Letters/Discussion Forums
Hypocrisy on what’s allowed on Shabbat
I found the “Shabbat Map” enclosed in your issue of October 23 most interesting – all the things you can’t or shouldn’t do before or on Shabbat (because they are “work”) are fully set out. For instance, you can’t switch on lights or turn a kettle on or off, but you can source hot water for coffee or tea from an urn filled before Shabbat by turning the tap to allow water to run into the cup.
Hilton Borach
Rubbish. The mere fact that you touch and move the tap is also “work”. Using a teaspoon to put coffee/tea into the cup is also “work’ – no different from turning a light on or warming plate on or off. Hypocritical.
Let us get on to the no driving bit: Firstly, there are rabbis, thank goodness, whose attitude is we would rather you drive to shul than not come at all. Then there is a reason not to drive.
Ever seen the crowd who open (also “work”) bottle upon bottle of whisky or even whiskey at the after shul brocha and become so drunk that for them to drive is a danger to other innocent road users and pedestrians, let alone themselves?
In any event, kindly refer me to the Torah where it states “Thou shalt not drive on Shabbat”.
I don’t really know if I’m being facetious or half serious, but you take it as you will.
Parklands, Johannesburg
Baruch
November 8, 2015 at 2:59 pm
‘Dear Hilton
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\nI understand your frustration at the apparant hypocrisy but please understand that this hypocrisy is a function only of your ignorance of Jewish law. It is true that without a knowledge of how Jewish law is formualted and combined with a littany of mis-translations, it is easy to see hypocrisy.
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\nThe most important aspect to understand is that work is probably the most misleading and damaging translation in the entire Torah. What is prohibited on Shabbat is not work but acts of building, creating and \”subjugation\” of the natural world. In this context, the work/energy expenditure is irrelevant, it is what that expenditure creates that determines what is allowed.
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\nThere are 39 specific activities that are prohibited and when modern technologies are discussed it is within the contect of whether or not one of the 39 apply. So, to answer your specific question – driving: one of the 39 is lighting a fire. The mechanism of an internal combustion engine is, as its name suggests, one that involves lighting a fire, and this is why driving is prohibited.
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\nYou may choose to believe in the validity of the Torah or not, that is a prime function of this world. To reject the system as a whole is something you can do, but what you should not do is claim hypocrisy without studying the system. You can only understand the the integrity of a system if you are not ignorant of its inner workings. So you can say I reject the system because I reject the premise that the Torah is from G-d and so everything that flows from that is based on false premise. But you cannot claim intrinsic contradicition without understanding how the system works.
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\nI would urge you next time you have doubts about something you are not well versed in to first ask questions and then make comments/criticisms.
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