This Shabbos David S. led our learning of Parsha Naso and various other topics. The learning was in memory of Ethan Jacobs, whose Yahrzeit was this past week. Avishai spoke about Ethan. We remember Ethan as being very proud of Judaism, and having a lot of passion for our Kiddush and learning. I remember Ethan as someone who was very excited about upcoming events in our community and he wanted to tell people about them. I appreciate him letting me know and helping talk me into coming.
This Shabbos we discussed the use of electricity on Shabbot. There are prohibitions against turning the flow of electricity on or off, however we are allowed to use timers that are set before Shabbot begins. There are simple mechanical timers that turn lights on and off at specific times, and more sophisticated apps that Howard talked about that can automatically determine times based on formulas of variable events such as sundown. Although timers should be set before Shabbot, we can make adjustments as long as these adjustments prolong the amount of time the flow of electricity remains in its current state – either off or on.
Although we cannot turn lights on or off, except with timers, it is not prohibited to accidentaly change the state of a light (from on to off or off to on). Yaki pointed out that unless it is our primary purpose to change the state of a light, it may not be prohibited to do so even if we know we are going to change the state of the light. For example, we may know that walking near someone’s house is going to turn a light on. We should try not to do this, but we don’t have to walk a long distance out of our way to avoid it.
We discussed electric service in Israel. In Israel it is obviously necessary to provide electrical service on Shabbot, as there can be emergencies and it is permissible to leave lights on through-out the day. But should Jews be working in electrical plants – especially on Shabbot - when electricity is being supplied to homes and businesses that are not following halakhah on Shabbos? And should we be getting electrical service from an electrical company that supplies electricity to those not following halakhah on Shabbos? We discussed how it may be fine for Jews to work in the plants, since equipment may need to be turned on, in places such as hospitals in order to save lives. However, Yaki talked about how some religious communities in Israel get all of their power from special generators on Shabbos. These communities want no part of the regular Israeli utility company’s service on Shabbos. The entire generator system these communities use is automated and does not require anyone to go to work.
David S. talked about some of the interesting Shabbos devices that use springs which store potential energy. There is the Shabbos alarm clock which is set before Shabbos that automatically shuts itself off when there is no more potential energy left. There are also elevators that stop on every floor. Although hospitals have to use phones and equipment on Shabbos, they often use devices in which the operator does not directly turn an electrical flow on or off. For example, there are phones that will hang up every so many seconds they are not being used, but will not hang up immediately like normal phones.
This Shabbos we discussed the week’s parsha Naso. The parsha includes a section about the sotah and another section about the nazir. In his Dvar Torah, Efroni discusses how these are two sides to how we misuse Hashem’s creation. The Nazir avoids using the physical world at all. The Sotah uses the physical world, but uses it in a self-centered way, solely for her own benefit. Instead of elevating the physical and making it spiritual, she keeps everything physical. As Efroni describes, Hashem wants us to use the physical world, but in a way that elevates it into the spiritual.
Finally, we continued our discussion of differences amongst Jews. One of the questions we discussed is whether we need to iron our our differences in order for messiah to come. Another possibility we discussed is that messiah will help us straighten out our differences.
This is a summary of what we discussed this past Shabbos. No Halachic rulings are intended or should be inferred.
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