Rosh Ha’Ayin – Company Drilling for Oil On Shabbat Without Violating Judaic Laws

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    Rosh Ha’Ayin – The heads of the Givot Olam company, whose Meged 5 well near Rosh Ha’Ayin has been said to contain an estimated 1.5 billion barrels of crude, held a news conference on Tuesday to mark the beginning of the drilling on the site.

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    The company’s chief geologist is Tuvia Luskin, an observant Jew who belongs to Chabad. As such, the work on the site was done so as to never break any of the laws of Shabbat.

    Now, as the work has intensified, the Givot Olam team has managed to find a way to continue to drill and pump oil from Meged 5 even on Shabbat, all the while not breaking any Judaic laws.

    This is accomplished by doing everything automatically using a Sabbath clock which allows the workers to produce oil without physically having to turn the faucets that carry the oil from various containers on and off, an act that would constitute work and thus break the laws of Shabbat.

    “We’re seriously taking pride in the fact that we never drilled on Shabbat and we never did any melakhot [the Hebrew word for labor or work –ed.] on Shabbat,” exclaimed Luskin. “Now, for the first time last Shabbat we were producing on Shabbat without breaking Shabbat.”


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    15 Comments
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    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    12 years ago

    For safety reasons, a gas or oil well at some point will require manual overide of the automated systems so they will need to have a “shabbos goy” on duty for emergencies. It would be much better to be mechalel shabbos in an ermegency situation than risk a major pollution event.

    DRE53
    DRE53
    12 years ago

    I once learned that one is not aloud to leave the radio on or the washing machine/dryer running although you don’t have to physically put on or off a switch because of Maris Hoayin.
    I don’t see why this is any different, unless someone can explain that this is akin to leaving a light on during shabbos.

    hiijacker
    hiijacker
    12 years ago

    #1 actually the problem with those items are they make a lot of noise and disturb the shabbos. Same reason why a goy who is cleaning in your hour house on shabbos should not use a vaccum since it causes a lot of noise. Yet in a kosher hotel environment it is done. This case of oil drilling is not being done in your home.

    12 years ago

    The Torah uses the word “SHEMEN” for oil. Shin, Mem, [Ende] Nun. Which stands for “Shabbos Maigmen Nemen” in Yiddish!!!

    Raphael_Kaufman
    Raphael_Kaufman
    12 years ago

    Don’t see how this avoids the issur of hashma’os kol. The example given in Chazal, the automatic grain mill, seems to be a precise analog of an automatic drill rig.

    12 years ago

    OBviously this is not lechatchila.
    But htis is a neccesaty for the country its like not have police cars petroling on shabbes.
    SO using a shabbes clock and having it done within the confins of halcha (granted to according to badatz standarts) is a big kidush hashem….
    I;m just waiting for some lunitics to start making demonstrations in jerusalem …..

    Oyvey
    Oyvey
    12 years ago

    Th eissur of “avsha milsa” applies to a commercial enterprise and not to personal use. As such, using a shabbos clock for personal use on shabbos would be permissible. Using it here for a commercial enterprise, the issur applies. Accordingly, the heter of a shabbos clock does not apply and shabbos is definitely violated.
    There may be a heter here due to the problem of “hefsed meruba”, but to say that the shabbos is not being violated is at best misleading, if not down right false. By using the clock and shabbos goy they may be avoiding a “d’oraissa”, but a “d’rabanan” is definitely involved.

    12 years ago

    It’s interesting that all of a sudden there are poiskim commenting on VIN and they are all machmir from 6,000 miles away. I assume all of the machmirim here will not eat from the BEDATZ hecsher anymore since they are giving heteirim that you don’t like…Bimchilas Kevoidchem, Let’s stop all this criticism on other Jews that wear different hats and go to other shuls or daven in a different Nusach. If anybody has an issue why don’t you get in touch with the Rav that is giving the haskama and ASK for his reasoning and mekoros before calling people mechalelei shabbos. Elul is coming very soon and the same person who wrote the Mishnah Brura also wrote Shemiras Haloshon…

    12 years ago

    I’m not religious, and I have no problem with oil drilling any day of the week, any time of the day. In Israel or anywhere else.

    I do, however, have a problem with the hype about 1.5 billion barrels of oil The company has a test well, which pumped 785 barrels a day. While that would increase Israeli domestic oil production by about a fourth (from just under 3,000 b/d to about 3,700 b/d), there’s no proof that this field has 1.5 billion barrels, even if its owner was blessed by the heilige rebbe and second coming of Christ Himself.

    There may well be far more than 1.5 billion barrels of oil in Israel, counting shale, but it probably isn’t from this field.

    And, as we know from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, no large pumping operation can be left unattended. 785 barrels, while not huge, is 23 gallons a minute, the size of a big gasoline tank. You wouldn’t want YOUR gas to be pumped without oversight, would you?