Paging the French contingent

Sucking his keyboard for inspiration, Des typed:

So what you are saying, essentially, is that you have rules for living your
life but you ignore them if they are inconvenient.

 

That would be an inaccurate assessment.

D.

 

Sucking his keyboard for inspiration, Des typed:

Please explain how it is inaccurate.

On second thoughts, don't bother.

 

OK, fine. With you so far... The Chabbat laws were laid down by God in
the Torah and Talmud, several thousand years ago. Right.

But...

Electrical appliances were explicitly picked out as being naughty? 6,000
years ago? Blimey. And they say that the Greek and Roman civilisations
were advanced... How come I missed that footnote in history?

Or was that particular restriction "invented" slightly more recently...?

 

Most of the laws forbidding stuff are Talmudic. But the Chabbat itself was
defined in Torah (Exodus XX etc), so yes, it comes from G-d.

A lot of what makes up Jewish law, or 'halakkah' is oral law and thus yes
it is Rabbinic in origin. There was no electricity in biblical times, of
course, so the interdiction on making fire has been extended to driving a
car (internal combustion engines burn fuel etc) and electrical appliances.

D.

 

Huh, I lived in Belleville (hence with many Jewish neihgbours, including
some hard-core Loubavitch followers) and obviously the local rabbis
relate cars to camels or horse carts because they aren't forbidden on
shabat, while the radio device to open the condo parking lot door is...

 

That's interesting, because fitting a keypad rather than a lock was one
of the dodges the Stamford Hill mob used, i.e. they believed that
pushing a few buttons did not constitute "work", whereas carrying and
operating a key did.

Fascinating stuff.

Does your flat have a Succah?



--
Dan L

Too much time to think, too little to do.


http://thebikeshed.spaces.live.com/
1996 Kawasaki ZR1100 Zephyr

BOTAFOT #140 (KotL 2005/6/7)
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DIAABTCOD #26
BOMB#18 (slow)
OMF#11

 

I didn't quite manage to decipher the above (aucune méchanceté
là-dedans). Are you stating that a rabbi told you that it is permitted
to use a car the Chabbat??!!

D.

 

There was an article in an Ozzie newspaper a few months back about some
Jews in Sydney having special 'sensors' built into the pavement at zebra
crossings so that they wouldn't have to press the buttons. This opened
a debate, a smaller version of which we'd already had at my old
Synagogue, for it's not enough not to violate the Chabbat, but you have
to not _cause_ the Chabbat to be violated. The example was that we had
a Torah class on Saturdays before the 'havdala' to mark the end of
Chabbat, and one day we arrived in the Syna and the lights were off.
They were set to come on half an hour before the service but we were
late. There was one girl there who was in the process of converting and
she offered to switch them on for us for she wasn't yet 'bat mitsva'.
The dilemma was that she _was_ authorised to switch them on .. but none
of us was authorised to _ask_ her to do so. You can't only not violate
the Chabbat, but you can't even ask or cause a goy to do something that
strictly speaking, is not forbidden for him or her.

Operating an electrical appliance is, at least in the view of every
authority I've ever talked with, not on. ofnuts's comment about some
Loubavitch rabbinim saying it's OK to use a car the Chabbat is (if I
picked him up correctly) completely flabbergasting.

No, Sukkot's been over a few weeks. We construct a small one, and I eat
in the big one that they construct at the school. I'll post pictures of
ours next year if you're really that interested.

D.

 

des wrote:

My co were involved in heating / cooling systems, and we had to put
forward quite elaborate control systems, particularly with regard to to
time clocking of services on / off. The work we got was word of mouth,
with each successive client trying to outdo the last one in terms of
complexity of plant and controls systems installed.

Do you recall the story about the Jewish mob in Goders Green who
applied for planning permission to erect a series of telegraph poles
around the perimeter of their community so that nylon thread could be
strung to create a complete enclosure which would exempt them from the
restrictions. Must have been about 10 years ago (I was a sales rep in
North London at the time), dunno if they ever got it passed.

Most of the conversions I was involved with had an electrically
operated succah in the family room, so that praying under the stars
could be carried out in air conditioned luxury.



--
Dan L

Too much time to think, too little to do.


http://thebikeshed.spaces.live.com/
1996 Kawasaki ZR1100 Zephyr

BOTAFOT #140 (KotL 2005/6/7)
X-FOT#000
DIAABTCOD #26
BOMB#18 (slow)
OMF#11

 

No, I don't recall but what you're referring to is an eruv. Strasbourg
is famous here for having one. It's a 'line' as you say, placed around
an area (sometimes a town) in order that the 39th 'forbidden work' i.e.
carrying private objects in public, can be 'circumvented' (even if I
dislike that word). They were used in Jeru until recently (might still
be), but people were starting to get scared 'cos 'settlers' (another
word I hate to see in print when referring to Jews returning to Eretz)
were bringing their handguns to the Synagogue.

I'd love to have a small balcony here so that we could build one
outside, but that's for the future, G-d willing.

D.