The Prohibition of Electricity on Shabbat: A Philosophical Look at the Melakha of Boneh (Column 397)
My remarks in this column are based on a series of classes I gave to doctoral students in our beit midrash while studying Tractate Shabbat (see the recordings in the video lessons, classes 50–53, and especially the last one).[1]
Introduction
As is well known, the vast majority of halakhic authorities prohibit activating electrical circuits on Shabbat. Opinions differ regarding the basis of the prohibition, and it is evident that the motivation to forbid preceded a precise understanding of its basis. It was obvious to the poskim that such a thing had to be prohibited, and from that starting point they proceeded to search for a biblical or rabbinic source. Indeed, all the sources that were found are problematic and difficult, yet despite this, there is currently no posek who permits the use of electricity on Shabbat.
The author of Beit Yitzchak was among the first to address the issue, proposing (in the addenda to §31 at the end of vol. II) to prohibit activating an electric circuit rabbinically because it “generates” (molid) a current. He viewed this as an extension of the prohibition of generating a fragrance, which appears in Beitzah 23a, even though that prohibition is not codified by most poskim, among them the Rif, the Rosh, the Rambam, the Tur, and the Shulchan Aruch. Only the Rema brings it as binding law. Others prohibit the activation of an electrical circuit on a biblical level because of mav’ir (kindling), at least when there is a filament. This approach too is not straightforward, since it is by no means agreed that the melakha of mav’ir applies to metal (and even if it does, it is not clear that closing a circuit constitutes mav’ir). For a critical survey see Prof. Lev’s article here.
Despite all the difficulties and disputes, the view of most poskim is to prohibit for these two reasons: generating a current and kindling. There are other opinions that prohibit because of makeh bepatish (final hammer blow), and the well-known view of the Chazon Ish forbids it because of boneh (building). Poskim who rely on precedent, of course, also take into account the view of the Chazon Ish, but heavyweight decisors (those who rule according to what they think and do not take everything written as binding) tend to ignore this view, describing it as highly exceptional and puzzling, and maintain that one need not be stringent for it in practice.
The central work dealing with electricity on Shabbat is Ma’orei Esh by R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. In its complete edition, vol. II, his correspondence with the Chazon Ish on this matter is presented, and those letters are among the primary sources for understanding the latter’s approach. Interestingly, in a footnote there (vol. II, §2, branch a, n. 12), R. Shmuel Auerbach, the son of R. Shlomo Zalman, notes that in his original plan for the book, R. Shlomo Zalman devoted a chapter to rejecting the possibility of prohibiting the activation of an electric circuit because of boneh, but decided to shelve it because he felt it was fighting a straw man. He relates that the great talmidei chachamim who reviewed the work wondered why anyone would think to prohibit electricity on Shabbat because of boneh?! And behold, shortly after the book was published, the view of the Chazon Ish appeared, asserting exactly that. Most of the second half of Ma’orei Esh HaShalem is devoted to filling that lacuna.
For many years I too, in my smallness, thought that the Chazon Ish’s innovation was very puzzling and should not be considered in halakha. What connection is there between activating an electrical circuit and the melakha of boneh?! Beyond the fact that in electrical devices this would be “building in utensils,” which is doubtful if it is prohibited at all, even in a household circuit it is very hard to see the resemblance between activating a circuit and boneh. Many assume the Chazon Ish meant the construction of the circuit itself, and some concluded from this that according to him there is a prohibition even in flipping a switch in a circuit disconnected from power (since at the end of the day, an electrical circuit is being “built”). These conclusions clearly contradict the Chazon Ish’s own words, as R. Shlomo Zalman also noted (see there, branch b). He was not talking about building the electrical circuit at all.
About two years ago, R. Shabtai Rappaport shlit”a (then head of our beit midrash) opened my eyes to a possible reasoning in understanding the Chazon Ish’s view. I later expanded the idea and ultimately became convinced that this is indeed a well-founded approach. In fact, to my mind it is almost compelling, and much more reasonable than all the other approaches. In this column I will try to explain it.
The View of the “Chazon Ish”
The primary source where the Chazon Ish addresses electricity on Shabbat is in his work, Orach Chayim §50, sec. 9:
His claim is that activating the circuit “establishes it in the condition for the flow of electric current continuously.” This turns the utensil into something that fulfills its purpose, which is boneh on a biblical level. This is said regarding an electrical circuit that is part of the house (attached to the ground), where the melakha of boneh applies. By contrast, with utensils (portable objects) the Talmud says there is no building or dismantling, and therefore ostensibly all this would not apply to movable electrical devices. But the Rishonim already noted that this rule has limits. When one makes a utensil from the outset, or when it is a craftsman’s act, or when he firmly wedges the parts together, then according to most Rishonim there is boneh even in utensils. The Chazon Ish’s claim is that here it is considered as making a utensil from the outset, because he turns the utensil from inert to active and thereby establishes it in its intended state. Therefore, activating an electrical circuit constitutes boneh on a biblical level even if done in a movable electrical device, and not only in the household electrical system.
He further cites the discussion among the poskim regarding a case where one wedges parts of a utensil into each other, where according to most opinions there is a biblical prohibition of boneh, and argues that with electricity this is considered as though one wedged the current into the wires:
“And upon turning on the electricity, whereby one introduces the current into the wires, it is always considered as wedging (toke’a)…”
He then discusses whether this constitutes permanent construction, since after all one can disconnect the current at any moment (open the switch), as many poskim indeed argue against him. He contends that in an electrical circuit this is permanent construction, since if we do not touch it, it will continue for a prolonged period. To disconnect the electricity one must perform an action (opening the switch), and in such a case activating the circuit is considered creating a permanent construction.
This is a different argument from the previous one. Before, he spoke about turning the circuit or device into an active entity (establishing it in its intended form), whereas here he relates to activating the circuit as constructing a utensil by wedging two parts (the current and the wires) together.
In that same source in the Chazon Ish there is also a third reference, according to which introducing electricity into a wire is “a rectification of form to the material,” i.e., conferring a new form upon the electrical wire. A wire with current has a different form from an inert wire.
In his letters published in Ma’orei Esh there is a fourth formulation, very similar to the third. R. Shlomo Zalman challenges why running current through a wire differs from opening a water faucet or bringing oil to the flame of a lamp. After all, one is merely opening a path for the electric current to reach the wire, just as one opens a path for water. To this the Chazon Ish responds in his letter:
Claim A is the second argument we brought above. Claim B is a new argument: passing current through the wire is repairing the wire “from death to life,” and this is boneh.
Note that contrary to the common picture in his name—the one that drew most of the criticism—he never writes that this is the construction of the circuit itself. That led some poskim to mistakenly conclude that according to him it is prohibited to connect even a circuit that is disconnected from its power source. In any case, these four formulations also drew considerable criticism, and they seem different from each other. The question is: what exactly does the Chazon Ish mean when he claims there is boneh here? What ties these rationales together? Are these four distinct reasons? The debates around them suggest that there is a unique approach here whose very foundations draw criticism, but precisely for that reason it is reasonable that everything rests on the same underlying principle innovated by the Chazon Ish. I will now try to explain that principle.
Defining the Melakha of Boneh According to the Rambam
For our discussion I will start from the picture presented by R. Isser Zalman Meltzer (author of Even HaEzel on the Rambam). His words appeared in a Torah article, and the gist is brought in Kehillot Yaakov to Tractate Shabbat §37. The picture that emerges from the Rambam’s rulings is that there are two types of toldot (derivative labors) of boneh: making a permanent tent (ohel keva) and forming cheese (megabben). In both, we must ask why they are boneh and why only toldot rather than the av (primary category). R. Isser Zalman explains that the paradigmatic builder, the av, is constructing a house. When building a house one creates a functional space by gathering parts together (bricks, beams, and iron with mortar and concrete). Therefore, the av of boneh is defined as generating a space (ohel) by gathering parts. Making a permanent tent creates a space, but here it is not done by gathering parts, rather by stretching a sheet over the space—hence a tolda. Megabben (coalescing curds into cheese) is a gathering of parts that does not create a space; therefore it too is a tolda. The complete picture is that the av of boneh has two features, and each tolda has only one without the other.
R. Isser Zalman and the Kehillot Yaakov continue to discuss the implications regarding building in utensils and resolve various difficulties in the Rambam’s position. Their claim is that creating space in utensils is not prohibited—apparently because it is not a permanent space. Only creating a permanent space counts as building, like an ohel keva. But gathering parts counts as building even in utensils, that is, in movable objects, as in forming cheese.
A Logical Difficulty: The Transitivity of Similarity
This yields a rather surprising logical structure. People usually think that similarity is transitive: if A is similar to B and B is similar to C, then A is similar to C. But here that is not the case. The two toldot are not similar to each other at all, since each one’s similarity to the av lies in a different parameter. One can, perhaps, accept that, since the similarity to the av is along two different axes.
But beyond the intuition of transitivity, there is a more substantive problem: which of the two components of the av is essential to its definition? Simply, both are, for there is no reason to include peripheral components in the fundamental definition of the av. But if both parameters are essential, then the absence of either should be a substantive deficit in the similarity. That is, a tolda that has only one of them is not similar to the av and should not be prohibited. If, however, only one of the features is essential and the other is a side condition, then there should be only one tolda. For example, if the gathering of parts is the essential feature and space is a side condition, then gathering parts that does not create a space (megabben) is indeed a tolda. But creating a space without gathering parts should not be prohibited at all under boneh, since the essence of the melakha is not present. The same would apply if we took the opposite view, that creating the space is essential and gathering parts is side. Likewise, if each of the two parameters is important, yet either one alone suffices to incur boneh, then we should define two distinct avot: gathering parts would be one av and creating space would be another, and megabben and making an ohel keva would each be a tolda of a different av.
Bottom line, it is unclear how there can be a picture in which there are two toldot, each similar to the av in a different parameter:
- If either parameter suffices on its own—then we have two avot, not one av with two features.
- If only one parameter is essential and the other a side condition—then only one of the toldot should be a tolda of that av and the other should be permitted.
- And if both parameters are essential, then neither of the two should be prohibited as a tolda.
Notice that the intuition of transitivity returns through the back door: after working through the reasoning, it emerges that similarity between av and tolda should indeed be transitive.[2] Below I will try to show that transitivity can be maintained here, if we interpret the logical structure of this picture somewhat differently.
A Proposal for a Different View of Boneh
I wish to argue that the essence of boneh is creating an organism. Building is the gathering of parts in such a way that the whole becomes something with an independent meaning beyond the sum of its parts. An organism (not necessarily in the biological sense, where reproduction is central) is defined as an integral whole whose parts are fused together into a single entity in which they are all subsumed. After assembly, the parts no longer have independent meaning and sometimes are not even discernible. This resembles what the Rogatchover calls a “mezeg” composition (as opposed to a “shekhunah” composition, in which the components are not fused but reside side by side, each retaining independent existence. See also column 396 on this). My claim is that in boneh one takes bricks or beams and joins them together to create a complete structure that has an overall functional meaning. On the individual–microscopic level there is a collection of joined parts, but on the collective–macroscopic level there is a complete entity composed of all those parts: an organism.
What Is an Organism?
The organism at issue in boneh is not alive. But to better understand the concept, it is helpful to consider the human body, or any living body. The organs are linked symbiotically, and the functioning of each cannot occur independently. None of the organs has meaning outside the whole. Thus, it is incorrect to say that our legs walk. The more accurate description is that the person walks by means of his legs. Similarly, the person smells by means of his nose and sense of smell, or sees by means of his vision. So too, the brain does not think; rather, the person uses the brain to think. Thought has meaning not within the brain but only at the level of the person as a whole who uses that brain. Indeed, the intellect (which belongs to our mental dimension) uses the brain (which is a biological organ, just like the legs).
An Example from the Inanimate
To sharpen this and move closer to our discussion of boneh, consider an example from the inanimate world. A computer consists of various components. One can consider this assembly at several levels of integration, with entirely different rules at each level. One may look at the level of elementary particles moving within it, governed by quantum field theory. At that micro level, there is merely a collection of particles. One may also consider the computer at the atomic level, where quantum mechanics rules; still no computer, only atoms side by side. If we rise to the level of transistors, we are in solid-state physics. The next level is basic hardware units (logic gates), where logic laws are relevant. Finally, one can look at the functional level of the computer (its units: memory, CPU, I/O, each composed of logical units), where the governing rules belong to computer engineering (hardware). And we have not even spoken of software, which too can be viewed at various levels.
So what exactly is “the computer”? The computer is not located at any one of the integration levels described. These are levels that thicken as you go up, each describing the parts composing the computer. The computer is the whole emergent from all these, and it is there—and only there—that computations occur. In fact, it is not even quite accurate to say that the computer as a whole performs computations. The computer is an inanimate physical object that manipulates voltages and drives electrons hither and thither. The computation exists only in the mind of the computer’s user, the one who uses it. When he sees on the screen the notation 2 + 5 = 7, he assigns it the meaning of an arithmetic addition operation. From the perspective of the inanimate hunk itself, it is beams of electrons striking locations on the screen such that the typographic shape 2 + 5 = 7 appears. The meaning arises with the user viewing the screen, or with the programmer who wrote the software and the manufacturer who built the hardware. In truth, all the integration levels described exist only in our minds and not in reality itself. In reality there are only collections of elementary particles. We assign the complex system various interpretations at different integration levels, each composed of many parts belonging to the lower level.
This description illustrates what an organism is, detached from biology: a cybernetic system whose parts interlock to act symbiotically as a whole. This is precisely how Chazal view a structure or a house, and this is the product of the melakha of boneh.
Does the Organism Exist?
Philosophically, one can argue that an organism is a fiction. What truly exists in objective reality is only collections of particles, and everything else is our interpretation rather than a description of reality as it is. We commonly treat a collection of electrons orbiting a nucleus as an atom, a collection of atoms as a molecule, a collection of molecules as a cell, and a collection of cells as a living being (such as a person), and so too with the computer.
A similar debate exists regarding human collectives. There is an individualist view that the collective is a fiction and that only individuals really exist. They argue that, for various practical reasons, we define collectives (a people, a nation, a community, co-religionists, or a football club), and thus created them ex nihilo at the conceptual level. By contrast, a collectivist view holds that a collective (not necessarily every collective) may have existence beyond the set of individuals who compose it.[3]
At first glance such a view seems somewhat mystical. In what sense does the collective really exist? Where is it seen? Is it not obvious that it is merely an arbitrary definition? But upon further reflection, one may ask the individualists: whence the assumption that the individual exists in reality? He too is nothing but a collection of organs—or perhaps cells—or, in truth, molecules and atoms, or, if you wish, a collection of elementary particles. Is the individual person also a fiction, an arbitrary definition?
The intuition that regards a living cell as a real existent rather than a fictional collective of particles is based on the fact that the cell is an organism. Likewise, the aggregate of cells and particles composing a person function together symbiotically as one large body; thus they too constitute an organism. But this is true also of a human society (and even a non-human one). Where exactly is the boundary? Each such collective has cybernetic mechanisms that regulate individuals so that they function as a system, or a whole. Why do many people feel there is a substantive difference between a person and a society of people?
If one assumes the existence of a soul, that perhaps eases thinking about this. The soul animates all the parts of the body and turns it into a single whole (see Berakhot 5a). Thanks to it one can relate to the person as an entity that exists, and not as a fiction defined by the collection of parts that compose it. But it seems to me that even thoroughgoing materialists will say that a person is an entity that exists, not merely an arbitrary definition. There is a sense that if the whole is an organism—that is, a “mezeg” composition—and not merely a collection of parts in a “shekhunah” composition, one can regard it as an entity with its own existence.
Emergence
One area rife with discussion about the meaning of “organism” is in neuroscience and the philosophy of mind. Our brain is a very large collection of neurons functioning as an organism, akin to a massive and sophisticated computer. The question is the relationship between this whole and our mental functions. A person thinks, wants, feels, remembers, imagines, experiences pain, and more. All these processes are purely mental, yet it is commonly thought that the brain is what generates them. As I wrote above, the person thinks by means of the brain—and likewise feels, wants, remembers, and senses by means of the brain. What is the relation between these mental processes and the physical processes in the brain (primarily electrical currents passing between neurons and producing different voltage levels) that produce them?[4]
Dualists see this as expressing the existence of another component in the person, beyond matter, called nefesh, ru’ach, or neshama. What do materialists say? Many claim that mental phenomena “emerge” from the material whole. In their view there is no need to posit another spiritual component. It suffices to assume that the human being is purely material. How do mental processes arise? A material aggregate like our brain—an organic collection of neurons—generates mental phenomena. This is what is called the doctrine of emergence.
The American philosopher John Searle, one of the first to champion emergence (though it was not yet called by that name), brought an example from the inanimate world. Consider water, for instance. Water is a liquid; that is, it has the property of liquidity. Water consists of a collection of H2O molecules. Can we say that a single water molecule is liquid? Certainly not. Liquidity is a state of matter (like solid or gas), and as such characterizes only aggregates of particles, not a single particle. A state of liquid reflects a flexible relation between particles; thus, it is not a predicate of a single particle. Who, then, is the bearer of the property “liquidity”? The collective of water molecules. At the level of the single molecule, the property does not exist. It is irrelevant there. Searle argues that this is what happens in our brain as well. The aggregate of neurons is characterized by mental properties and processes, even though each neuron is a simple biological entity to which such properties cannot be ascribed.
The problem with Searle’s example is that with water we understand very well how a collection of molecules at given temperature and pressure attains the liquid state. The properties of the single molecule determine, in a determinate way, the resulting collective state (liquid or solid). A single molecule is not liquid, but its properties suffice to explain the collective state of a collection of such molecules. We can do the calculation and show this clearly. By contrast, in the context of the brain and mental processes no one today has an explanation of how this occurs, nor even a language with which to describe such a process. How do mental functions emerge from an aggregate of neurons? Emergence here is a bare assertion (to my mind far more mystical than the dualism it seeks to oppose by accusing it of mysticism) without any scientific backing.
When materialists finally understood this difficulty, they invented a new distinction: strong and weak emergence. The water example reflects weak emergence, whereby the collective (macro) property can be reduced to the properties of the individuals (micro). But this, they say, points to the possibility of strong emergence: the arising of collective properties that cannot be reduced to those of the individuals composing the collective. In their view, the mental is the result of strong emergence from the material whole called “brain,” and therefore there is no need to posit a non-material substance.
But this distinction empties the entire argument of content. One can, of course, assert the existence of strong emergence. But the force of Searle’s claims was that he brought a familiar example from inanimate science to corroborate the thesis of emergence. However, if you think about it, you will immediately see that one cannot bring a scientific example of strong emergence. Moreover, it seems one will never be able to bring such an example. I will prove this by contradiction. Imagine that someone found such a scientific example: a collective property X that does not exist at the level of the individuals composing the collective, and it is clear to us that there is nothing in the mixture beyond the set of individuals. What would this example need to show for us to accept it? We would have to prove that there is nothing in the mixture beyond the individuals, and we would have to show that such a collection indeed produces the collective property in question. But how can one show this scientifically? Only by presenting a calculation that proceeds from the properties of the individuals to the collective property. In that case there is no reason to posit another hidden component responsible for that collective property. But then, by definition, this is weak emergence, not strong. If, however, we have no such calculation (that is strong emergence), then we can never claim scientifically that the collective property is an emergent product of the set of individuals and nothing more (i.e., that there is no additional component). For it will always be possible that there is another component (a soul) that is responsible for the collective property. One may insist and claim that this is not the case, but then the example has not advanced us at all. We are still in the same debate based on axioms rather than scientific findings. Science does not help us decide it.
My claim is that one can treat even weak emergence as an organism. A building is composed of bricks and mortar, and it is clear that the whole can be fully reduced to its components. There is no need or sense in positing a soul for such a building. Nevertheless, it is certainly reasonable to claim there is a new functional whole here, since it has functions that its components do not. To me, even such a structure is an organism.
Another Look at a Non-Living Organism
To move forward, consider, for example, the debate over vitalism. Vitalists argue that in moving from physics and chemistry to biology, another component is added to the living body (or plant) beyond the physical material. This is a vital component—the “stuff of life.” Biologists today reject this view disdainfully. Without entering the question of whether this rejection is justified (I think not), it is clear that the only way to reject the claim is to present a calculation based solely on physics and chemistry that leads to biological laws. So long as no such complete calculation is presented (to my knowledge none exists yet), the claim is ideological–philosophical, not scientific. And when such a calculation is indeed produced, then by definition the emergence in question will be weak. But so long as there is no such calculation, the claim is to strong emergence, and precisely by virtue of being strong it cannot have any scientific basis. At this stage it is a philosophical claim.
Note that the debate over vitalism does not necessarily touch on the question of dualism. One can be a materialist and still espouse vitalism: he claims there is living matter responsible for biological life processes—without any relation to mental matters and the human soul. Even living matter devoid of thought, awareness, will, feelings, etc., still exhibits biological processes; it is not merely physics and chemistry. As such, one may claim it requires a vital component. This example also shows that the organismic nature of the human body is not necessarily connected to mind and soul. The very fact that it functions as a cybernetic biological system means it is an organism. Whether its organismic functioning is mediated by a soul/spirit or by vital matter is irrelevant for our purposes here.[5]
The conclusion is that an organism need not have mental or spiritual components. A physical system that functions organically can also be defined as an organism. In such a system, the parts lack independent significance. We now have a whole in which all the parts are subsumed, and the meaning of the system and the actions of all its parts exists only at the level of the whole (the collective). Even a staunch materialist and anti-vitalist will concede that the human body is an organic system. In this sense, a building is a kind of organism as well. Of course, not a biological organism, but the same is true of a computer. Moreover, even regarding our brain—although it is made of biological material (neurons)—the statements about its organismic nature refer to its logical functioning and computations, not to its biology (as with a computer).
To sum up, constructing a building is taking parts and creating from them an organism. A whole that has functions of its own, where the parts have no meaning as such except as parts of the whole. I claim this is precisely the definition of the melakha of boneh.
Back to Boneh and Building in Utensils
Consider a human body (a corpse) lying on the floor. Is that an organism? Certainly not. It is a collection of cells residing side by side. They are still physically connected (temporarily), but they do not function as an organic whole. In such a state each cell stands on its own and their connection is “shekhunah,” not “mezeg.” What would happen if someone now blew into this corpse a living soul? (In practice, it would suffice to blow a vital nefesh into his nostrils.) He would thereby turn it into an organism, for now we have a person—a symbiotic organic whole of cells. It is important to understand that turning these dead and separate parts into a functioning whole also constitutes a joining of them in the essential sense, even though one did not physically attach any one to another. The joining is functional, but that is the essence of an organism’s joining—its parts become a single entity by virtue of their joint functioning, regardless of physical attachment (think of a human society, which is a collective even though there is no physical attachment between its individuals). My claim is that if this were done on Shabbat, the doer would thereby transgress boneh, for he gathered the collection of cells and turned them into a functioning whole. He created from them something that extends the notion of “building.”
In the case of a building made of planks or bricks, or of forming cheese, the collective is a set of identical parts. Their quantitative gathering is what effects the change. But one can view the joining of parts of a utensil similarly (the handle and head of a hammer or hoe). There, it is not a collection of identical parts whose mere quantitative gathering turns them into a collective, but the joining of very specific parts that differ from each other. Still, if before the joining each part had no meaning and the whole of them yields a functional structure with meaning at the collective level, one can see that too as the creation of a building. As we saw with the computer organism: it is not composed of identical parts, yet the whole has functional meaning; therefore there is an organism.
There is the well-known example of the Ship of Theseus. Theseus sailed in his ship and was caught in a storm. He went to a dry dock where several planks were replaced and the ship repaired. Later he noticed some planks had rotted. He returned to the dock and again several planks were replaced. After enough time, not a single plank from the original ship remained. Is it still the ship of Theseus?[6] The same happens with the human body: after enough years, not a single original cell remains. Is it still the same person? All these are compositions that create a collective from non-identical parts, yet what emerges is an organism, a building (or structure).
This is what defines building in utensils. Unlike forming cheese or constructing a house, with utensils we join non-identical parts, e.g., a handle and the head of a hammer or hoe. But, as the Rishonim write, in utensils the joining is considered building only if one makes the utensil from the outset—that is, previously there was no utensil and now there is a functional utensil. Also, “wedging” (teki’ah) is required—a firm, irreversible joining. Otherwise nothing new has been created; it is a “shekhunah” assembly that happens to be in a different functional state by chance and temporarily. Some require that it be a craftsman’s act as well—and again, for the same reason: where anyone can join the parts and create the whole, it is hard to say something new was created. It is a disassembled utensil that one assembles toward use; he has not created the utensil. Therefore, in such a case it would not be boneh.
Closing an Electrical Circuit
We can now return and understand well the words of the Chazon Ish regarding closing an electrical circuit on Shabbat. His four rationales cohere with what I have described. The Chazon Ish argues that boneh is the creation of a functional structure out of its parts. His first rationale is that one “establishes the thing in its intended state.” That is clearly turning the circuit or device into an active and functional structure. His expression about “wedging” the electricity into the wires is not to say there is building in utensils because he firmly wedged the current, but rather that connecting the current into the wire produces a different structure of the wire itself (in contrast to opening a water faucet—as the Chazon Ish explained in his letter). The explanation is that he “awakens” the wire from death to life—another formulation he uses—that is, the wire becomes “alive,” like inserting a soul into a body. Infusing vitality into the wire constitutes the joining of the parts of the wire that previously lay side by side in a “shekhunah” composition (as with the corpse), transforming them into something alive and active. A functional whole is created; hence there is a joining of parts which is boneh.
It is important to understand that the fact that the circuit functions is not the main point here. It is an indication that the wires and device have become something different than before. The prohibition is not operating the device, but changing it—turning it into an active entity. A stream of water can also perform an action (like powering a turbine or a mill), but the pipe does not become something else when the faucet is opened; therefore there is no boneh there. This is his additional formulation about “rectifying the form of the material.” All these formulations are different expressions of this conception of boneh. Once one understands them thus, all the questions raised against them dissipate.
A Further Look at the Parameters of Boneh and the Relation Between Av and Toldot
We can now understand somewhat differently the relation between the av and its toldot. Above we noted the problem of the transitivity of similarity. In light of our analysis, I wish to propose a modification to R. Isser Zalman Meltzer’s picture, thereby also addressing that difficulty.
First I wish to ask: what are the parts that are joined when one builds a building? Simply put, one would think of the bricks or beams that create it. But I wish to argue that we are speaking of joining the parts of the space to one another. A house is not only walls and ceiling, but primarily the space enclosed by them. In that space is where the use occurs.[7] The physical structure—the walls and ceiling—is meant to enclose and define a functional space. Before the building was constructed, the space was not a defined and distinct unit. Its parts were like the metal components of a wire without current, or like cells in a corpse: merely pieces of space residing side by side, not even distinct from the rest of the world’s space. When one encloses the space within a structure, the inner space itself becomes a functional unit, and all its parts are joined to one another and also to the bricks and beams of the walls, ceiling, and floor. All these together connect to create a functional whole—an organism. Enclosing the space operates exactly like passing current that awakens the wire and device from death to life and from separation to functional connection. The function of the building arises from the space and the walls together; therefore, the parts that attain organismic essence by virtue of building are the combination of the space and its surrounding frame.
We can now see that the problematic logical structure sketched by R. Isser Zalman and the Kehillot Yaakov is not necessary. The definition of building is the joining of parts to become a functional, organismic whole. Creating a space is not part of the definition of building, but when enclosing a space, one thereby joins its parts into a whole; hence that is part of the outcome of building. In a regular house this is done by constructing walls and a ceiling out of bricks or beams, which joins the parts of the space into a whole. That is the av. The two toldot are acts of joining parts into a whole: megabben is joining parts precisely as R. Isser Zalman and the Kehillot Yaakov explained. The difference is that in my model, making an ohel keva is also a joining of parts, but this time of the parts of the space (there is no joining of parts in creating the structure itself).
You can now see that transitivity of similarity between av and toldot indeed holds, and all along a single parameter (not two, as in their account). All these are actions that join parts into a whole. The av is the joining of parts of a structure that itself joins the parts of the space. Megabben is joining parts of a structure alone, and making an ohel keva is joining parts of space alone. Therefore these two are toldot. Moreover, the joining of the parts of space in an ohel occurs via “ḥak tokhot” (hollowing from within), meaning this joining arises automatically by enveloping them within a structure. In a regular building, the envelope (the structure) is also a joining of parts; thus, there is an active joining by the builder. Of course, in megabben that is also the case.
We conclude with building in utensils. Building in utensils is joining non-uniform parts to create a portable functional whole. As we saw, such an act has the status of building only if one makes the utensil from the outset and wedges it (and perhaps a craftsman’s act is required as well). The explanation remains as above. I will now add that creating a space in utensils is not a tolda of boneh (unlike an ohel keva). The reason is that joining parts of space does not create a meaningful whole if the space created is not stationary. The utensil’s frame delimits a space that constantly changes; thus, one cannot view that as turning existing parts of space into a functional structure.
From here we understand what the Rambam writes (Shabbat 10:16): inflating a glass utensil—even if done from the outset (and not merely improving an existing utensil; see Kehillot Yaakov there)—is not a tolda of boneh but makeh bepatish. In my view this is indeed creating a space, but with the creation of space in a utensil, the joining of parts of space is not considered boneh.
Further Implications
The conception I presented regarding boneh has several further implications. R. Isser Zalman himself questions smoothing the ground in a house, for which one is liable because of boneh (Shabbat 10:12). Seemingly, there is neither a joining of parts nor creation of space. He explains that if the house is already considered a structure (having undergone building), then any addition to it also incurs boneh. This is a surprising novelty and lacks cogency, as the Kehillot Yaakov notes. But on my approach, the matter is simple: when you smooth the ground, you add something to the house’s space, and thereby you build. Beyond that, even if we do not focus on the slice of space added to the house, by this act you improve its functionality, and therefore this too is considered boneh.
R. Isser Zalman further questions there regarding making an ohel keva, which is a tolda even though it involves joining parts (connecting the sheet to stakes or poles) and creating space. He resolves that it is in a case without joining parts, such as one who makes a cave (?). The Kehillot Yaakov already notes that this is very puzzling. Again, on my approach there is no need for this, since even in a regular tent there is a joining of parts (the parts of space), and what makes it a tolda is not the absence of joining but that the joining occurs by “ḥak tokhot” (automatically). Therefore there is no need to posit a tent without joining parts. One might still ask why the joining of the tent’s parts itself—which is done by hand—does not suffice to make it an av. Perhaps because this is not joining of the usual kind (like joining identical bricks, where the quantitative arrangement of the whole creates something new), as in megabben and in building a utensil from the outset. It is joining more akin to building in utensils.
At the end of the section, the Kehillot Yaakov discusses one who makes a hole in a chicken coop (to allow light in) who is liable for boneh (Rambam, Shabbat 10:14). He enters into the question whether the coop is attached to the ground or not. But on my approach this is unnecessary, since the hole turns the coop functional; thus it is akin to introducing current into a wire or an electrical device—and that is indeed boneh. The Tosafists in Shabbat 102b discuss making the hole as making an opening and examine whether it is suited for entry and exit (see the lengthy treatment in the Kehillot Yaakov). But on my approach this is not making an “entrance,” but improving the coop’s functionality; therefore, it is boneh, and hence it does not necessarily depend on the opening’s character (whether suited for entry/exit).
A Possible Implication Regarding “Gerama Devices”
As is known, various techno-halakhic institutes (like the Zomet Institute, etc.) build electrical devices for use on Shabbat. They rely on various bypass mechanisms, such as circuits operating by indirect causation (gerama) or by maintaining a pre-existing state, etc. These methods are currently accepted, at least in pressing circumstances and great need, but they are the subject of significant debate. One of the principal and systematic opponents of this approach is R. Yitzchak Brand (see his website, for example in this article). Beyond general claims about the “spirit of Shabbat” and emptying prohibitions of content via circumventions—which, to my mind, are not especially strong (see column 275)—and beyond the very discussion of gerama on Shabbat (it is not so simple that it is not biblically prohibited), there is a substantive claim of his that I will restate in light of what I have said here.
He claims that microscopic gerama mechanisms are no reason to permit the use of an electrical device. At the end of the day, you are driving a vehicle like a mobility scooter, and the fact that inside the current is triggered via gerama is not visible to the eye and therefore irrelevant to the halakhic discussion. What determines is what a reasonable person sees. You press a button and the vehicle starts moving; hence it ought to be biblically prohibited. The relevant integration level is the macro level seen by the layperson, not the micro level accessible only to specialists and scientists. Furthermore, he argues that the method of gerama in such a case is not exceptional: this is the normal way the scooter operates—by gerama; that is how it is built. The permit of gerama applies only where this is not the usual way to perform the act in question. Thus, in his view, such actions should not be permitted. One can debate this as well. It is indeed the usual way to operate the scooter, but it is built in an unusual manner. Were it not for the laws of Shabbat, no one would build it thus, but with a regular mechanism (without gerama).
In light of what I have argued here, the matter can be formulated more strongly, at least from within the Chazon Ish’s conception that sees the prohibition of activating an electrical circuit as boneh. Ultimately, as we saw, the “building” he speaks of is not the construction of the electrical circuit, nor the operation of the current. The building is the infusion of life into the inert device; that is, it is defined by the outcome of the act—the creation of a new functional whole. Now, it is very plausible that the way the current is triggered inside the device is irrelevant to the prohibition. If the prohibition were upon a particular action, then doing it via gerama might permit it. But if we define the prohibition by its outcome, then any normal way that creates a new functional whole and awakens it from death to life should be prohibited because of boneh. We are looking at the device at the integration level of the whole, and at that level what occurs at the microscopic level of the internal circuits is meaningless.
[1] I first presented these ideas in a pair of lectures I gave in Shoham a few years ago (one of them was recorded here).
[2] One could, with difficulty, say that each of the two parameters is essential, but not sufficiently essential that its absence would fully exempt; its absence merely moves us from av to tolda. But one must remember that a tolda is not supposed to be less severe than the av, and therefore not less creative either. If it lacks something in creative measure, it should not be prohibited. Hence such a formulation is forced, and as I will show below, it is unnecessary.
[3] I have written in several places about implications of this conception: regarding targeted killings (see columns 5 and 151), regarding the duties of public office and the laws of charity (see my essay here), regarding the public’s responsibility for the acts of its leaders and representatives (see column 67), and more.
[4] As a libertarian I think that some processes in the brain are effected by the mental and not vice versa, but I will not enter that here. I am dealing only with the question of dualism, not libertarianism.
[5] In Kabbalah, five parts of the human spiritual dimension are distinguished: nefesh, ru’ach, neshama, ḥaya, and yeḥida. The nefesh is the vital component that pertains only to our biological–physiological life. The ru’ach and neshama relate to the higher mental functions.
[6] This may relate to the dispute among the Rishonim (see, e.g., Ran, Nedarim 47a, and in Parashat Derakhim, discourse 8 “Derekh HaKodesh,” where it is discussed at length) regarding one who vowed not to benefit from his father’s house and the house fell. Is a house rebuilt afterward from the same stones still his father’s house? And similarly they discuss one who divorced his wife on condition that she not go to her father’s house and the house fell (see, e.g., Rashba and Ritva, Gittin 21b, and in Parashat Derakhim there).
[7] It is interesting that there is a dispute between the Rashbam and the Tosafists in Bava Batra 79a (see s.v. “Mo’alin bo”) about one who is forbidden to benefit from a pit: is he prohibited only from the space but permitted to use the walls, or are the walls also prohibited? It is clear, however, that the essence of the pit is the space, and the walls merely define and delimit it. Without walls, the space would have no significance; but once there are walls, the “pit” is the functional space.
Discussion
In a certain sense, building is present in almost every other melakhah, since every melakhah is basically the creation of something new from raw materials. Therefore, when there is another defined melakhah, there is no point in defining it as building. Building of this kind is in fact the melakhah of kindling. Building that does not fit under any other melakhah is building.
According to this, though, I would have expected the Jerusalem Talmud to say that anything for which we find no av should be placed under building, not under the final hammer blow. But that too is a strange statement.
The corpse troubles me. It is indeed not an organic whole. It has no “use,” and it is on its way to decomposing. One can compare it to a ruin, a destroyed building, which also has no use and is also on its way to falling apart—yet we are still not speaking merely of parts lying next to each other, but of a single entity, at least in the perception and consciousness of the human observer. What is the relation between functionality (which has been lost) and the consciousness that sustains the collection of cells and parts as one entity?
Perhaps from this one should conclude that building applies only where there is an aspect of construction—that is, a kind of assembly, which is what braiding hair and curdling cheese have in common, and therefore they can be considered derivatives of building. By contrast, electricity cannot be derived from building, because it contains no “constructive” aspect at all.
I didn’t understand the part about strong emergence.
If the collective property is a necessary consequence of the individuals, why can it not be reduced to them? And if it is not a necessary consequence of them, then why not call it a separate substance?
R. Hillel Zaks used to say that this is the melakhah of sewing. What do you think about that?
What transformation is there in assembling little curds of cheese into one block that would bring it under building in the way the Rabbi explained?
It seems to me that we are dealing with reduced particulars identical in their properties to the enlarged whole.
A. There is a difference between curdling cheese and closing an electrical circuit. Closing the circuit is not permanent like the cheese. The cheese cannot be returned to its elementary components, whereas with closing a circuit one can open it easily and eliminate the “organism” one created. One could see this weakness as a kind of non-permanent act that does not rise to the level of building (or the final hammer blow).
B. If closing a circuit creates nothing perceptible, why should it count at all?
I didn’t understand the difficulty. That is exactly the meaning of an organism. Do you think a corpse is an organism? The observer sees the corpse as one entity only because of inertia—he is used to seeing the living person that way. There is no basis for it.
You are repeating my question but in a less precise formulation. In principle, there could be a situation in which there is a collective property of some whole, emerging at the collective level, but it cannot be reduced to the micro-properties of the individuals (derived from them). What I claimed is that there can never be scientific proof of this.
Regarding the melakhah of sewing, the accepted view is that this is literal joining. There I am not familiar with conceptions and proofs for the view that it is about creating a functional body. Therefore the proposal of the melakhah of sewing is the worst possible one, because all the objections that were justly raised against the Chazon Ish and that I resolved according to my proposal would remain entirely in place under the melakhah of sewing.
And still, the cheese is the complete block. True, no new property appears there, but a different functionality does appear there. People do not eat cheese crumbs. They eat a block of cheese.
A. Indeed, one can see a difference (and many argued this against the Chazon Ish. Incidentally, also against the Beit Yitzchak. See the article by Prof. Lev that I linked to), and one can also choose not to. As I wrote, since returning the circuit to its prior state requires an action (it does not happen on its own), it seems to me by logic that this is a continuing state.
B. That is exactly what I wrote. What is the question? Do you mean a circuit through which current flows without any resulting action? That is worth discussing. Granted, it awakens the wire from death to life, but imperceptible life is not necessarily called life. “But you who cleave to the Lord your God are all alive today.”
You can conclude that, and then you will be left with all the difficulties on the Rambam, and even more so on the Chazon Ish.
The reasoning and the explanation still require more thought from me, but a few side points:
A. Regarding transitive similarity, elsewhere https://mikyab.net/posts/71152#comment-49226 you also referred to the structure of a continuous metamorphosis, where adjacent links follow one another but the ends are not similar. And there you gave an example from Sotah 17a: tekhelet resembles the sea, and the sea resembles the sky. And Rashi explains: similar to something similar.
B. You brushed under the rug in note 2 the fourth possibility—that each of the parameters is essential and sufficient on its own. In the discussion of ideas (https://mikyab.net/posts/71393#comment-49712) I understood you to say that an idea cannot be defined with an “or” over characteristics, but can with an “or” over ideas (and I didn’t understand why there shouldn’t always be an “or.” You should know I spoke with that operator and he was deeply hurt).
C. As for collectives and entities, the discussion is recurring, so I will suffice with a declaration: the question whether things “exist” has no logical importance ever. A “correct” discussion is according to purposes and not according to definitions.
Not an organism. Something else. Like the broken tablets lying in the Ark. They have significance. Consciousness. Memory.
D. Do we first decide that a certain action is a “melakhah” and only afterward assign it to the closest av, or is there a threshold requirement of sufficient relatedness to an av in order for a certain action to count as a melakhah? If we first decide that a certain action is a melakhah, then that could affect the flexibility in extending each av. It could also explain your distinction that we do not invoke a common denominator in the melakhot of Shabbat (except for R. Menashe of Ilya whom you cited, whose honorable emendation remains in its place). It would also explain disputes of amoraim over whether a given derivative belongs to av A or av B, so that this will not be two separate unrelated disputes (whether it is similar enough to av A and whether it is similar enough to av B). But your whole discussion implies that you understand the direction to be the usual one (the second possibility), and that melakhah is defined as avot and their derivatives. Is that really so, and why?
“Bottom line: it is unclear how there could be a picture in which there are two derivatives, each of which resembles the av in a different parameter.”
By the way, there are other Shabbat melakhot that have derivatives from different parameters making up their av (for example plowing. Its av is loosening and improving the soil for the sake of introducing seed, and the derivatives are divided among preparation for sowing [making a hole], loosening the soil around a tree to improve its growth, and preparation for plowing [removing stones]).
What about a mechanical elevator with pulleys (like those used by builders/window cleaners)?
Is it permitted to use it to go from floor to floor when the person ascending pulls on a rope?
A. Nice point. But here we are dealing with a discrete axis and not a continuous one, and it is harder to reach a situation where there is no similarity. Though of course one can interrupt the sequence (discretization) and get such a thing here too. But on second thought, none of this belongs here. The similarity in our case does not proceed like metamorphosis, because in metamorphosis one is speaking of a change in the intensity of some parameter until it disappears. Here we are dealing with entirely different parameters. There is no similarity that disappears; rather, it is not similarity at all. The argument I raised regarding the derivatives makes it very clear why there should be transitivity here.
B. There is no reason to define a concept by means of “or” without a good reason. In note 2 I explained why here that is not plausible. My apologies.
C. Indeed, we are repeating ourselves.
I do not think there is any rule here. In electricity it is quite clear that they first decided it must be prohibited and then looked for a peg to hang it on (or a tree to be hanged from).
Your solution to the absence of a common denominator is nice. I need to think about it some more. By the way, R. Menashe of Ilya speaks about conceptual construction, not a common denominator.
As for your actual proposal, it is clear that this is not the accepted conception among the Rishonim and the halakhic decisors. Even in electricity, where it is clear that in practice it worked this way, no one explicitly admits this. In principle, you have thirty-nine avot, which are the sources, and you can extend them. The question is how the avot themselves were determined, and on that there are three views among the commentators on Tosafot at the beginning of Bava Kamma.
Memory is a subjective matter. In building one has to create an organism.
A correct point. But in plowing it is clear that it is defined by context, not by the character of the melakhah. The context is improving the soil for growth, and anything that helps that is included in plowing, no matter what the character of the action itself is. In other words, you can see the similarity among all the derivatives in that they all bring about growth or improve growth. The difference is in the character of the melakhah, but not in its product. In building according to Ra"z, the difference is both in the product and in the character of the action. There is no connection whatsoever.
I do not see any essential problem with this (so long as the person does not fasten the elevator rope in place but only pulls and holds it). But why is this related to our discussion?
The question remains whether they looked for a peg the way one strains for a היתר for an agunah, or whether they identify melakhah-ness by direct discernment and then assign it to the “closest” av. There is always a “closest” av even if there is no near av.
Indeed, conceptual construction (one of the loveliest ideas on this site, in my humble opinion).
What about disputes over whether a derivative belongs to av A or av B—do you understand these as two unrelated disputes (and only by chance no amora ever happened to think that a derivative belongs to both avot or to neither)?
Does tying a horse to a wagon also build a new organism here?
I did not understand the difference between the two possibilities. What is direct discernment? You have nothing beyond the list of avot.
Regarding disputes over under which heading to prohibit something, there is an assumption that one does not prohibit a melakhah under two avot (not a common denominator and not conceptual construction, but two independent grounds). So too among the commentators on the Rambam who raise such contradictions in his rulings—for example, that he prohibited something once משום building and once משום the final hammer blow—and for some reason they do not consider the possibility that it is prohibited on both grounds (when he deals with the laws of building he brings it as an example of prohibited building, and when he deals elsewhere with the laws of the final hammer blow he brings it as an example of the final hammer blow). They too assume there is no melakhah prohibited under two avot independently (again, not a common denominator and not conceptual construction).
However, if one raises the possibility that it is prohibited on both grounds (and I recall later authorities who wrote this), then indeed these disputes in the Gemara come out to be two independent disputes.
As for the fact that no amora raises the possibility that it is prohibited under both avot together, perhaps that is not accidental. These disputes are precisely in those places where both sides are certain there is only one av. In a place where a melakhah is prohibited by both, the Talmud simply would not bring a dispute about it.
In my opinion it is hard to say that. True, the boundary is not sharp, but the horse has significance without the wagon and vice versa. Their connection is a neighboring attachment and does not create a different reality. The connection changes neither the horse nor the wagon. In that sense it is not even similar to fixing the handle into the hoe.
According to your approach, if I understood correctly, a person who breathed the breath of life into a human being would be liable משום building. Why then is one who kills a person not liable משום demolishing?
By direct discernment I mean that even without the list of the thirty-nine melakhot, Hazal would know how to determine directly for each action whether it is a “melakhah” forbidden on Shabbat or not (though they still have not succeeded in defining melakhah positively). And only for purposes of warning do they assign each melakhah to one of the thirty-nine, that is, to the closest one. And if there are two at the same level of closeness, then yes, it is assigned to both—but that is one prohibition, not two prohibitions at once. I learned this long ago from Rashi on Shabbat 138a, s.v. denotel okhel, where he writes that according to Rabbah one may warn for straining משום selecting or משום sifting. But one violates only one prohibition (I’m not immersed enough to know what led Rashi to this).
You draw around each av melakhah a circle of what resembles it, and what lies outside all the circles is permitted. Another possibility is that there is no bounded diameter; rather there are points in space that are melakhot (by direct discernment as above), and among them are thirty-nine special points called avot, and each point is assigned to the nearest av, even if in practice it is as far from it as a cannon shot. Maybe this is not accepted, but is there any proof from logic or Gemara against it? [Unfortunately I have not learned enough Shabbat, but it seems to me this idea made life easier for me in several sugyot. Though perhaps easier life in the sense of throwing out outlier data points from the experiment.] In any case, just a suggestion.
I also do not understand your suggestion that “it is not accidental.” If the disputes are independent, then in the very place where both sides are sure there is only one av, why did there not also appear a middle opinion that there are two avot? If such an opinion did not appear, then statistically it is only because not enough amoraim were born into the world.
[By the way, the suggestion that it is not accidental reminded me of what is brought in the name of the Chazon Ish here in a post by “Shetef” https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%99%D7%94-%D7%A8%D7%97%D7%91%D7%94%5D
1. Why does someone who opens a pipe that channels water which powers millstones not violate משום building?
You mentioned it but I didn’t see an explanation. Seemingly it is exactly like “creating” a device by means of electricity.
2. A device that is already operating and you use it—it is hard to see that as a new creation. If we take a computer waiting for a command and you ask it to solve 5+2, would we say that this is a new tool that displays what 5+2 is? If the answer is yes, then using any tool creates a reality; for example, sticking a fork into a potato creates the reality of the fork as the potato’s handle.
For two reasons: 1. It is not demolishing in order to build in its place. 2. There is a separate av for this: taking a life. See my reply above: https://mikyab.net/posts/72275#comment-52533
I understand. I answered this above.
There are not all that many such places, so the statistical explanation is not implausible.
Nice 🙂
1. I explained this. The flow of water does not turn the pipe into something different. I explained that operating the device is not the prohibition, but only an indication that the wire is now something else.
2. Agreed. But activating the device from a non-operating state is indeed building.
What is a wagon worth without a horse to pull it?
First, it has some use, even if less efficient. Second, when you attach a horse to it, it does not become something else and is not absorbed into it.
But it receives life from the horse. This is the same question Pinchas asked about a flow of water in a watermill. According to the Chazon Ish’s words, every machine that receives any energy source is built from that energy source. What difference is there between horse and wagon, water and watermill, or electricity and computer? All of them are machines charged with energy, and by virtue of that energy they receive a new form. Just as a computer gets meaning from electricity, so too a watermill or windmill gets meaning from the flow of energy embodied in water or wind, and likewise the wagon gets meaning from the horse attached to it.
I am not disputing the understanding of the Rambam; I am simply wondering whether the introduction of energy changes anything in the state of the tool, or whether the tool is already fully built and the energy merely operates it without rebuilding it.
Bottom line—your move nullifies all the grama leniencies of the Tzomet Institute and the like.
Doesn’t it?
First, let me congratulate you on your entry through the gates of the emergent world.
Second, strong emergence exists! See the article:
-undecidability of the spectral gap
Toby S. Cubitt, David Perez-Garcia & Michael M. Wolf
Nature volume 528, pages 207–211 (2015)
A quote from the abstract:
Our result implies that there exists no algorithm to determine whether an arbitrary model is gapped or gapless, and that there exist models for which the presence or absence of a spectral gap is independent of the axioms of mathematics.
And I want to emphasize: this is not a case of computational difficulty as in chaos. This is an undecidable problem—they reduced it to Turing’s halting problem.
Receiving energy does not mean changing. That is exactly the distinction on which the Chazon Ish insists. A wire with current is not a dead wire. It is something else. It is not a wire with current, but a different object. When I push a baby carriage down the street, I have not turned it into something else just because it moves. I do not know how to explain something so obvious. You are focusing on a formal similarity (that in both cases there is an energy source), but that is not what is at issue.
You raise a difficult question. I’m not sure it nullifies them. The reason it is not certain is that even if the prohibition is defined by the result, there is evidence that grama leniencies nevertheless work: creating fire or extinguishing fire by grama. Truth be told, all grama leniency on Shabbat is problematic, because it is not really clear that there is such a leniency. Rashi’s view in Bava Kamma 60a is that grama on Shabbat incurs a sin offering. Much has already been written about this, and various distinctions have been proposed.
I need to read it inside. I do not believe strong emergence can be proven. It is clear to me that either this is not what they are saying, or they are assuming a non-necessary assumption, as I described in the column. And if it is about the axioms of mathematics, then it is all the more clear. Either they presented a computation, in which case it can indeed be proven and this is not strong emergence, or there is no computation, in which case it is an unfounded assumption. I do not see how anything else is possible.
Turing’s halting problem itself, as I understand it, is not related to strong emergence. You prove that there is no Turing machine that succeeds in carrying out some calculation. So what? And even if, in addition, you showed me that in practice there is some object that does carry out that calculation, the conclusion would be that it is not a Turing machine—that is, there is something more in it. You will not be able to show me a Turing machine that performs a calculation Turing machines cannot perform. That is an excellent illustration of my claim.
By the way, I recall a lecture by our friend Ido Kanter in which he showed such a problem in a neural network (equivalent to the halting problem). I do not remember the details.
Please clarify this further. Seemingly even one dispute is enough. If Amora 1 says “similar enough to av A and not similar enough to av B,” and Amora 2 says the opposite, then for every additional amora there is an equal chance of randomly landing on the view that it is similar enough to both or not similar enough to both. So the chance that Amora 3 randomly lands on a view that coincides with Amora 1 or 2 is exactly one half. Therefore, if there are ten amoraim in the study hall and all of them line up with Amora 1/2, that is a one-in-a-thousand chance. (As opposed to a process officially defined such that first one identifies melakhah-ness and then assigns to the closest av.)
It is good that sometimes one can argue over words of Torah and not (only) politics…
If “creating a building is taking parts and creating an organism composed of them,” then it is unclear why curdling is forbidden but making a vegetable salad is permitted (setting aside the prohibition of grinding). A salad is an essence very different from a collection of chopped vegetables. (I heard that you are of Hungarian extraction, like me, and perhaps as a Hungarian you will answer me that what has been added here is a new essence unifying the particles—the paprika…). Likewise, gathering ten Jews for a minyan should be forbidden, since בכך ten individuals have become an “organism” with halakhic significance. And if you say that in both these examples there is indeed building, but it is only temporary building, since the salad is intended for immediate eating and the minyan for this prayer and then disperses—your answer would be that we have never heard such a distinction between curdling for immediate eating and curdling for eating later.
In truth, there is not even one av among the thirty-nine primary melakhot whose definition is easy and smooth. Above someone asked about the melakhah of sewing and you answered what you answered, and still (to my taste) you did not answer—what is the difference between sewing and building? In both melakhot we are talking about creating a functional “organism.” The sewer connects pieces of fabric to one another and creates a “garment.” By the same token, the distinction between cooking and baking, and more, is also unclear to me. But I did not come here to propose my own definitions (among other reasons because I do not presume to claim that the sugya is clear to me). However, it is fitting to place here the testimony of Dr. Zvi Yehuda (one of the Chazon Ish’s students), as brought in the book of my friend, Prof. Benjamin Brown, The Chazon Ish: The Halakhist, the Believer, and Leader of the Haredi Revolution (chapter 7, section 4, p. 580):
“We once spoke—I do not remember exactly when—when Rabbi Goren published an article in Sinai about electricity […] This infuriated the Chazon Ish. […] I asked him: ‘What is there in this article that infuriated you so much?—Is he not right?—What do you want from him?’ So he said: ‘The mistake here is great. The world is mistaken. The world thinks that the prohibition of electricity on Shabbat is well founded and one must seek proofs to permit it. That is not true! The prohibition is totally unfounded, and one must find sources to ground it.’ That is what he said to me. He said it in Yiddish: ‘The world is mistaken. They think the prohibition is clear, and one has to look for permissions. But it is not so! The prohibition is not clear, and one has to search for prohibitions.’ Then I asked him: ‘Why?’ And he said: ‘Imagine: nowadays, when all technology operates on electricity, if we permit electricity on Shabbat—will we still have a Shabbat?’ That is what he said to me explicitly. He revealed a meta-halakhic approach. When he found the category of ‘building,’ that was his heroic effort to find something which he himself, in his heart of hearts, knew was not logical. The Chazon Ish insisted stubbornly on this subject because it touched the apple of his eye.”
This testimony also connects to your words regarding “general claims about the character of Shabbat and the emptying-out of the prohibitions through workarounds, which in my opinion are not especially strong claims.” From Dr. Zvi Yehuda’s testimony it emerges that at least in the Chazon Ish’s eyes these claims were the heart of the matter, because of which he (almost) invented the prohibition of building, which deep down he did not really believe in.
At the margins, a comment (not really related to the content of the column) regarding the transitivity of similarity. Here I take my life in my hands (for I have no philosophical pretensions), but the transitivity of similarity is not supposed to be perfect. People say that I resemble my late father, and that he greatly resembled my grandfather of blessed memory, who resembled my great-grandfather of blessed memory, and so on. If we continue the transitive chain, then we all resemble our forefather Abraham, and if so I resemble you, Heaven forbid, and where will we end up? What saves both of us is the fact that when I look at a photograph of my great-grandfather, I see only a rather distant resemblance… (I now saw that someone commented on this here from the Gemara in Menachot about tekhelet resembling the sea, etc.—more power to him).
That is indeed the reason I find it difficult to accept his words.
Well, sorry for the irrelevance, but I can hardly refrain from mentioning here the third chapter of “The Booklet on Common Sense and Sick Sense” by Franz Rosenzweig, especially its concluding paragraph (there, p. 61)—
“And yet, the place of the philosopher, who refuses to buy cheese only because in French its name is fromage and therefore it is ‘not’ cheese, will be in a house whose residents all, if one does not count the nursing staff, are philosophers.”
Indeed, Ido dealt with such things.
The physicalist (and anti-emergentist) assumption is that, given the basic laws for the building blocks, I can (in principle) know what happens to the collective of the building blocks. And that, given the building blocks and the laws of the lower level (for example: physics), I can construct / calculate / predict everything that happens at the level above it (chemistry). The proof via the halting problem proves that there is at least one case in which this cannot be done, and in a very simple system (many stories below complicated things like life or consciousness). That is strong emergence. Not at the level of description, but in the real world.
There is an approach saying that electrical devices are exempt from immersion of vessels because the completion of the vessel is only with their connection to electricity.
In light of your words that in connecting to electricity there is the creation of a new organism, do you agree with this claim?
I also join the question regarding food cooked by a gentile on an electrical appliance. הרי the electricity is renewed every moment without relation to the first cook (who, to be more precise, only builds).
It does not work like that. Suppose there are five such disputes in the Talmud. And the chance that such an amora will not be found in a given dispute is small, say 10%. Then it is not implausible that he would not be found in five disputes. Especially since amoraim are influenced by the opinions of their teachers, etc.
Indeed.
The definitions here are not sharp. But it seems to me that everyone understands that a salad is not a new essence, and it is very different from a wire with current as opposed to a wire without current, especially since here one can see each part on its own and no new general essence is created. Similar questions were raised above, and of course there is an element of sevara here. But the distinction sounds entirely reasonable to me.
In curdling, by its very nature, it is not done for immediate use, unlike a salad.
As for the difference from sewing, I answered. You may of course disagree, but to me it seems very reasonable.
As for the testimony, it is interesting. But the conclusion does not follow from the Chazon Ish’s statements. He could argue (an argument with which I disagree) that in any case it must be prohibited even if only afterward a source is found for it. But that does not mean he was not fully comfortable with the source. Go and see: in the Chazon Ish’s discussion he deals seriously with the question of the source—whether it is generating current, kindling, or building. On your view there is no point to that discussion at all, and he should have prohibited it from all directions. Beyond that, the Jerusalem Talmud says that anything for which no av is found should be attached to the final hammer blow, and I would have expected the Chazon Ish to attach it to the final hammer blow, not to building. Therefore the attachment to building still requires explanation and justification.
As for the fact that in the Chazon Ish’s eyes these arguments were strong—I fully accept that. That is obvious, and I wrote this in the trilogy regarding his inventions about the two thousand years of Torah, etc.
Regarding transitivity, see what I answered the questioner about tekhelet.
I don’t understand. 10% is huge. I presented a calculation (a conservative one) that gets to 0.1%.
I repeat again and say that this is not correct. There is a logical mistake here. Even if one cannot derive the macro-law from the micro-laws (there is no reduction), that is still not strong emergence. You must in addition assume that in the macro there is nothing whatsoever beyond the micro-details (for example, that there is no soul in addition to neurons), and that is exactly the point under dispute. I claim that you can never prove that scientifically, for by the very definition of strong emergence there is no calculation here that shows the micro suffices to yield the macro. So how do you know there is not something more here?
As for the halting problem, I wrote that in my opinion it proves nothing of the sort, because you have not shown that there is a machine that succeeds in solving the halting problem, and that this machine is built only of Turing machines. On the contrary, probably even if there were such a thing it could not be built only of them. That is evidence to the contrary.
Zechariah,
Possibly, but not necessarily. If it is the final hammer blow and not building, then I would agree. But with building, it is possible that the prior device is a complete device made by a gentile and therefore requires immersion. Connecting it to electricity turns it into something else.
K,
Fire too is renewed every moment by the fuel. For our purposes he placed it on the operating electrical appliance. It does not matter whether every moment is hypothetically considered a new activation. I also do not assume that it is a new activation every moment. You assumed that. My words referred only to the initial activation.
And I answered in two ways: 1. The amoraim are influenced by their teachers. 2. The disputes that appear in the Talmud are those in which there is no similarity between the melakhot, and therefore the distribution of opinions is extreme.
But all these are pushes. As I wrote at the beginning, perhaps you are right.
By the same logic, by the way, one could follow this leniency and that leniency if there is no contradiction (but you did not agree. It is here https://tinyurl.com/uy7f4ut4 inside a long discussion with “Shu’a”).
If the disputes are independent, then the reason (the only reason!) that there is no official opinion of a tanna/amora who holds both this leniency and that leniency is infant mortality in the relevant period.
In disputes of an entire House of Shammai against an entire House of Hillel, if indeed each dispute stands on its own (and not, say, that there are five essential disputes and the rest are derivatives of them), then one must assume that each house determined its opinion by majority vote (and this idea, that one narrows the majority to a relevant subgroup, could have implications).
Either each house determined its position by majority vote, or there was influence of the great sages upon their students, and thus mostly uniform opinions were created within each house. And it is clear there were such strong influences, both in the Talmud and afterward.
True, but this seems problematic. What is the point of counting a majority if a group is influenced by the maestro (and if it had gone to a different maestro it would have been influenced by him instead)?
When a court has an outstanding master, his student, and another outstanding master, do we not follow the majority because the student was influenced by the master? (In general thinking, etc., even if they begin with the junior.)
As a matter of fact it is clearly true that there is strong influence. But one should distinguish between a case where a person follows a rabbi because he feels obligated to accept his words, and a case where he is convinced his teacher is right. In the second case there is room to count him as another opinion, but in the first case one should not count him in addition to his teacher. As with Torah scrolls: when there is an error, one follows the majority, but one does not count scrolls copied from other scrolls in addition to their source.
I am referring only to the second case, of course (if the Tur rules like the Rosh because of honoring his father—an absurd idea in my view—then of course we do not count them as two). Why “is there room to count them as two” if we assume that his opinion today was de facto determined by his decision at age 8 about which study hall to attend?
One can add a further difficulty: cooking often creates a new essence—a compound of the materials being cooked in which the original ingredients cannot be identified by eye—and yet we do not find anyone who makes one liable for cooking also משום building. As said, the definitions are not sharp, and since I have no orderly doctrine on the matter, I suffice with that.
Even so, it seems to me that Dr. Zvi Yehuda’s testimony דווקא teaches that the Chazon Ish was not comfortable with the source and in effect “invented” a Torah-level prohibition on electricity in order to preserve Shabbat in Israel. But that is a matter of interpretation.
But… I have heard the argument from the Jerusalem Talmud many times (mainly from R. Asher Weiss but also from others), and in my eyes it is a wondrous exposition. From the plain sense of the Jerusalem Talmud it seems that R. Yohanan and Resh Lakish spent some three and a half years classifying melakhot that were already clear to them (from tradition or scriptural exposition) to be melakhot forbidden on Shabbat. To the best of my recollection, there is not the slightest hint in the Jerusalem Talmud that they created a new prohibition under the heading of “the final hammer blow” for a melakhah regarding which they did not already have a clear prior tradition that it was forbidden. Perhaps for that reason the Chazon Ish was not quick to adopt the easy solution you propose for him.
In the second case, we are speaking about him ruling like his teacher because he agrees with him. So what is the question? The fact that his current view is influenced by the study hall in which he decided to learn changes nothing. It is also influenced by the books he has read, the atmosphere around him, and the society in which he was raised. All these are not external factors but are absorbed into the soul of the decisor, and now he himself is that whole, in gross terms. What he himself thinks is counted as an independent opinion.
Beyond the fact that there is simple reasoning here, without this you would be utterly lost in the study hall. There is no one whom you could cleanse of influences. Perhaps then we should not count decisors who grew up in the same place or read the same books?
Even if they did not create a new prohibition under the heading of the final hammer blow, still when one looks for a source for some prohibition it is plausible to attach it to the final hammer blow. If its definition allows one to place under it any melakhah one knows to be forbidden, the most plausible thing is to place electricity under it when you assume it is forbidden.
Following your post about peer disagreement: he has no choice but to go by his own opinion, but I from the outside certainly look at all of them merely as truth-meters, so why should I relate to him as a separate meter? Truly, my hands and feet are lost in the study hall.
It seems to me that you are choosing to be lost. In any case, I also brought you the suggestion that this is a matter of education, which in my view is the most plausible.
Suppose as you say. If so, why on earth did R. Yohanan and Resh Lakish waste some three and a half years classifying the melakhot under avot when they could simply have included them all under “the final hammer blow”? It is plainly evident that from their perspective this is a last resort. Indeed, “when one looks for a source for some prohibition it is plausible to attach it to the final hammer blow”—but that is only on condition that it is already known in advance to be forbidden. When the very prohibition is itself in question—the guarantor needs a guarantor.
Therefore the Chazon Ish could not make life easy for himself and prohibit electricity under “the final hammer blow,” for he himself admitted (according to Dr. Zvi Yehuda’s testimony) that the very prohibition itself was not at all clear to him. If so, how could he “assume” that electricity was forbidden and place it under “the final hammer blow”? First he had to prove the very prohibition of electricity on Shabbat, and only afterward could he place it (also) under the wings of “the final hammer blow.” Therefore it seems to me, as the plain sense of the testimony suggests, that the Chazon Ish “invented” the prohibition of building in electricity in order to preserve Shabbat in Israel, and you yourself agree that in the Chazon Ish’s eyes this was a powerful argument.
Perhaps I did not stress sufficiently that I did not come to reject your innovation regarding the melakhah of building. As I noted, regarding none of the melakhot of Shabbat do I have an orderly doctrine. (All the definitions I have seen seem difficult to me in several respects.) My main intention was to bring Dr. Zvi Yehuda’s testimony, which can shed light on the Chazon Ish’s own hesitations in the matter.
I still do not agree. If it was clear to him (by logic, since here there is no tradition) that it had to be prohibited, and he decided to invent a prohibition, then the most plausible thing would be to place it under the final hammer blow. That is the most general av, which can contain everything under it. So instead he invents a prohibition of building, about which he himself is doubtful? That is not plausible. As I wrote, his entire discussion of the parameters and sources of the prohibition teaches against the conclusion you drew from the above testimony (and, as I said, the conclusion in itself does not follow from the testimony).
Could you explain why a wire changes its essence when electric current flows through it?
I do not see a difference between that and the difference between a wheel at rest and a spinning wheel.
With God’s help, 19 Tammuz 5780
To Aryeh—greetings,
A wire in itself remains a wire, even if electricity flows through it. But a device turns from an inanimate “stone” into something moving and active when electricity flows through it, and in this it has received a new essence.
With blessing, Yaron Fishel Ordner
Regarding a glowing wire as a result of electric current, decisors have discussed whether it should be considered a “live coal of metal,” which is deemed fire; all the more so there is reason to say that a wire through which high voltage flows to the point that one who touches it is burned—there is reason to consider it fire. But the Chazon Ish’s discussion is about low voltage that does not produce incandescence, and yet it would still be considered melakhah משום “building,” since it was transformed from “inanimate” into a “living,” functioning device.
The Chazon Ish speaks about the wire and not about the device. A current-bearing wire is itself a different wire from a wire without current. It is hard to justify such things, but by simple logic it is clear (to the Chazon Ish and to me) that this difference is not like the difference between a spinning wheel and an ordinary one. This is a way of looking at reality.
Is it permitted to be alive on Shabbat? It activates electrical chemical circuits in the brain.
And still the difficulty remains in place: why did R. Yohanan and Resh Lakish waste their time for three and a half years if they could have included everything under “the final hammer blow”?
One can think of several possible answers (“to magnify Torah and glorify it,” for example). But in my humble opinion the simplest answer is that if they had acted that way, the people would not have accepted it. Imagine an ignoramus watering his garden on Shabbat, and one warns him משום “the final hammer blow.” Would he accept such a warning? More likely he would dismiss it as a cheap joke. And all the more so when the Chazon Ish came to innovate the prohibition of electricity on Shabbat, he could not suffice with the catch-all av melakhah of “the final hammer blow,” because the public (and apparently also its Torah scholars) would not accept it, and therefore he had to trouble himself to find arguments to include electricity under a more specific av melakhah (and even so his view is considered esoteric in halakhah).
If I understood you correctly, you claim that your basis for prohibiting electricity as the melakhah of building is not connected to the Chazon Ish’s arguments but is independently your own. Cheers. But the Chazon Ish’s own lips spoke clearly (according to his student’s testimony): “The mistake here is great. The world is mistaken. The world thinks that the prohibition of electricity on Shabbat is well founded and one must seek proofs to permit it. That is not true! The prohibition is totally unfounded, and one must find sources to ground it” (and in the original Yiddish the words are equally explicit). These words admit of no other interpretation except that the Chazon Ish himself did not believe in assigning the prohibition of electricity to building and in practice “invented” it in order to preserve Shabbat in Israel, as he himself explained to his student later in the testimony cited above. You yourself argued that such “inventions” were not foreign to the Chazon Ish’s path (“the two thousand years of Torah,” for example, though there I disagree with you and this is not the place).
Indeed, R. Asher Weiss simply says on the basis of the Jerusalem Talmud that the prohibition of electricity on Shabbat is משום “the final hammer blow.” I noted that I do not grasp the full depth of his view and explained why. Even so, he already lives in a world where the prohibition of electricity is rooted in the consciousness of the masses as an unquestioned and undoubted Torah prohibition. The Chazon Ish lived in a very different world. I heard from my late father that in his early years as a new immigrant (my father arrived in the Land in 1948), he saw with his own eyes pious and upright Jews, mainly from the Eastern communities, who on Shabbat practiced full leniency regarding electricity.
I am no rabbi and no decisor, and the heart does not reveal itself to the mouth, but privately I incline to believe that the prohibition of electricity on Shabbat should be sought not in Orach Chaim but in Yoreh De’ah (“a vow of the public,” an ordinance, “things permitted which others adopted as prohibited,” and the like, somewhat akin to the prohibition of legumes on Passover for Ashkenazim). The practical ramification is obvious. For example, on the day electric ambulances come into use, one should prefer them on Shabbat over ambulances powered by internal-combustion engines, in order to minimize Shabbat desecration. (That is true even according to those who hold that the prohibition of electricity on Shabbat is rabbinic.)
Full disclosure: despite what I have written, in practice I myself refrain from electricity on Shabbat like all faithful Jews. Just because I imagine something, should I act on it?
One could be lenient under the rubric of a melakhah not needed for its own sake…
With God’s help, 19 Tammuz 5780
To Mordechai—greetings,
One cannot establish certainties on the basis of hearsay—one person reporting in the name of the Chazon Ish something not heard from him either by his other students or in his writings. Certainly one cannot make “inferences” from words when we do not know the exact wording the rabbi used, for a change of one word can alter the meaning from one extreme to the other.
In any event, the meaning of what was reported by Dr. Zvi Yehuda is not as you understand it, namely that the Chazon Ish had no well-grounded source. What the Chazon Ish said concerned the words of the other decisors, who derived the prohibition of electricity from kindling or creating a new entity and the like. About that the Chazon Ish said that this was not sufficiently well founded, and that one must seek other sources and proofs in order to ground the prohibition.
His grounding was by reasoning that in electricity there is the melakhah of “building”: just as creating a vessel from the outset is considered “building,” so too one can say that “breathing the breath of life” into something inanimate and turning it into a device functioning autonomously thereby creates a “vessel.”
A halakhic decisor has an intuition that a certain thing ought to be forbidden or permitted, but intuition alone is not enough; it obligates the decisor to find for it a halakhic grounding in sources. Intuition told the Chazon Ish that it is unreasonable that electricity, which is the peak of human technical ingenuity, should not be considered “melakhah.” The halakhic anchoring was in the melakhah of “building,” which also includes the creation of a “vessel.”
An example of the matter is what one of the decisors said regarding permitting an agunah: first he thinks intuitively, “Is there any chance that the husband is alive?” Only when it is intuitively clear to him that the husband is dead does he begin looking for evidence halakhically admissible to establish that.
Intuition is not a substitute for careful halakhic inquiry based on sources and proofs; rather it is an incentive to search for halakhic proofs and sources.
With blessing, Yaron Fishel Ordner
As for people from the Eastern communities who practiced leniency regarding electricity, it seems to me this refers to Yom Tov, where there were indeed sages who ruled that it involved only “transferring fire,” since they regarded the current in electrical wires as existing fire. But on Shabbat, when even “transferring fire” is forbidden, we have not heard of any decisor who permitted it.
A clarification of the various approaches to the prohibition of electricity, and modes of leniency in pressing circumstances—in a booklet of the Military Rabbinate, to which “Ariel” linked (in his response to the article by R. Yehuda Yifrach, “Electric Shabbat,” on the “Mussaf Shabbat – Makor Rishon” site).
With blessing, Yifa"or
Indeed, it is difficult to establish certainties from a single hearsay testimony, and I did not claim that halakhah should be decided on that basis. As I recall, additional students of the Chazon Ish also reported similar things in his name. Dr. Zvi Yehuda’s testimony appears in the book before me, so I was able to copy and cite it verbatim. As for the others, I would have to do research to locate them, and I do not have the time. (I am responding during breaks I am forced to take from work because of various aches and pains, heaven spare us…). Be that as it may, in my humble opinion, if we accept Dr. Zvi Yehuda’s testimony as it is presented in my friend Prof. Brown’s book, I see no possibility of a fair interpretation different from what I wrote above. The Chazon Ish himself answered R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach’s astonishment by saying that “the matter depends on judgment,” implying that he had no clear source. But the judgment of one sage does not obligate other sages who think otherwise.
As for the use of electricity on Yom Tov among the Eastern communities—the matter is well known. But as I recall, my late father described to me widespread use of electricity on Shabbat among members of the Eastern communities as he saw in the transit camps and housing projects in the early days of the state. By the way, from one of the grandsons of R. Ovadia Yosef of blessed memory, who learned with me in yeshivah many years ago, I once heard that there were sages of the East who leaned toward fully permitting electricity on Shabbat. But I did not mention him in my earlier comments, since I have no written sources readily available to point to, and I have no time to search for them. If any of the readers here knows, I would be grateful if he would direct me to them.
I see no difficulty at all. They did not waste their time, because they were looking for a true source. Whatever did not fit for them would go under the final hammer blow. The question why the source matters is already answered by the Gemara at the beginning of Bava Kamma: at least according to the view that one is not liable for two offenses for a derivative in the place of an av, and also in order to clarify the parameters of the various avot. Not about every melakhah did they know in advance that it was forbidden and merely search for a peg to hang it on. There are melakhot where the discussion was whether to forbid them. In melakhot where it was clear from the outset that they were forbidden, if they did not find another av they would put them under the final hammer blow.
As for the explanation that the people would not accept it—it is ridiculous when one considers the alternative of building. The people, and Torah scholars too, die laughing when they see that (as described by R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach).
No. I claim that this was the Chazon Ish’s intention, and that emerges clearly from his various formulations. True, I also say that even without him I would say this (if I had managed to think of it without his trigger).
As for Ratz"i’s testimony, I already answered above. The conclusion does not follow from it in any way. On the contrary, from the Chazon Ish’s writings it clearly emerges that this was a genuine search, and the testimony does not suggest the opposite. The conclusion is self-evident.
A psik reisha and a melakhah needed only so as not to need its own result are permitted in a case of a psik reisha that is beneficial to him.
To Mordechai—greetings,
Dr. Zvi Yehuda’s understanding, translating “zukhen issurim” as “to look for sources for the prohibition,” clearly indicates that one must “look for” a source, not invent one. As I explained: intuition is an incentive to seek an acceptable halakhic source.
With blessing, Yifa"or
Not only among the Eastern communities. In Europe and America too there was a tendency to permit electricity on Shabbat until the 1950s. One of the great rabbis of Modern Orthodoxy in America, Rabbi Dr. Leo Jung, permitted the use of an elevator on Shabbat (not a Shabbat elevator).
The prohibition began to gather momentum starting in the 1950s.
To Yifa"or,
Although Yiddish is not my mother tongue, as one who grew up in an Austro-Hungarian home (daily Hungarian spoken, and basic German understood), it seems to me that you are mistaken. Literally “zukhen” means to search, but in colloquial speech as I learned from my late grandmothers it also means to dig up, to ferret out. To a German speaker it is as clear as day that by “zukhen issurim” the Chazon Ish meant “zukhen” in the sense of “searching under the ground.” Presumably in Yiddish it is the same thing (but necessarily juicier…).
Of course, the Chazon Ish did not mean baseless inventions without taste, root, or branch, but finding a source, however strained, on which to ground the Torah-level prohibition of electricity on Shabbat. I still adhere to my understanding that from Dr. Zvi Yehuda’s testimony, as well as from the Chazon Ish’s correspondence with R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, it emerges that the Chazon Ish did not really believe the prohibition was Torah-level, but looked for every possible way to root that in the hearts of the masses for the reasons he mentioned. But at this point the debate becomes sterile, and let each person choose the interpretation that seems right in his own eyes.
With God’s help, 20 Tammuz 5780
Seemingly, there is room to compare the connection of an electrical wire to making an opening designed for bringing in and taking out (about which Rav and Shmuel disagreed whether it is משום building or the final hammer blow), and likewise one can say that the electrical wire is made to bring in and take out current, and if so it would be considered creating an opening.
With blessing, Yifa"or
And seemingly the Chazon Ish’s reasoning, according to R. M. A.’s explanation, is clarified in the plain sense of Scripture, for the creation of the woman from the rib is called building, as it is written: “And the Lord God built the rib.” So we see that creating a living organism from something inanimate is defined as building.
With blessing, Yifa"or
Rabbi Eliezer, who makes one liable for braiding hair and applying rouge משום building, learned his view from this verse; he merely went one step further and held that adornment itself is called “building,” and in this the Sages did not agree with him. But regarding the very definition of creating an inanimate organism as building, it is possible that the Sages too would agree.
And perhaps, just as a labor needed for the making of the Tabernacle is defined as “melakhah,” so too we should say that all the more so a labor that will be used in the Eternal House that will be built speedily in our days should be defined as melakhah?
For when the Third Temple is built, they will certainly fulfill the commandment “And let them make Me a sanctuary” with all advanced technical means, electrical devices and computers, etc. There is therefore strong reasoning to say that whatever will count as “skilled labor” in the building of the eternal structure will likewise be defined as “melakhah” regarding Shabbat, and from that building activity of the Temple we should refrain on Shabbat.
With blessing, Yifa"or
Why shouldn’t we look at an electrical circuit like the flow of water in a faucet, so that when one opens the faucet (and in an electrical circuit, the switch), the water (the electrons) flows, and a new structure is created that “conducts” water?
I’ll answer in the column.
Right, I missed that part..
A very strong idea, but I wonder: what other melakhah do we find where the only “building” done is the infusion of life and not the physical action of connecting parts? Meaning, at the very least there has to be source material for which this is a derivative. Because ordinary building is both joining parts and creating something new. Here the joining of the parts already exists (or in the case of a dead body, for example), and only its definition as something alive and real, with significance in its own right, was lacking.
Another comment. How are the two “peshat” explanations connected to one another? One could explain that the cavity is part of the melakhah of building and the creation of the new thing, and thereby resolve the question from curdling and a tent, with no connection at all to the vort that spoke about creating a new thing, etc.
I did not understand the question. Why do we need to find another melakhah like this? My claim is that infusing life is joining. Without it there is no joining here.
I did not understand a word.
In classical building there is the physical joining and there is the “spiritual” joining that gives new meaning to the totality of the connected parts. In the Torah we find that one needs both kinds of joining in order to count as the melakhah of building. Do we not need a source for the claim that one of the kinds is sufficient on its own? How do we know that giving meaning to a number of already-connected parts by itself constitutes the melakhah of building?
According to your approach it would also follow that turning an object into something else by subtraction could also count as building (for example, removing the handles from a drawer and turning it into a box; I transform the connection between the different boards and give them the name of a new object), for the technical connection between the parts has no significance.
I see no obstacle to viewing this as one thing and not two: infusing life into a structure. The infusion of life also constitutes joining between the parts (turning them into an organism).
But even if it were as you say, then this would be a derivative and not an av. What difference does that make?
I am claiming that there are two explanations here that do not necessarily depend on one another. One can explain in a focused way that the cavity is part of every act of building, because a new order and a new designation are made here by its being sealed and becoming part of the building, thereby acquiring a different name, and thus resolve the question about the derivatives of curdling and a tent. That is, one need not arrive at the general explanation about infusing life into the connected parts in order to explain this.
I do not see a difference. A new order is the infusion of life. After all, I am not speaking of life literally, since in a building there is no life in the biological sense.
Rabbi, you explained the Chazon Ish’s words very nicely—words that had seemed puzzling to me ever since—and for that I thank you.
But I want to ask:
If, as you say, this is indeed the categorical definition of the melakhah of building (I agree), and from that it should also be extended to the use of electricity (I’m forced to doubt that…)—were there really no ancient labors that, by your account, should also have been forbidden under the melakhah of building?
Even kindling a fire *with combustible material*, for example, ought to have been forbidden משום building.
And so too, in general, every case of the final hammer blow.
Doesn’t this teach us that so long as there is no actual aspect of construction (braiding hair, for example)—or at least, so long as we cannot derive the prohibition from some other melakhah—there is no room to speak of building?
I hope I’m being clear; I wrote this off the cuff, and I haven’t dealt with this topic in quite a while.