "this is the outcome", He gave them tochakhah
for it.

: Did they have an argument that it was LeToEles and they ticked off all the
: necessary conditions?

That's an issue of pesaq, not da'as Torah.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy,
mi...@aishdas.org        if only because it offers us the opportunity of
http://www.aishdas.org   self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              - Arthur C. Clarke

On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 10:32:37AM +0100, Chana Luntz wrote:
: RAM further wrote:
: ...
: > Has anyone suggested tzove'a (coloring) as a basis to forbid these
: > devices?
: 
: Well tzovea always comes to mind if we are anywhere near ksiva (and
: kesiva vis a vis texting and computer use would seem to be a real
: question) - but, is the production of light photons really tzovea -
: much bigger step, it seems to me, that makeh b'patish, or LEDs being
: light and hence ma'avir.

Plasma panels suffer from the same issues as fluorescent bulbs.

More common is an LCD display backlit by CCFL (cold cathode fluoresent
lamps). The cathode is way hotter than yad soledes, but not hot enought
to glow. I mentioned this and the problems defining it as aish or as
definitively saying it's not. Sometimes the backlighting is LED.

But the tzovei'ah itself is the LCD, the phtons are being produced by
something else and passed through something whose colors you're changing.
You're effectively coloring a window.

Also, if things are judged by effect, does any of the above matter? It
still has the effect of giving a surface colors that it didn't have at
the start of Shabbos.

E-Ink is a bigger problem, as the text and drawings will persist on their
own. Most LCD systems require refreshing the picture, so that the original
drawing is not "shel qayama". With e-Ink, though, the LCD will retain the
picture it was given for months or years unless someone sets a new image.
I don't think a regular LCD would pose a deOraisa issue. I know kesivah
with disappearing ink is derabannan. What about tzoveia?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder]
mi...@aishdas.org        isn't complete with being careful in the laws
http://www.aishdas.org   of Passover. One must also be very careful in
Fax: (270) 514-1507      the laws of business.    - Rav Yisrael Salanter

http://5tjt.com/stickering-cars-is-it-permitted/
halachic options to deal with them
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We are haivng a conversation on Areivim about shuls with rules that
try to minimize interruptions to one's kavanah during davening by
excluding tzedaqah collectors. Perhaps just from Barkhu to the end
of Shemonei Esrei.

On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 08:21:17PM +0000, eli.neuber...@gmail.com wrote
to Areivim, on a conversation about shuls with rules miminimizing the:
: I was privileged to daven with Dayan Fisher zatz"al and recall that
: before davening he used to lay out coins on his shtender to give out,
: but during Birchas Krias Shema he would not give anything out. I was
: told that Rav Elyashiv would do the same.

I wonder what prioritization R Yisael Salanter would have given. Would
he say that there are enough opportunities to collect at the entrance,
during other parts of davening, or by going to the rav / gabbai from
money from the shul's "tzorkhei tzibur" pushka for this exclusion to be
valid? Or would RYS wonder how one can say Bareikh Aleinu while keeping
those pressed for cashflow out of the shul?

I'm reminded of one of mussar's foundation stories:

It was a Yom Kippur when RYS realized that his community needed a Mussar
Movement. Rav Yisrael was away from home and didn't have a machzor.
At one point he lost his place and needed to peer over another person's
shoulder. He got shoved in response to his efforts. How dare you interrupt
my concentration! At that point Rav Yisrael realized that he couldn't keep
Mussar to himself and had to share it with the world. Rav Yisrael realized
that when people value their own prayer more than helping someone else
-- and think that's what is going to get them forgiven on Yom Kippur --
Judaism got derailed somewhere.

But in that case, the interrupted kavanah was for something that could
NOT have been done otherwise.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Life isn't about finding yourself
mi...@aishdas.org        Life is about creating yourself.
http://www.aishdas.org                - Bernard Shaw
Fax: (270) 514-1507

There is a possible of a mind controlled cursor - is it allowed on shabbat?
see
http://news.cnet.co
m/8301-11386_3-57588839-76/mind-controlled-cursor-may-be-easier-than-previo
usly-thought/?tag=nl.e404&;s_cid=e404&ttag=e404&ftag=

In the book on RSZA he brings (p97) a story he heard from R. Aharan
Goldberg a grandson of RSZA.
A few people came to RSZA to find out his opinion about Machon Zomet. Thet
manufacture devices based on grama which can destry the spirit of shabbat.
What if they invent a car that can halachically be driven on shabbat - what
kind of shabbat would that be?
RSZA answered that he has no problem at all with this. The only question is
whether it is allowed according to halacha. If it is allowed then there
will be a "shabbat car"

In a play on words he quoted (difficult in English letter) the shabbat
morning davening
"tiferet ata le-yom menucha"
In an ashkenazic accent
"Tiferes Auto le-yom menucha"
Thus the "auto" will be part of "tiferes shabbos"

-- 
Eli Turkel
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On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 05:51:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote:
: In the book on RSZA he brings (p97) a story he heard from R. Aharan
: Goldberg a grandson of RSZA.
: A few people came to RSZA to find out his opinion about Machon Zomet...

This gives me an excuse to work R' Y Neuwirth zt"l into the conversation.
I was looking for a way to do so since his petirah. The poseiq for MAZ
was RSZA's talmid.

...
: What if they invent a car that can halachically be driven on shabbat - what
: kind of shabbat would that be?
: RSZA answered that he has no problem at all with this. The only question is
: whether it is allowed according to halacha. If it is allowed then there
: will be a "shabbat car"
...

Obviously not RAWeiss's shitah. But then, RSZA questions but won't go
as far as entirely reject the Beis Yitzchaq's idea that creating an
active circuit is molid (like molid reicha, according to Rashi). His
arguments:
1- (pg 71) things that are routinely created, destroyed and recreated
aren't "things" to be nolad (it looks like he MIGHT assur something never
turned on before);
2- (pg 74) many other new "things" are permitted. One can't generalize.

Molid new things vs coming alive by makeh bepatish -- it's not the same
argument, but similar enough that I would think RSZA wouldn't generalize
beyond the gemara's examples for envelope cases makeh bepatish either.


But I wonder if this story about electronic cars really is RSZA's position
either. (Story may be apocryphal, or RSZA might not rule the same if the
car actually existed and the discussion would be lemaaseh.) RSZA was
the one who questions or altogether rejects all of the commonly given
reasons for prohibiting using electricity on Shabbos (on the basis of the
electricity itself), and then concludes that it should not be permitted
because of the likelihood of error (a gezeira bizman hazeh?!) and minhag
Yisrael. (But one has room to be meiqil for a tzarikh gadol.) So RSZA
did ban use of electricity while also asserting a lack of black-letter
halachic argument.

(Permitting some form of vehicle cars would make accidental violation of
techum and hotza'ah about as easy as accidentally "lighting" a filament
was in his day. Aside from his minhag Yisrael argument.)


: In a play on words he quoted (difficult in English letter) the shabbat
: morning davening
: "tiferet ata le-yom menucha"
: In an ashkenazic accent
: "Tiferes Auto le-yom menucha"
: Thus the "auto" will be part of "tiferes shabbos"

When moderating this post, I wondered if I should send the post back so
that RET could remove this pun. Telling people he told a groaner this
bad might qualify as LH! <grin>

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow
mi...@aishdas.org        man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries
http://www.aishdas.org   about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On 14/06/2013 10:51 AM, Eli Turkel wrote:
>  What if they invent a car that can halachically be driven on shabbat
> - what kind of shabbat would that be?   RSZA answered that he has no
> problem at all with this. [...] then there will be a "shabbat car"

A shabbat car ought to be no different from the shabbat belt that allows
us to "carry" our keys, and the shabbat blech that allows us to leave food
on the fire, and the shabbat lamp that allows us to read in bed and yet
darken the room when we want to sleep, etc.  If it's "not shabbesdik" to
be able to get from place to place at faster than a walking pace, then it
must be equally "not shabbesdik" to be able to leave ones home empty without
worrying about how to get back in, or to be able to read in bed and yet sleep
in darkness.  The whole question of what is "not shabbesdik" seems full of
fuzzy post-facto reasoning; if a "shabbat car" becomes available then driving
would simply no longer be "not shabbesdik".


-- 
Zev Sero               A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and
z...@sero.name          substantial reason' why he should be permitted to
                        exercise his rights. The right's existence is all
                        the reason he needs.
                            - Judge Benson E. Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan


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