Avodah Mailing List

Volume 27: Number 4

Mon, 04 Jan 2010

• 1. The Concept of Authority (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 2. Re: reform and conservative (Chana Luntz)
• 3. Re: Hilchos Kaddish (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: The Concept of Authority (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 5. Re: reform and conservative (T6...@aol.com)
• 6. Reform and Conservative (Richard Wolberg)
• 7. Re: reform and conservative (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: reform and conservative (Harry Maryles)
• 9. Re: reform and conservative (Rich, Joel)
• 10. Re: reform and conservative (Micha Berger)
• 11. How do you explain issur of electricity (boneh) to a non-religious person? (Avroham Yakov)

This is a spinoff of the current thread "Seeing G'zeiros Everywhere". In
that thread, R' Rich Wolpoe is analyzing and categorizing different kinds
of gezeros. I am more interested in understanding to what extent, and under
what authority, we are obligated to follow any particular rule.

Let's say, for example, that the government tells me to do a certain thing.
Am I *obligated* to do it? My feeling is that if the situation is one which
is covered by Dina D'malchusa Dina, then, yes, I am obligated to do it, by
whatever mechanism it is that requires me to follow DDD, for which see
below. But if it is a situation where DDD does not apply, then I am not
truly obligated to do it. It is probably in my best interests to obey them,
because I want to avoid jail or whatever other penalties they have the
power to enforce. But that is a very different thing than what I mean by
"obligation". As a person whose only allegiance is to Hashem, I feel
obliged to do what He wants me to do, and I feel no other real obligations.

A) D'ORAISA

G-d told me to follow the Torah. Therefore, I am obligated to do whatever
it is that the Torah tells me to do. (This logic may appear self-evident
and superfluous. But it needs to be stated, because the next categories
will follow the pattern which I am establishing here.)

D'Oraisas are so straightforward in this sense, that I have not much else to say about them.

B) D'RABANAN

There is one d'Oraisa (or perhaps a group of them) which is unique in its
vagueness. It does not prescribe or proscribe any particular acts, other
than that we obey our rabbis. We must obey them when they rule on whether
or not the Torah law has been violated, and the Torah even authorizes them
to establish new laws.

I refrain from citing any specific pesukim, because I am aware that they
are various disputes about which psukim teach which things. There is also
some disagreement about exactly which rabbis have this authority. But
clearly, there *is* a group of acts, which if I violate them, I have
violated the Torah's mitzva of obeying the rabbis.

Therefore: Because I am obligated to listen to HaShem, and He told me to
obey the Torah, and the Torah tells me to obey the rabbis, I am thus
obligated to do these things.

Exactly which rabbis are empowered to create these obligations? One view is
that this power rests only in the Sanhedrin, or in some similar
organization, by whatever name it might be known, such as the Beis Din
Hagadol. According to this view, laws and decisions issued by individuals
or by other organizations would not rise to this level. We might be obliged
to follow such laws if they fall into one of the categories below, but they
don't fall into *this* category -- Our obligation to obey does not stem
directly from these pesukim of the Torah.

Some extend this level of obligation to any law cited in the Gemara, on the
basis of the Gemara being accepted by all of Klal Yisrael. This is unclear
to me, because the logic of "Klal Yisrael accepted it" fits one of my
descriptions below, and it does *not* seem to fit the Torah description of
where the people in authority issue decisions and enactments irrespective
of the populace's will.

(I have a vague memories that some would hold this category to include
decrees issued even more recently than the Gemara. I personally do not
understand how the Torah's law to obey the chachamim could possibly apply
to a chacham who does not have "real semicha". I suppose it might apply if
a generation had one single undisputed leader. But we have not had any such
leaders. Some point to the Shulchan Aruch as an example of a univerally
accepted authority, but I think the Rama disproves that. "Universally
respected" is not the same thing as "universally accepted".)

C) MINHAG

Am I truly obligated to follow a minhag? Perhaps not. After all, it isn't something that the rabbis told me to do, right? On what basis am I obligated?

I have heard two different arguments for why minhagim must be followed. One
stems from the pasuk "Shma bni musar avicha, v'al titosh Toras imecha."
(Mishlei 1:8) According to this, since HaShem told me to obey the Torah,
and the Torah told me to obey the rabbis, and the rabbis told me - based on
this pasuk - that I must do these sort of things, the chain of command is
intact, and I am obligated to follow those minhagim which are referred to
by that pasuk.

Another logic which I've heard is that a minhag is a sort of neder. Once a
person has done a certain thing three times, he has essentially sworn to
continue doing it. I suspect that this is why personal minhagim are
binding, and Mishlei is why communal minhagim are binding.

But what is a minhag, and what is not? Sometimes we'll see a posek rule
that something is a "minhag ta'us" or a "minhag shtus", or something
similar. Clearly, in their opinion, such a minhag is not a real minhag, and
is not binding. A much more complicated problem, is that the word minhag
sometimes means "an obligatory custom", and sometimes it simply means "this
is what people do".

An example of the latter is is found in my recent post (Digest 27:1), where
I cited the Rama and MB regarding the practice of not eating dried fruit on
Pesach. Is it a binding custom, or just what people do?

D) COMMUNAL RULES

We often see rules adopted by one community but not by another. One example
of this would be Cherem D'Rabenu Gershom in all its details, which was
enacted and adopted by a specific procedure. I'm really not sure what the
reason is to say that this is binding. If one wants to say that it is a
kind of minhag, it is surely a different kind of minhag than kitniyos,
which just sort of grew on its own and was never actually *enacted*. Or
perhaps it is a sort of neder.

But my wild guess is that it is closer to this sort of non-DDD governmental
law which I described in the beginning of this post: I follow the rule
because it is in my best interests to do so, because the community has
accepted upon itself to put me in cherem (whatever that means) if I violate
it, and I do not want to be put in cherem. The community has an obligation
(a binding neder from past generations) if I violate the rule, but other
than expediency I do not have any obligation to follow that rule.

Let's take the example, recently mentioned by RRW, of a community which
bans spending over a certain amount for a simcha. I would put that in this
category. Such takanos either explicitly state what should happen to
violators, or else the violators implicitly risk a certain degree of
ostracism from their community. (But unless the takana was legislated by a
Beis Din of "real semuchim", I do not see how this could be considered a
d'Rabanan.)

E) POLICY

Many of the things that are in this category end up being here because they
would have been in one of the above categories, except that they were
explicitly accepted "bli neder". Most commonly, a person or group will see
an action which generally leads to good or bad results, and they therefore
try to do or avoid that action in the future. It becomes their "policy" to
do that thing or avoid that thing.

For example, a hashgacha organization might insist on certain rules for the
companies which they supervise, and these rules have no direct connection
to kashrus. These rules serve only to make the supervising easier, or to
demonstrate seriousness to the factory workers so that they'll be less
likely to cheat. For example, RRW recently cited a ban on bringing
non-mevushal wine into a kosher restaurant. Presuming that it has an
acceptable hechsher, there's really nothing wrong with bringing it in,
except that it makes more work for the mashgiach.

These rules are not binding on that hashgacha, nor on any competing
organizations, in any sense whatsoever. It's simply a more efficient or
more convenient way of doing things, and to these rules can be changed any
time they find a different way to be more efficient or more convenient.

I predict that when RRW has catalogued the different kinds of gezeros, it will turn out that they do not all fall into the same category of obligation.

Akiva Miller

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RET wrote:

> > from daily halacha
> >
> > 1186. One may not count one who denies the truth of Torah Sh'baal 
> > Peh
> > - aka The Oral Torah (and certainly one who denies The Written Torah
> > received at Sinai via Moshe Rabbeinu) towards a minyan. [One may not
> > count Conservative or Reform Jews towards a minyan.] Shulchan Aruch
> > w/Mishnah Berurah 55:11, Piskei Tshuvos 55:21

> >1187. One should also not answer Amein to a Kaddish made by any of 
> >these people, even at a burial. Piskei Tshuvos 55:21  >>


And then he added:

>> Obviously the brackets were added by the email editor and is not in 
>> the mishna berura.

And RRW replied:

> ther first part is Halachah p"suqa
> The second part VIZ.:
> 
> "One may not count Conservative or Reform Jews towards a minyan." is 
> AIUI an extension enforcing the first part
> 
> 
> or I might have chosen to phrase it thusly
> 
> > "We may not count REFORM Jews into a minyan - as  a S'yag or policy
> --
> > SHEMA we might come to count deniers of TSBP..."
> >

A more normative way of understanding this (and I hesitate to use the word
psak, because like RET I suspect the bracketed words were added by the email
editor and are not necessarily based on a psak he either formulated or
received) is that whoever made such a decision, did so by examining the
metzius as far as he was aware of it regarding Reform and Conservative Jews
and their belief systems, and coming to the conclusion that they fall within
the category of deniers listed in the Mishna Brura.   Rav Moshe famously did
this regarding Reform and Conservative *rabbis*, holding that they were, by
definition, koferim b'ikar, and then one could not answer amen to their
brochos.  But most people understand this as an application of the halacha,
not an extension or a siyag (which most understand he would have been
forbidden/unable to enact). 

In response to RET's further question:

> Is this agreed to by everyone? It is not what i have seen

I think the answer has to be no.  As mentioned a) Rav Moshe restricted
himself to rabbis (and of course he took a different view when it came to
counting in a minyan, holding that even ovdei avodah zarah could be counted,
based on the meraglim, but in terms of answering brochos etc he restricted
himself to rabbis, not the laity); b) the more standard approach today is to
regard (at least) the laity as being a tinuk shenishba.  Of course that is
by no means a universally held position, for example the Satmar Rov and the
Rav of Munchkatch strongly disagreed (and I am sure there are others) - but
mostly they didn't need to get in to the question of Reform or Conservative
Jews, anybody who was a mechallel shabbas b'farhesia could not, according to
the dissenters, be counted. [Of course, it is possible to find somebody who
is a Conservative Jew, not a rabbi, and not a mechallel shabbas b'farhesia,
and it would not at all surprise me if the afforementioned rabbonim would
also have posselled such a person from being counted, if they had been asked
- but given the relative rarity of the case, I am not aware of them having
being asked - although somebody who knows their writings perhaps better than
I do, RSBA for example, might know]. I have written extensively on this
question (ie counting a non frum Jew) over the years between Avodah and Mail
Jewish (inter alia citing ROY, because again he brings pages and pages and
pages of sources, mostly for but some against considering non frum Jews
today as having the status of a tinuk shenishba).  I believe that it is this
position that leads to what you have seen.

Regards

Chana

On Sun, Jan 03, 2010 at 04:09:17PM +0000, rabbirichwol...@gmail.com wrote:
: Offlist
: IOW, I would suggest that gematrios are memory aids. However, their
: post-facto status doesn't belittle them. An entire quarter (if it were
: developed to the same extent as the other three) of the mesorah exists
: "just" to help us enrich and internalize ideas that are actually derived
: in other ways.
: 
: Tir'u baTov!
: -Micha?
: 
: It's NOT how the gmara uses it in this context
: Rather it's used as a midrash halachah

Which is where? And if "remez" is midrash halakhah, what is "derash"?
And why the reuse of the same shoresh for two different modalities?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is capable of changing the world for the
mi...@aishdas.org        better if possible, and of changing himself for
http://www.aishdas.org   the better if necessary.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning

I would have chosen
"Scope of authority"
But why quibble? :-)

RAM:
> E) POLICY

> Many of the things that are in this category end up being here because
> they would have been in one of the above categories, except that they
> were explicitly accepted "bli neder". Most commonly, a person or group
> will see an action which generally leads to good or bad results, and they
> therefore try to do or avoid that action in the future. It becomes their
> "policy" to do that thing or avoid that thing.

I specifically lumped policy into the term g'zeirah

1 I don't have a better term
2 when it's a s'yag prohibitting the otherwise muttar it fits the
strucutre to a "G"

X Is assur shema Y is as Talmud and Posqim term it - g'zeira.

EG Trumas Hasdeshen not allowing meat to hang around for 3 days lest it
be too late - as per the Gaonim - to salt.

> For example, a hashgacha organization might insist on certain rules
> for the companies which they supervise, and these rules have no direct
> connection to kashrus. These rules serve only to make the supervising
> easier, or to demonstrate seriousness to the factory workers so that
> they'll be less likely to cheat. For example, RRW recently cited a ban
> on bringing non-mevushal wine into a kosher restaurant. Presuming that
> it has an acceptable hechsher, there's really nothing wrong with bringing
> it in, except that it makes more work for the mashgiach.

> These rules are not binding on that hashgacha,

There not even binding on the mashgiach whilst outside this profession
purview

EG I work for an organization that REQUIRES pas yisroel and Hassidishe
Sh'cheeta. I do my best to zealously guard the eatery, but I am
personally not makpid at home etc.

But it goes further EG
Many hashgachos AS POLICY require the mashgiach to light ALL fires -
lest an eino y"hudi light a fire and mistakenly cause bishul aku"m

EVEN though certain acts of re-heating or certain foods do NOT require
this as per SA.

That is a STANDARD in some agencies - I. E. keep the lighters our of
the hands of the eino Y"hudim. But you won't find a Halachah AFAIK
requring this.

> nor on any competing organizations, in any sense whatsoever. It's
> simply a more efficient or more convenient way of doing things, and to
> these rules can be changed any time they find a different way to be more
> efficient or more convenient.

> I predict that when RRW has catalogued the different kinds of gezeros,
> it will turn out that they do not all fall into the same category of
> obligation.
> Akiva Miller

I may never get to categorizing them all. :-)
And my list was by no means an attempt to create a single category, just
to identify a tzad hashaveh between or accross the various categories. Nor
was it close to exhaustive!

If you want another term how about "s'yag"? But even that fails the
policy issue of RYDS and megillah at Stern and current, posthumous,
enforcement of RMF's issur on eruv in Manhattan - which I see as a policy
to perpetuate a older P'saq - more out of kavod than s'yag.

Here is a challenge for RAM and Aishdas to consider:

What is the scope of Mishnah Brurah's authority re: items such as:

1 repeating Zeicher/Zecher
2 B"tzitzis [sh'va] vs. Ba"tzitzis [patach]
3 no bracha on Tallis Qatan when putting Tallis Gadol in shul
4 Unmarrieds wearing Tallis [Gadol]

Or consider RMF:
1 No burial on YT Sheini
2 No Shabbos timers except for lights
3 Peanuts are not qitniyyos
4 Microwave is bishul legabei Shabbos [and by extension BB"Ch]

KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

 

From: Harry Maryles _hmaryles@yahoo.com_ (mailto:hmary...@yahoo.com) 

>> I can't  believe there is a blanket Issur to not count a C or R Jew to a 
Minyan.  Should'nt it depend on his individual beliefs? Not every C or R 
Jew believes  fully in the Kefira of the Movement's ideologues....



There are  however 2 problems. 

1) How can we know for sure what they believe?  

 
>>>>>>
RHM mentioned another problem as his number 2 but I would have said, number 
 two, how can we know for sure that they are Jewish?
 
 
Just today a friend told me about a rift in his family that occurred when  
he was sitting shiva for his brother (who was not frum).  Two of the  ni
ftar's sons are BTs, the third is married to a Conservative convert.   When the 
niftar's  teenaged grandson showed up at the shiva house -- the  product of 
the mixed marriage --- and he was the tenth man, the two BTs  hurriedly 
phoned another friend to come make a minyan.  Since when do we  need eleven men 
to make a minyan?  You can see how that would cause hard  feelings.  The 
Conservative and Reform movements have created chaos and  havoc and now we 
Orthodox have to deal with the mess and ask each  other questions like, "Can we, 
should we, may we, must we, count C and R  Jews to a minyan?"
 
We have not even dealt with the question of counting the other type  of C 
and R Jews who have made up part of a C or R minyan all  their lives and are 
suddenly excluded from O minyanim -- I refer to the  female-type Jews.
 

--Toby  Katz
==========

--------------------



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Someone wrote: "One may not count Conservative or Reform Jews towards a minyan."

I'm very curious why if you believe that, why not say "One may not count non observant Jews towards a minyan?"
So you might answer that they still can believe in TSBP and not be shomer Shabbos.
It's also possible for a Conservative Jew to believe in TSBP without being observant according to orthodoxy.
So would that person be counted toward a minyan?
And if you say that any non observant Jew would not count toward a minyan, how would you handle members who belong to orthodox shuls and are non observant.
The orthodox shul in Fall River had a majority of non observant Jews. So therefore should the rabbi not count them also for a minyan?
I think this type of thinking contributes to sinas chinam. Wouldn't darchei
shalom preclude the original statement -- namely that one may not count
Conservative or 
Reform Jews towards a minyan?
I have no ax to grind because if you didn't count me towards a minyan, I wouldn't attend your shul.
But I know several O. rabbis who find that theology odious and inappropriate on several levels.
Kol tuv.

On Fri, Jan 01, 2010 at 10:49:20AM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
: 1186. One may not count one who denies the truth of Torah Sh'baal Peh
: - aka The Oral Torah (and certainly one who denies The Written Torah
: received at Sinai via Moshe Rabbeinu) towards a minyan. [One may not
: count Conservative or Reform Jews towards a minyan.] Shulchan Aruch
: w/Mishnah Berurah 55:11, Piskei Tshuvos 55:21

First, I would presume the phrase in brackets is only providing a rule of
thumb, and if you did know that this particular Jew did believe in Torah
miSinai, you could count him. However, when you don't know the person's
beliefs, one can assume the individual who is affiliated C does not.

I also know C rabbis who are essentially Deist (believe that G-d created
the world and let it run). Having a skeptical attitude toward nissim
will push more people in that direction.

The second question may well be shemiras Shabbos, because its violation
is tantamount to kefirah. One *might* argue, though, that someone who
actually followed C law WRT Shabbos was not mechalel Shabbos to that
extent.

The issue came up in elementary school. The school hired a non-O secular
studies teacher, and the teacher chose to come early every day and join
us for minchah before class. The hanhalah was tactful about it, but one
day a couple of the 8th grades were out, and he would have been our tenth.
The hanhalah didn't count him, and called up someone who works nearby.

My father ended up asking the menahel about that decision. Seems they
follow the Satmar Rav, who would not count a tinoq shenishba (TSN) toward
a minyan. That's a childhood memory, obviously I didn't retain a source.

As for the sources lehaqeil, see RDE's post of 24-Jun-2005
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol15/v15n038.shtml#11 he cites the IM
(OC 1:23, 2:19, 3:14), and Tefillah Kehilkhasah, and TK in turn cites
the Chakham Tzevi and the Meishiv Dovor, and other acharonim (RDE just
leaves a "...")

We are nohagim like the IM, at least non-chassidim and L do. (As in my
story above, it's clear that there are other chassidim hold like the SR,
which is kedarkam baqodesh.)

Perhaps RET's daily email comes from someone not in a kehillah where
RMF carried as much weight?

RMF, however, excludes C and R rabbis and cantors from the category of
TSN, his statement was only about the masses. As I usually add in this
recurring discussion, I'm not sure he would have still said so today,
a generation removed. I have some idea of what's taught at JTSA today,
and am not sure they fit RMF's description. They are taught many things,
but not that much of what we call Torah. In fact, in the mid-90s, when
I last checked, they had more required hours of bible criticism than of
shas or halakhah.

OTOH, RMF must have meant this as a rule of thumb when you don't know the
individual. Because in cases where RMF knew the C rabbi was personally
observant, he did accept him as an eid. I can't picture a rationale that
would accept him as kasher le'eidus, but a kofeir WRT minyan.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy,
mi...@aishdas.org        if only because it offers us the opportunity of
http://www.aishdas.org   self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              - Arthur C. Clarke

Are you saying that unless we know forcertain that a C Jews is not a Kofer - we cannot count him into a Minyan?
?
I don't see how you can say the HaMon Am of C has a Chezkas Pasul. They are
mostly TNKs who don't delve into matters of Kefira. They join C for social
reasons. JTS graduates are another story.
?
HM

Want Emes and Emunah in your life? 

Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/

--- On Mon, 1/4/10, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:


I also know C rabbis who are essentially Deist (believe that G-d created
the world and let it run). Having a skeptical attitude toward nissim
will push more people in that direction.

RMF, however, excludes C and R rabbis and cantors from the category of
TSN, his statement was only about the masses. As I usually add in this
recurring discussion, I'm not sure he would have still said so today,
a generation removed. I have some idea of what's taught at JTSA today,
and am not sure they fit RMF's description. They are taught many things,
but not that much of what we call Torah. In fact, in the mid-90s, when
I last checked, they had more required hours of bible criticism than of
shas or halakhah.

OTOH, RMF must have meant this as a rule of thumb when you don't know the
individual. Because in cases where RMF knew the C rabbi was personally
observant, he did accept him as an eid. I can't picture a rationale that
would accept him as kasher le'eidus, but a kofeir WRT minyan.


      
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Are you saying that unless we know forcertain that a C Jews is not a Kofer - we cannot count him into a Minyan?

I don't see how you can say the HaMon Am of C has a Chezkas Pasul. They are
mostly TNKs who don't delve into matters of Kefira. They join C for social
reasons. JTS graduates are another story.

HM
====================
L"AD this is a time/place based issue - in the time of gemara a mchalel
shabbat bfarhesia was = min (mshumad depending on which text you look at).
Assumedly this was due to this act being like a public declaration of
non-belief. So was eating creepy crawlers .
KT
Joel Rich


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On Mon, Jan 04, 2010 at 04:09:14AM -0800, Harry Maryles wrote:
: Are you saying that unless we know forcertain that a C Jews is not a
: Kofer - we cannot count him into a Minyan?

I didn't say anything of the sort as my own opinion...
I wrote that I would bet the source RET was quoting was saying that. Not
that "no C or R Jew may be counted", but "unless you know, assume".
Certainly belonging to a movement which doesn't insist on TmS, the vast
majority of its ideologues argue against the concept, and there is
even an appendix on this point in the chumash they printed for general
synagogue use r"l, would be a serious ika rei'usa to that chazaqah,
and would lead me to assume that rov do believe kefirah.

That is not to say rov are koferim (to shift the chalos sheim from the
belief to the person). That brings us to the tinoq shenishba (TsN) issue.

Actually, I focused on RMF's pesaq, which is much like your take, but I
would have been more meiqil than you are:
: I don't see how you can say the HaMon Am of C has a Chezkas Pasul. They
: are mostly TNKs who don't delve into matters of Kefira. They join C for
: social reasons. JTS graduates are another story.

JTSA graduates are taught Torah with an anti-Tms bias. They are told "O
believes and tradition taught that ... but we know better because ..."
in a culture that at times makes traditionalists feel uncomfortable
members of the unenlightened. Is that really grounds for saying that
someone isn't a TsN?

TsN comes up on Shabbos 68a, as part of explaining a mishnah discussing
chilul Shabbos beshogeig. We repeatedly revisit the topic: Does knowledge
biased by simultaneously imparting skepticism make one less shogeig?

I don't think this was true of the typical C clergy (rabbi or cantor)
of RMF's generation. (Part of why I replaced your "JTS" with the more
modern "JTSA".) I am arguing the reality changed. But that's just me,
and the topic is a machloqes acharonim.

Furthermore, I added that even RMF's pesaq about R & C clergy probably
had exceptions, since there are known cases where a C rabbi was known to
be personally observant, and RMF accepted his eidus. Rather than argue
that minyan had stricter criteria than eidus, I would think this means
that even the teshuvah in IM was only speaking of where we don't know.

Again, shifting from discussing pesaqim to my personal inclinations: I
could see saying that a TsN who doesn't believe in a traditional concept
of deity can't be counted toward a minyan. Not belief in kefirah, but
meenus (Rambam, Hil Teshuvah 3:7: someone who believes there is no G-d,
or that the world has no ruler, or a polytheist, etc...) Not because
of his status, but simply because even a TsN can't daven to HQBH if
he doesn't believe He exists. (All talk about the "pintele Yid", who
obviously deep down would believe, aside...) Thus perhaps we could justify
stricter criteria for tefillah than for ne'emanus as an eid -- not that
this would apply to the case of an observant Jew who serves as a C rabbi.

However, according to the Satmar Rav, even a tinoq shenishba can't be
counted toward a minyan, and all of the above is irrelevent.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea
mi...@aishdas.org        of instincts.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507

 Working with my
partners in Torah chevrusa talking now about Shabbat.


 So how do I explain
the issur of electricity (boneh) Truth is I do not know enough about circuits

 and electricity to
really do it. But the  question will b how
is turning a light switch on building ?


And if one could create a type of device that is not boneh, does
that mean some lights could be turned on during Shabbat



 Thank you,

 

 Avroham

                                          
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