Hoboclown: Bill Maher interviewed a guy in "Religulous" whose business is inventing everyday appliances that are still "Sabbath friendly". They were just really complicated versions of things like phones and toasters, but they were operated in some roundabout way that allowed you to use them but technically still have followed the rule.

Rube Goldberg was Jewish?

/Heath Robinson wasn't

Playinodds: I don't think that you can read a quick blurb about jewish law and intuit what the intention behind the rule is. There are jewish rabbis who study that kind of thing and have a literal law library in the form of the talmud and all of its commentaries...Your expectations on their usage of lights on shabbat just don't mean a whole lot, if you take a minute to compare the expertise of the people involved.

Medieval scholastics could spend volumes debating the number of angels that could stand on the head of a pin. Who cares?

None of this expertise is the least bit productive. It contributes nothing to society, and is actively parasitical on productive society.

As a game, scholasticism is fine.

Saving lives isn't a game. Hence, the large number of facepalms in this thread.

MadSkillz: See, I thought the jewish people were the smart ones, with their kids all being doctors, lawyers, and bankers.

Generalizations aside, it looks like dogmatic stupidity finally caught up with them, at least the ultra-hat jewish guys.They're the ones who are just, and only, smart enough to live fully in the rule-world and think up all the workarounds, but not imaginative or sophisticated enough to throw any of that inward-turned obsessivism aside and apply their aptitudes in the wider world.

Education (ya reading this, DuckOfDoom?) is not just a higher level of nitpicking. It implies a flexible and independent mind, not just a dutiful one.

And when was the last time you used your mouth to make a call?

Oh, what?

the sabbath restriction is against activating and using these devices.

There's a sabbath elevator we helped work on, requiring us to discuss the whole thing with a jewish guy (without horns.. I keed).

Anyways, the elevator is designed to open and close at preset intervals, with no sensors to indicate when someone's in the way of the moving door. This violates federal law, to take away the safety features, but that's ok.. it's a religious risk made by an established religeon.. not like they're legalizing heroin or something.

The Jewish guy, (nervously clutching his jew egg.. again, I keed) explained that by breaking a light beam barrier, they were activating a device the way it was intended to be activated.

As a result, the elevator stops at a floor, a chime sounds, and the doors open. Then a warning chime sounds to indicate the doors are closing, followed by another chime to state that now they're REALLY gonna' close. Doors close, move to the next floor and do it all over again.

There is no control button permitted within the elevator at all.. presumably to make the elevator useless for any other purpose other than sabbath operation, and to prevent small children from overriding the automatic floor-to-floor operation by repeatedly hitting the "Open door button" and throwing ice cream cones in the defenseless jewish faces.. I keed.. it's to permit the jewish to avoid the temptation, AND to register as evidence for anyone stating that the person in-question is following the sabbath rules.

In other words, if you were a little tech savy, and liked to smash jew eggs, you could get into these buildings and speed-up the open door timers, plus door movement, to a more random setting.

The truly scary thing? These elevators with no discernible method of interior control are made by the same company that made the concentration camp ovens in aushwitz. (sorry, that's misspelled, but you catch my drift, I assume)

/if you are offended, you are too thin skinned.. and Jewish, or possibly missed Borat.

it's all true.. just pretending to hate jewish folks because it's all the rage.

Dead-Guy

the shabbat elevators in israel look the same and operate the same as every other elevator 6 days a week. on shabbat the controls don't work, and it stops on every floors. What you're describing is pretty unusual even for shabbat elevators.

Hoboclown: Bill Maher interviewed a guy in "Religulous" whose business is inventing everyday appliances that are still "Sabbath friendly". They were just really complicated versions of things like phones and toasters, but they were operated in some roundabout way that allowed you to use them but technically still have followed the rule. It's the epitome of following a rule by the letter while completely missing the point.

Actually, it's brilliant marketing.

Archie Goodwin: Egalitarian: I had an orthodox Jew as a neighbor in my college dorm. On the Sabbath he would yell at me to do things like "microwave my pastrami!" and "put the videotape in the VCR and play it!" (yes it was before the advent of DVD).

Apparently shouted commands are OK.

or slaves.

Well, the commandment about not working on the sabbath specifically says your slave can't work either. Which if you think about it means that one of the ten commandments says that slavery is OK... at least by implication.

Bagelox-99:
Education (ya reading this, DuckOfDoom?) is not just a higher level of nitpicking. It implies a flexible and independent mind, not just a dutiful one.

This is why the Ultra Orthodox fail at life.

I remember reading somewhere that while secular and cultural Jews are some of the most intelligent (according to IQ testing) and successful (according to income, professions, etc) people in the World, the Ultra Orthodox groups are actually among the dumbest and least successful.

In fact, some of the poorest neighbourhoods in Western countries are in fact Ultra Orthodox Jewish ones. Think Kiryas Yoel.

I lived in a Jewish neighbourhood for a while (a bit of a mix of all levels of religiousity). The relationship between secular and religious Jews is interesting. It seems almost like a kind of familial tolerance for the eccentricity of the senile and stupid. ie You don't put them down or badmouth them because they are part of your larger identity group - but privately the less religious and secular Jews facepalm at the shenanigans of the ultra religious.

/Just my $0.02 observations anyway

The Icelander: Playinodds: I'm sure there are christians who live less than christ-like lives

In my experience this is most of them.

By definition, this is all of us.

Playinodds: the shabbat elevators in israel look the same and operate the same as every other elevator 6 days a week. on shabbat the controls don't work, and it stops on every floors. What you're describing is pretty unusual even for shabbat elevators.

The ones I've seen in the US were like that too, which makes sense I guess since it was a retrofit to an ordinary building.

pseudowho: Well, the commandment about not working on the sabbath specifically says your slave can't work either. Which if you think about it means that one of the ten commandments says that slavery is OK... at least by implication.

People have written books justifying slavery on this basis (from a Christian perspective, but based on those same texts). The idea being that well, God gave rules for how to keep slaves, so that means it has to be okay because God is perfect.

The people advocating it were dreaming of some modern extreme form of indentured servitude, it was kinda crazy (it was from the theonomy crowd).

You can say what you want. I'm just glad humanity has evolved far enough to be able to outsmart God.

Hoboclown: Bill Maher interviewed a guy in "Religulous" whose business is inventing everyday appliances that are still "Sabbath friendly". They were just really complicated versions of things like phones and toasters, but they were operated in some roundabout way that allowed you to use them but technically still have followed the rule. It's the epitome of following a rule by the letter while completely missing the point.

That describes orthodoxy and ultra orthodoxy pretty much to a T. It's the same thing with the elevators that run 24 hours during the sabbath because people don't want to have to use the stairs yet still want to go out without upsetting Yahweh.

It's also why I like Reform Judaism's take on the matter. They go for the spirit of the rule instead of pretending that the Tanakh had something against computers.

Playinodds: There are only three times where Jewish law requires you to not save yourself. first, if someone says he will kill you unless you kill someone else, you are not allowed to break jewish law and kill another person, even though it would be saving yourself.

Someone may want to let the fundie whackjobs in Israel about this because they're perfectly fine with blowing Palestinians up for even an imagined threat.

Reading over this thread is giving me an annoying case of Deja vu.

Playinodds: smokesteam: wookie1: All I came here to say is that the article's author incorrectly insinuated that the Sabbath is observed from Friday night to Saturday night in Israel.

/leaving with a whole lot more
//In Israel, Shabbat is all day Saturday; it is observed in the western Hemisphere as Friday night to Saturday night because Friday night here is Saturday morning there.

Um... no. Shabbat begins on Friday night because thats how days are measured because the first part of Genesis uses "and it was night, and it was a new day" 6 times.

yep...judaism a day "starts" on what we would consider the night before - so what we call friday evening (after sunset) in judaism is actually already considered part of saturday. Sabbath will last until dark on saturday - since saturday night is part of sunday. You'll also note that the jewish calendar is lunar as opposed to solar.

I shoulda explained that for the non Jews here. And since Shabbat is about to start here in Tokyo, I'm gonna go drink kiddush with the wife and have a nice dinner.

jebus christ!

that is all.

not a christian or jew, just find the rules a bit silly.

time to eat my bacon, ham, and pork sandwich.