In some buildings in NYC they have installed some gizmo that allows an elevator to run without the occupant having to press a button on Sabbath because some of these folks live in high rises that would require them to walk many, many flights of stairs. You can have a machine do work, but you can't have anything to do with operating it. No oven or toaster, so they have to finish all their Sabbath meal cooking before sundown, hence those extra hours needed to get home (although, I know the culprit who I was picking on here never, ever helped his wife prepare a meal). There is a very vigorous intellectual debate anytime an issue like this comes up, with Talmudic scholars and lay pundits expressing well-reasoned legalistic interpretations of what fits Jewish law and what doesn't. The elevator one was reported in the NYT a few months ago.
In NYC several years ago, the modesty issue with women's hair being covered by wigs reached a fever pitch when it was discovered that hair being used to make some of the wigs had come from some controversial source. There was extraordinarily heated and angry debate about just who exactly would need to throw away and replace her wig and who could be assured that her's was okay because it came from a proper source. Some of the wigs cost as much as $5,000 (I know, I know, some of us are thinking that's a Noctilux or a couple of MP bodies).
Watching a roomful of young Hasidic men argue over some interpretation of the Talmud that affects whether they can buy milk from a certain merchant and whose rabbi can be trusted to give the right answer on this question, can give one a sense that the stereotype of Jewish people making good lawyers might have a basis (however, limited and perhaps misguided) in reality. If you define all the choices and behaviors of your life by a set of written laws that you have to spend your life learning and interpreting, of course you'd have developed a mind that might also be suited to learning civil law, too. Stereotypes can be offensive, stupid, unfair, reductive, hateful, etc. They can also, sometimes, have a basis in truth. If some Jewish people have risen up to great heights in the law, it might have a little to do with coming from a tradition of having to study and debate whether or not you can take an elevator in your apartment building on the Sabbath, something I've never had to debate or consider.
One neat thing about how all this law gets applied is the broad number of exceptions that get made to it to accommodate protecting people's lives and safety. Can't walk because you need a wheelchair? You get a free pass for that elevator. Saving a life because you're an EMT? You can work on Sabbath.
Regarding making me work on Sabbath, officially that should have been a no-no. You're not supposed to be profiting from the labor of others on those days that you yourself are not supposed to be working. One of my colleagues pointed this out to me, saying, "the boss is wrong on this one." In fact, you're not supposed to be making money on those days, period. That is the reason that B&H doesn't staff up with non-Jews on Sabbath to keep the website's e-Commerce shopping carts running. Ever notice, you always get a message that the shopping carts are closed.
from their website:
Welcome to B&H Photo!
We are temporarily not accepting orders.
Online ordering will resume at Saturday 6:00 PM EST.
By the way, my former boss was right; I'm not "that Jewish." I learned how little I knew by spending time among the ultra faithful. Rather a foreign country to me in many ways.
I don't think three's anything in Jewish law that forbids letting machines do the work on the sabbath. For instance, you are not supposed to operate a light switch on the sabbath. But an automatic timer is legal. So I have wondered why they don't take orders on the sabbath, even over the internet. As long as a computer handles it, it should be OK. Just my 2 cents!
