New York – The Future for orthodox Jews is going to be a lot harder. And not just because the stringent identity card regulations that seem to be in our future have historically been pretty tricky for the Jews.
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Orthodox Jews observe a strict Sabbath from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday during which – among other restrictions – they don’t use anything electrical, don’t travel by motorised transport, don’t cook and don’t spend money. From personal experience, this can be a very rewarding way to spend 24 hours; a chance to reconnect with the people and things around you rather than using technology to allow your mind to be somewhere separate to your body.
But how will the technological future treat the observant Jews? I used to fret about this a great deal as a child. What would I do if I were travelling on the Starship Enterprise? All the doors are electric! The food is made by replicators and no one seems to own a fridge. Would replicator food be kosher? Moreover, in the wilds of outer space, how would one even know when “sunset on Friday” was, in order to observe the Sabbath?
None of my favourite future-based fiction seemed to offer any answers. If I travelled in the Tardis, presumably I could just avoid the problem by skipping over every Saturday, but I couldn’t imagine that a Vogon constructor fleet would be so accommodating.
It’s probably obvious that, even as a child, I had a tendency to overthink. But this is likely to become more of a problem for observant Jews as time goes on and it becomes harder to avoid using electronic devices even for one day. Automatic sensor doors, automated lights and swipe-card entry are already commonplace. There are some enterprising solutions to the problems these pose. But if, for example, e-books take over from paper books, I wonder if the Orthodox Jews will be the last people to own libraries of books whose pages can be turned without the use of electricity? Or the last to have doors that lock using metal keys?
Does this really matter? After all, leading an observant Jewish life is a choice. And if a small group of people find that the modern world has become difficult for them to manage and they end up as isolated as the Amish community, is that a problem for the world? Only in this sense, I think: that however wonderful our technology is, it’s a good idea to switch it off every once in a while, and a good idea to make sure we’re able to.
So your suggesting that since orthodox is by choice, we should drop it???
a yid get zich shtendig an eitsah. dont get a panic attack. We’ll manage just fine. Just like we did till now. and by the way the Amish are also managing just fine in ther sence of the word. so no need to be so overly concerned.
Agreed, it is for sure the most relaxing thing to be shut out from the world and reconnect with family and friends
This item seems to be written by someone who has neither a grasp of Halachah nor of Technology.
It won’t be a bad, we will be able to connect to G-D (study, pray, etc)
Btw the newspaper this article was taken from is the most antisemitic paper in europe, so no wonder they print this. they won’t bring us down just the vav.
In general when challenges in Halacha come up we can fret about it or enjoy the new challenges coming our way. The new technology in the passed has lead to many great tshuvot from out Rabbonim and Gedolim. Thanks to new technology we will have more to learn in Halacha “Yagdil Torah”.
Hashem created the world….and the enterprise
If you think we try to avoid technology on Shabbos Koidesh then check out the Amish people. We have alot to learn from them as to living a simple uncomplicated life. They never use electricity for convenience. They still run their towns like a poilisher shtaitel. I was amazed when I saw this.
What is this picture supposed to say, that he just turned on the light on Shabbos? He’s seeing a problem where there isn’t one! The real danger that technology has put us in is its instant and constant availability of decadence, which as technology creates smaller, faster and more sophisticated gadgets; wherever we go, and regardless wherever we go, we will be vulnerable. All fences that we had have already been destroyed, and we are only left with the last resort which is to literally close the eyes and keep them shut. A person today can see more shmutz with closed eyes then our ancestors in a shtetel saw their entire lives with open eyes.
Just as a side note: all these “shaylos” in outer space do not apply as the Torah was only commanded on earth.
“After all, leading an observant Jewish life is a choice. “
The above statement which was in the article is really pothetic and on the level of an apikorus. Our religion is NOT a choice. If you have a mother who is jewish and you are frum you can’t walk around saying you know nothing and that it’s a choice. Your jewish wether you like it or not. The author makes it sound like religion is a game of choices.
“But if, for example, e-books take over from paper books, I wonder if the Orthodox Jews will be the last people to own libraries of books whose pages can be turned without the use of electricity?” Over the past few years a number of my friendsa have acquired and/or used CDs and on-line programs to access seforim. These are wonderful developments in that they make many more seforim (some very hard to find) easily available — and search engines can be a great help too. However, I always point out that because of Shabbos and Yom Tov these electronic gadgets can never fully replace our printed seforim, in our homes, our yeshivas and our batei midrashim. We, the Am HaNivchar, will always be the “people of the book”.
Amish: Hasidim without cell phones
Why do I smell anti Semitism in this article specifically at its conclusion????
A bigger concern is technology getting into the wrong hands. In the old days an evil person could kill a handfull of people before he himself get’s killed. today with a click a button you one can literlly kill tens of thousands of people. I am more concerned with Pakistan and India being neucler states and Iran being on the brink of having nuke capabilities than what my shabbos will look like in 100 years.
Worse come to worse Shabbes will be a day of not leaving the home at all.
As for books, unlikely, the book and magazine industry have hardly suffered from the digital age.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. Chazal never knew of or envisioned electricity. All of these electronic gadgets, from hotel door swipe cards to infra-red motion detectors do not fall into the prohibition of “Lo sivaru aish”. Rav Baruch Halevi Epstein, zt’l had it right when he paskened in 1903 that electricity was not related to fire and the flicking of a switch was not prohibited on Shabbos. It is our so called “Gedolim” of the 20th Century who have placed one geder in front of another to make life miserable for all of us.
what we should talk about is that we as frum jews should not be this close all the time to the internet we are meant to be real social creatures instead of computer readers meet fight love discuss not just read and comment!
Okay, I know you will attack me for what I will write, but it must be said, since other good people have been attacked for it.
I am a Chareidi Frum person, or at least I try my best to be. I would not turn a light on on Shabbos, and make sure to follow all of the chumras given to us by our achronim shel achronim.
To me, as long as the gedolay hador of the past 3 doros said no electricity, I will follow it.
BUT, that does not mean they were not capable of being wrong. Not a single one of them had REAL education in physics. They saw an electrical spark, which appeared to them like aish, and they so paskined.
Once some of them paskined like that, most others simply fell into place behind them.
It is my duty to avoid electicity just because they said so.
But, that does not mean that those who question this are reshuim, apikorsim,or koifrim, or bad in any way.
Many of the chumros we practice today are based upon situations which existed long ago, and do not exist today. Rabbonim, gedolim DO take this into consideration when they paskin. Rav Moshe was talking about the simple inyan of bliyas on day. We all know the halacha is that we paskin that a kali is bolaya all the way through. The halacha in the Shulchan Aruch is clear: Milk touching the outside of a pot is considered to be bolaya all the way into the pot. When them paskin according to amounts and the rest of the halachos. But we assume bliya all the way through. Rav Moshe, Z”L, said one day that he has been told, and he believes that today’s stainless steel pots are bolaya not more than maybe 0.001 inches into the thickness of the steel. Therefore, he said there is something to be somayach on not to assur the contents in some cases.
This was not a psak on his part, as far as I know. It was a discussion. But is shows that though the Reshonim paskinned one way, it does not stop the later Achronim from clarifying things based upon new materials, new information, new education.
Before we landed on the Moon, many rabbonim, reliable, intelligent, talmidai chachumim PASKINNED that we would never land on the Moon. That man could never walk on the Moon. They took this from the posuk “Hashomayim shomayim….”
But after it was done, none kept on denying it. All agreed that the posuk must not have meant that it can’t be done, and that it did not mean to exclude us from space.
Way back, many rabbonim believed the Sun was in orbit around the Earth. But, all changed their minds in modern times when it became clear that it was not literal.
Is it truly impossible to believe that one day, the gedolim, Chassidish and Yeshivish will get together with a panel of Frum physicists, and agree that electricity is not fire, and that each individual use must be paskinned individually based upon the other miluchois?
If that does not happen, we must all keep the will of those who ruled we must treat it as aish. But we also should not call people names who speak out and voice other views.
I would never intentionally turn a light on until or unless the real gedolay hador matir it, but I do believe one day it will happen. Why? Because electricity may currently we halachakly fire since rabbonim have so paskinned, but in reality, in teva, we now know ELECTRICITY IS REALLY NOT FIRE!
So, TODAY we can’t turn a light switch on, nor use those hotel keys on Shabbos, but let us not call people names.
If you learn physics, and I did, you learn that electicity REALLY IS NOT FIRE!
So, we are limiting ourselves due to the words of rabbonim. However, that does not mean that it is halacha. One day, I honestly believe, the gedolai hador will form commitee of chareidi people to study the issue, and will matir electricity on Shabbos.
Oh, for sure, much will still be ossur from other meluchos, boneh, matakain, bishul, etc., But the ikar, of claiming that electricity is fire will eventually be abolished, since it really is not fire!
In the meanwhile, until are gedolay hador tell us to, we must “act as if” electricity is fire. BUT we should certainly not attack those who voice other opinions. It must come from somewhere.
I recently stayed in a hotel in Florence Italy that required the use of an electric key card to leave the hotel room. (I have had to deal with the problem of getting in to a hotel room with an electronic key but getting out is a little trickier in terms of trying to find a non-Jew who can operate the lock for you). Made me think to ask that question of any hotel that I have to stay in over Shabbos. Luckily I was there only on a week day.
You are correct that electricity is NOT fire and not aish.
But, we are kind of stuck with its being called Aish due to the following:
Rabbonim today are very, and justifiably, afraid to matir ANYTHING which the Conservative movement or the Reform movement, in opposition to us, was matir. Hence, even if each individual Rov, gedolai hador, were to agree individually that Electricity is not Aish, they are stuck with the reality that once it was defined as Aish by past rabbonim, today, not using electricity on Shabbos has turned into one of the defining factors which delineate the Orthodox from the “other.”
It would be very difficult today for a rov to pick up a phone and call another rov to bring up this topic, as then HE may become thought of in a negative way.
But, back to the original thesis. We have in our Yiddishkeit of today, minhagim which have become defining factors of what is a frum Jew. We now say that any man who walks in the street without a head covering is not frum. True, we see this in later seforim, but it certainly is not a Torah halacha. I am not 100% sure where and when it started, but today it certainly has become a biggie. No frum Jew will be seen anywhere without a yarmulke and/or hat.
This may wind up being the future of electricity on Shabbos. We may wind up stuck with it.
One of the reasons for possible rabbinic reluctance to tackle this issue and matir electricity on Shabbos would be that it may cause a gross loss of the importance of Shabbos. The very fact that many “Orthodox” Yidden are already falling in to this issue, by going by the letter of the laws they know, and missing the feeling of Shabbos, will be a reason for the reluctance. All too many people, Shomer Shabbos, Orthodox people, have fallen inot the habit of reading the first paragraph and the conclusion of a teshuva or a psak, and not bothering to follow the entire teshuva or what a posek writes. They take the “heter” and generalize it, not realizing it was only intended in a certain “b’dayeved” situation. They then go around saying, “If Rav X says it is mutar, it is mutar.” But that was never the intent of Rav X when he wrote it.
How many young frum men will play basketball on Shabbos if they are inside an eiruv or chotzeir, totally not realizing that it is also wrong to take a pisia gasa, and certainly not in the ways of Shabbos to Run, Jump, and play basketball? In fact many have written that basketballs are muktze. But there are so many who jump into heterim.
As long as such a large percentage of Shomer Shabbos Yidden have that attitude of maximizing every heter, rabbonim are very reluctant to matir things. I know I would be. I can’t blame them.
Unfortunately, the study by a major university said that in about 50 more years, Orthodox and Chassidim will be the vast majority of Jews, since the Conservative and Reform are being abandoned by intermarriage. Some, to the good, are becoming baalei teshuva and becoming Orthodox.
Hopefully, the Orthodox who have been “heter maximizers” will also stop seeking all those far out heterim (one can pray).
When this happens, then the rabbonim MAY be brave enough to tackle this problem.
The problem will then be that it will be such a long time, so many gerations of non-electric Shabbosim that they still may feel it wrong to change.
This is unfortunate.
Though I do understand the reluctance to deal with the “Electricity on Shabbos” issue, I believe it must be dealt with. As we progress into the future, it will become more and more impossible to exist with this chumra.
It is already a pain to be in a motel on Shabbos, with the key situation.
Eventually, I can foresee electronic doors ALL over.
We now have many blocks which we can’t walk down due to motion detectors turning lights on. Since it is a psik raisha, it is ossur (unless there is enough room to get by that it is not a psik raisha)
Eventually, I can foresee motion detectors in the streets, motion activated cameras in the streets and in hallways, and many, many other things we can’t even think about today. Failing to deal with the “Electricity on Shabbos” matter may mean Jews returning to tiny, fenced in gettos, built especially for us without any of these things.
I know I would want to go on the real Enterprise one day, if it would to come in my time.
Electronically activated electrically operated doors … oy!
#39 I hope you are right that rabbonim will tackle this issue. I am afraid that no one will have the courage. You see how anyone is attacked today for differing about anything? And who would have the courage to deal with it when they would fear, “If we are matir the principle of Electricity on Shabbos, people will say ‘Anything electric is mutar on Shabbos’ which we certainly do not mean.” Would being matir electricity be matir electric cars on shabbos ….. golf carts, all elevators, … Interesting thoughts.