Conceptual Analysis – Lesson 22

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. So that’s exactly the point. Meaning, once you take seriously the category of labor on which you’re hanging the matter, then of course it also has many practical ramifications. Someone who says that we just prohibit it because that’s what seems right to us, and the labor category we attach to it is just something we make up so it will look good, then it’s very hard to discuss practical ramifications, because he doesn’t really mean that it actually emerges from that category of labor. By the way, a great many halakhic decisors are very comfortable attributing the Chazon Ish’s view to that sort of approach. The Chazon Ish said that closing an electric circuit on the Sabbath is prohibited because of building—because of building. And the later authorities who came after him are astonished by this, deeply astonished. They say it doesn’t even get off the ground, it’s forced and far-fetched, and there’s no logic to it at all. And therefore the serious halakhic decisors, none of them really deal with it. None of the serious halakhic decisors truly relate to this view that electricity is prohibited because of building. The only ones who bring it are the compilers, those who summarize all the positions of the decisors, so they include the Chazon Ish too because he was also an important decisor. But those who examine the passages themselves, first-rank decisors and not second-rank decisors, almost all of them, I think, say that the Chazon Ish is a position one need not be concerned about. A strange, unique, distant view.

As an anecdote: Rabbi Shlomo Zalman wrote a book on electricity on the Sabbath called Me’orei Eish. And when that book first came out, it was before the Chazon Ish arrived in the Land. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman was of course very young, but he wrote the book. And originally—as his son Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach testifies—there was a chapter there explaining why there is no issue of building here. Right? And as a friend of mine, who drew my attention to this note, said: when he came back to the kollel, the guys in the kollel laughed themselves silly. Why don’t you also devote a chapter to explaining that this is not an issue of meat and milk? Meaning, what’s the connection? Why would you devote a chapter to saying this thing is not building? Who would even imagine that it is building? So he omitted the chapter from the first edition of the book. A year, two, three after the book came out, the Chazon Ish’s position appeared, saying that electricity—closing an electric circuit—is prohibited because of building. Then in the complete edition of Me’orei Eish, the Jerusalem Institute edition where they republished the book with additions and supplements, in the second part they also brought the omissions, and they also brought the correspondence between Rabbi Shlomo Zalman and the Chazon Ish. A letter and a response, another letter and another response, on this issue, because Rabbi Shlomo Zalman disagreed. The Chazon Ish, very politely and very gently—but he absolutely did not agree with the Chazon Ish’s view. And a large part of what we understand about the Chazon Ish’s position can actually be learned from that correspondence that appears in Rabbi Shlomo Zalman’s book, because the letters the Chazon Ish sent him are printed there too. And there he also explains his position.

Anyway, let’s continue the survey for a moment before we enter the issue itself. In the end, regarding electricity on the Sabbath, almost all decisors say it is prohibited. But the question is whether this is a Torah-level prohibition or a rabbinic prohibition, and if it is a Torah-level prohibition, on what grounds—what parent category is this derived from?

So the Beit Yitzchak argued that it is prohibited because of creating fragrance—because of “creating,” or “creating fragrance.” In tractate Beitzah 21, the Talmud there discusses creating fragrance as a rabbinic prohibition. Someone who imbues a garment with fragrance, making it a perfumed garment, that is called creating fragrance in the garment, and it is a rabbinic prohibition. The Beit Yitzchak claims that one who activates an electric circuit creates current. Just as you attach fragrance to a garment, so too you insert current into the wire, into the electric device, and that is called creating, which is a rabbinic prohibition.

That’s not as absurd as it sounds, and in fact most decisors today hold like him, like the Beit Yitzchak. But the Beit Yitzchak’s assumption is very, very far from simple. It is difficult not only because of the question whether it is really similar to creating or not similar to creating, and the whole discussion of the parameters of creating—I won’t get into that here—but because in the sugya in tractate Beitzah it is not clear at all that we actually rule this prohibition of creating fragrance. Maimonides, the Shulchan Arukh, the Tur, the Rif, and the Rosh all omitted this prohibition. None of them rules it into Jewish law. So if you say the prohibition of creating was never ruled into Jewish law in the first place, how can you now base the prohibition of electricity on the Sabbath on the law of creating, when the law of creating itself was never ruled into practice? The only one who brings it into practice is the Rema in his glosses to the Shulchan Arukh; he writes that there is a prohibition of creating fragrance. That’s it—only him. So this whole story of creating fragrance is very questionable, which of course sharpens even more that feeling that the rationales come after the motivation to prohibit. The motivation to prohibit existed beforehand, and the rationales came afterward, and therefore some of them limp.

After that there is Rabbi Shlomo Zalman’s position, that it is prohibited because of kindling. But the kindling here is very far from simple, because this is a dispute between Maimonides and the Raavad, since we are talking here about one who kindles metal. You’re not kindling fire in combustible material like wood; rather, you are kindling metal. Kindling metal is a dispute between Maimonides and the Raavad whether it has the law of kindling or not. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman discusses this at length; he perhaps wanted to claim that even according to the Raavad there would be a law of kindling here. Very difficult. But even if you accept that, it is true only in a place where there is an incandescent filament, as in an old-fashioned lamp—right, today they no longer make lamps like that, an old lamp. But in devices that do not have a burning filament, there is no kindling here. And as for the sparks that come out—what they say, that when you turn on electricity sparks come out—to say that this is kindling is very strange. It is a fire you do not use, and it goes out within a second; that is not called kindling, certainly not a Torah-level prohibition. So the mechanism of kindling too is very questionable.

Some say it is a prohibition of the final hammer blow. The final hammer blow is a parent category of labor, meaning finishing a device; the completion of constructing the device or the utensil is called the final hammer blow. The last hammer strike that completes the form of the utensil. In that sense, you might say that activating the device, turning it on, actually makes it into a functioning device. That is the completion of its preparation. And again there are very great disputes, because the big question is whether turning on the device is the completion of its manufacture, or whether the device is already manufactured while turned off—its production is complete. Turning it on is using the device; it is not part of constructing it. Say I have a fan, and I pressed the switch and the fan started operating. Someone who wants to say that this is prohibited because of the final hammer blow is basically trying to claim that pressing the switch is the completion of the fan’s manufacture, because only now has a working fan been created. Before that there was a non-working fan; the complete fan is a working fan. That is very strange, because when I turn the fan off, what, am I destroying it? Obviously not. The fan was ready beforehand. The normal use is to turn the fan on.

By the way, this touches a bit on the question whether a fan is considered a utensil whose primary function is prohibited. There is a dispute among the decisors. I, for example, think it is not a utensil whose primary function is prohibited. In my opinion it is a utensil whose primary function is ventilation, and one is allowed to enjoy ventilation on the Sabbath. What is prohibited is turning on the switch. But this utensil is not made for switch-turning; it is made for ventilation. Turning on the switch is only the way I activate it. It is not called a utensil whose primary function is prohibited. Anyway, that is a different discussion. So I’m saying: the final hammer blow is also a rather questionable source.

Then the Chazon Ish comes and says it is prohibited because of building. Now notice: activating an electric circuit is prohibited because of building. Once we leave kindling and move to building, then it no longer applies only to devices like an electric bulb that have an incandescent filament, but to every electric circuit—even if there is nothing glowing inside it—it will be prohibited under the law of building. Under kindling, you prohibit only lighting an incandescent bulb; the other electrical devices would not involve a Torah-level prohibition. But if you go from the angle of building, then there is no difference whether there is a filament or not; it is Torah-level, all these things are prohibited by Torah law. So you see there are practical ramifications to the question of where we derive the prohibition from.

As I said earlier, the overwhelming majority of decisors—the important decisors, I mean, not mere quoters and compilers—the overwhelming majority do not accept this business of building. Building is astonishing. And therefore in the end, either in an incandescent lamp, where it is because of kindling—and even that may depend on the dispute between Maimonides and the Raavad—or with things that do not have a filament, it is only a rabbinic prohibition on the basis of creating current. That is the accepted and widespread approach among the decisors. The Chazon Ish’s position is not accepted; most decisors reject it outright.

Now, for many years I too thought that this Chazon Ish idea was made up. It really was not clear at all what he wanted. And what does this have to do with building? What did you build here by turning on a switch? What did you build? Usually people think that what you built is the electric circuit. By closing the switch you connected the electric circuit, and now an electric circuit has been created. That is what you built. And according to that conception, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman himself brings those who wanted to claim that according to the Chazon Ish it would be prohibited to close a switch even when the device is not connected to electricity. Think of a fan that is not plugged into the socket at all, but if you turn on its switch, you have closed the electric circuit inside it. And if closing the electric circuit is considered building, then you have violated a Torah prohibition even though you did not activate the fan. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman rejects this; he says that cannot be, even according to the Chazon Ish there is no issue of building there. That is obvious. You need the circuit to function. And in fact, when you look at the Chazon Ish’s wording—and in a moment we will—you see that the Chazon Ish is not talking at all about building the electric circuit. That is a myth. Nowhere does he mention that the prohibition of building here is because you are building an electric circuit. His formulations are all sorts of other formulations, but not building the circuit. Therefore it is completely absurd to say that closing a switch where it is not connected to electricity is prohibited, even according to the Chazon Ish.

So what does the Chazon Ish say? Let’s look. I brought a few short quotations here. This is from the original book of the Chazon Ish, Orach Chaim, section 50, subparagraph 9. This is the subparagraph where the Chazon Ish’s position on electricity appears, in part of that subparagraph. Understand that this is really a marginal note in the Chazon Ish.

“There is also here an issue of repairing a utensil”—repairing a utensil means fixing a utensil—“since one sets it into its proper condition to allow the electric current to flow continuously, and it is close to saying that this is Torah-level building, like making a utensil. And all the more so here, where all the wires are connected to the house, and it is like building in something attached, and there is no issue here of there being no building in utensils; rather, its law is like that of something attached, and there is in it building and demolition. And here that distinction makes no difference, because even in utensils, in a case like this it is considered building.”

The Chazon Ish is basically addressing here—background is needed—the Talmud in the sugya of building says that there is no building and demolition in utensils. There is building in things attached to the ground, in structures like houses; there you have the labor of building. But in utensils, in movable things not attached to the ground, there is no building and no demolition. Yet the medieval authorities in several places bring proofs from various passages that even with utensils there is a labor of building. In several sugyot you see this, despite the Talmudic rule that there is no building and demolition in utensils. Rashi and the Ran say no, in all those sugyot it is not talking about the labor of building. But most of the medieval authorities say otherwise, and they argue that if you build a utensil from the outset, then there is building even in utensils. If you fasten the parts of the utensil tightly into each other, then there is building even in utensils. Meaning, there are situations where there is building even in utensils.

So here the Chazon Ish says as follows: if you are talking about a household electric circuit and you turn on the light switch in the house, then this is not in utensils—it is attached to the ground, part of the structure—so it is because of building. If you are talking about a movable electric device, a fan, okay? A battery-operated fan—let’s say that, maybe through the cord it is considered attached to the house, I don’t know—a battery-operated fan, then that fan is not attached, so there seemingly building would not apply because there is no building in utensils. The Chazon Ish says, not true, because in a case like this even in utensils it is considered building. Why? Because of the wording he used at the beginning: “since one sets it into its proper condition to allow the electric current to flow continuously.” Why is that called building? What does that have to do with it? For that we need to see additional formulations of the Chazon Ish.

In the letters to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman there is one formulation where this appears: “And in opening the electricity, when one introduces the current into the wires, that is always considered like fastening.” We turn on the electricity, we fasten the current into the wire, and therefore it is considered like fastening. What does that mean? In building in utensils, if you remember, I said that the Talmud says there is no building in utensils, but if one fastens the two parts of the utensil—say a handle and the head of a hammer, or as the Talmud says, fitting the handle into the hoe—right, a hoe and its handle, inserting the handle into the metal eye of the hoe—okay? If you drive it in tightly, Tosafot say there is building even in utensils. So here the Chazon Ish says that when you fasten the current into the wire, you are fastening it, and that is considered like fastening, and therefore even though this is a movable device it is called building in utensils. An extremely strange wording. Everyone is amazed at this—what did you fasten? “You fasten the electricity in the wires”? “You fasten the current in the wires”? You don’t fasten current into the wire; you activate current in the wire. What kind of strange wording is that?

Another formulation: he says it is giving form to matter. The physical material—the wire through which current passes—the physical matter receives a different form, a different essence, a different significance. That too is a phrase from the Chazon Ish when he sees this as a prohibition because of building.

In his letters to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman he writes as follows. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman asks him there what many later authorities ask: after all, opening the switch in the end—opening the switch—allows the electric current to flow. How is that different from opening a faucet that allows the water to flow? And there the Chazon Ish would not say that it is because of building. So Rabbi Shlomo Zalman asked him that. And the Chazon Ish answers like this:

“The matter depends on judgment. Heating iron does not create a new nature in the iron; rather, the heat resides temporarily within the iron, and the iron continually expels it.” When you heat iron, it doesn’t turn the iron into something else, and the moment you stop heating, the heat will depart and the iron will remain as it was. “But heating the electric wire arouses the electric power embedded in the wire itself, and it comes from a composite temperament rooted in their original formation. And this use is constant, and setting it into its condition”—you see all his formulations—“and setting it into its condition by means of the connection, whereby the severed wire becomes one body with the electrical machine, there is concern here for building for two reasons: first, because of assembling the parts together. He connects all the parts of the circuit to one another. And the fact that it is loose does not help here. If the connection is loose, that is not called a connection—and here it makes no difference. Why? Since the electric current connects them, which is in the category of fastening. That is A. B: repairing the wire itself from death to life is building.” The wire itself turns from something dead into something alive, and that itself is called building.

Well then—how exactly are we to understand this strange thesis of the Chazon Ish? Again, many attacked it, questioned it, and in the end rejected it in Jewish law and did not feel the need to take his view into account. How can we actually understand the conception the Chazon Ish is offering here?

As I said before, we need to remember two things. First, the other views are also very problematic views. It is not as if they offer simple explanations—absolutely not. And in any case that only makes it rabbinic; according to the Chazon Ish, building is Torah-level. Second, the Chazon Ish nowhere writes that the building is actually the creation of the electric circuit itself. That is not the building he is talking about. He has formulations of giving form to matter, of breathing a spirit of life into the dead wire, repairing the wire itself from death to life, or “fastening” the current in the wire, some sort of fastening like that, or fastening the parts of the circuit together by passing the current. All sorts of strange statements that need to be defined better. None of these is the creation of the circuit itself. That is a myth; it does not exist in his writings.

Now I want to explain what, in my opinion, the Chazon Ish meant. After I understood this—the first hint I got from Rabbi Shapira, of blessed and righteous memory, who was the head of our kollel until two years ago—and he told me the basic reasoning. Then I thought about it and developed it a bit, built it up more, and in the end I became convinced that the Chazon Ish is super-logical, and in fact only he is logical. All the other approaches are very forced approaches. Maybe according to disputes here and there, maybe according to certain views you can prop something up here—but it is very, very forced and very, very remote. Precisely the Chazon Ish, in my eyes, is a spacious, logical view, and in my opinion it is the correct view regarding the prohibition of electricity—that is a major stringency, by the way, because it means it is a Torah-level prohibition.

To explain this, I’ll start now with the conceptual analysis. Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer, the author of Even HaEzel, wants to define the labor of building in Maimonides’ view. In Maimonides it appears as follows—these are the data. There are many difficulties that he solves this way; I won’t get into all the details, but the principle. The parent category of labor is of course to build a building, a structure—that is the parent. There are two kinds of derivatives of building in Maimonides. One derivative is a tent, making a tent, which is basically stretching some fabric above and creating a space like that; that is a derivative of building. And the second derivative is making cheese. Someone mentioned this earlier—I think Shlomo mentioned it earlier. Making cheese is also a derivative of building.

Now notice: making cheese is prohibited by Torah law. The Talmud says it is because of building—because of building. Meaning, it says it is because of building; not all the medieval authorities agree that it is Torah-level. In Maimonides it appears that it is Torah-level; it is a derivative of building. Rabbi Isser Zalman asks: what is the similarity between a tent and making cheese? Both are derivatives of building, but I see no similarity between them at all.

So he proposes the following brilliant structure, a wonderful conceptual analysis—and it resolves many difficulties that I cannot now go into in all their details. He wants to make the following claim. Let’s try to think: what does it mean to produce a building? Conceptual analysis: what does it mean to build? To build a building, a structure, a house. Meaning, I take bricks, plaster or concrete, build walls, a ceiling, a floor, and so on, and create a structure. What am I really doing here? I take parts—say bricks—gather them together, attach them to one another, turn them into one mass, and create some functional space. Through these parts that I consolidated, I created a functional space. That is the parent category. Meaning, the parent category of building is gathering parts in a way that creates a functional space. That is the definition of building a house.

Now he says like this: this parent category has two derivatives. Each derivative resembles it in one of the two parameters that characterize it. Creating a tent is creating a functional space—though not by gathering parts; it is not done by joining bricks—but still, you created a functional space here, perhaps even for habitation. Therefore it is a derivative of building. Why? Because there is creation of a functional space here, like building. But why is it only a derivative and not the full parent category? Because the gathering of parts is missing here; that parameter is absent, and therefore it is not the parent category but a derivative.

What happens in making cheese? Exactly the opposite. In making cheese, there is gathering of parts; you gather the parts of the cheese and create from the whole thing a structure. But inside that structure there is no space at all—functional or non-functional. It is a solid structure with no space in it. Therefore curdling cheese is a derivative of building. Why? It has gathering of parts, but it does not create a space, and therefore it is only a derivative.

Now notice the structure we have obtained—and this has many implications, and it solves all sorts of difficulties in Maimonides. There are some difficulties it doesn’t solve; the Kehillot Yaakov talks about this in section 37, but I won’t get into it now. The structure created here is a very interesting one, because usually a derivative—how do I determine that some derivative is a derivative of a given parent category? Through resemblance, right? The derivative resembles the parent category, and therefore it is its derivative. Now usually we are used to thinking that resemblance is a transitive relation. In mathematics, a transitive relation is a relation with the following property: if that relation exists between A and B, and that relation exists between B and C, then that relation exists between A and C. That is called a transitive relation. Okay? For example, the relation “younger than.” If B is younger than A and C is younger than B, then clearly C is younger than A, right? So “younger than” is a transitive relation. But “the son of” is not a transitive relation. If Isaac is the son of Abraham and Jacob is the son of Isaac, that does not mean Jacob is the son of Abraham; he is Abraham’s grandson, not his son. So “the son of” is not a transitive relation. There are transitive relations and non-transitive ones.

The relation of resemblance is usually perceived as transitive. If A resembles B and B resembles C, then presumably A resembles C too—maybe a bit less, but still resembles it. But here what bothered the Even HaEzel is that transitivity collapses. A tent does not resemble making cheese in any way. So how can they both be derivatives of building? A tent resembles building and making cheese resembles building, but a tent and making cheese resemble each other in nothing at all. So how can resemblance here be a non-transitive relation?

I’m just rephrasing Rabbi Isser Zalman’s move, yes? And then his move is the following: he claims that resemblance need not be transitive. Why? Because if there is a parent category with two features, A and B, and the first derivative has only feature A, then it resembles the parent category, right? Because both share A. The next derivative has only feature B and not A. It too resembles the parent category. But the first derivative and the second derivative resemble each other in nothing. The first has only A; the second has only B. There is no resemblance between them. But both resemble the parent category. There you have a logical structure that explains how one parent category can have two derivatives that do not resemble each other at all. That is a marvelous conceptual analysis, and with it he resolves a great many difficulties.

My problem with this conceptual analysis is that if I want to translate it into the question: which properties are essential to the labor of building? Which features must be present in an action in order for it to count as the parent category of building? So we said: it needs gathering of parts and creation of space. Now, how are these to be understood? Are both features essential? If so, then seemingly neither making cheese nor making a tent should be derivatives of building, because each lacks an essential feature. What would you say—that one of the features is essential and the other is a side condition? Say gathering of parts is the condition and creating space is the essential feature. According to that, then a tent should be a derivative, but making cheese should not, because it lacks the essential component; it has only a side condition. That is not enough to prohibit. Or the reverse: if you say gathering of parts is the essence and space is the condition, then only making cheese should be a derivative and not a tent. How can there be two features that are both essential to the parent category, and yet derivatives in which one essential feature is missing in each case, and nevertheless it is prohibited because it is sufficiently similar to the parent category? There is still something problematic here. You understand that this smuggles transitivity back in through the back door. I actually want to argue that resemblance really does need to be transitive, and that Rabbi Isser Zalman’s solution does not really solve the problem for us.

I want to claim the following. In fact, this is not the structure. I’m going with Rabbi Isser Zalman’s analysis, but the logic is not his logic. It is not that the parent category has two features and one of them appears in the derivatives. I claim that this parent category is one unit. What do I mean? The parent category of building, when I look at building a house, is really taking the collection of bricks and boards and glass and everything else I connect there, and turning it into one complete functional whole. Not “space”—a complete functional whole. That whole is called a structure, and that is the labor of building.

Now, what parts did I connect into this complete functional whole? I claim that it is not only the bricks and boards and glass. I claim it is also the parts of the space. In the end, when I use a house, I do not use the bricks; I use the functional space. The bricks around it turn the space into something functional. Therefore my claim is that creating space is not an additional feature of building. It is the same feature. Creating space and gathering parts are the same thing. Creating space is gathering the parts of the space into one large, complete, functional space. That is the claim.

And therefore I think that both making cheese and making a tent are derivatives from the same side. Both gather parts and create from them a complete functional whole. And therefore both are derivatives of building—not because each resembles building in a different parameter. There are not two parameters in building; there is only one parameter. That parameter is gathering parts into a complete functional whole. That’s all. And all the derivatives of building are what they must do: gather parts in a way that creates a complete functional whole. I claim that this happens in making cheese and it also happens in making a tent. I put fabric around, and that connected all the parts of the space into a functional structure, into a complete functional whole. Therefore it is a derivative. A derivative of building.

[Speaker B] But how in making cheese? I didn’t understand.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In making cheese I’m not gathering anything?

[Speaker B] I put the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? Of course you are gathering. You gather all the parts of the cheese.

[Speaker B] No, I put the milk in one place; I didn’t gather anything.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You gather all the parts of the cheese into a structure. Of course you gather. That is really building.

[Speaker B] I didn’t do anything. I took cloth, put milk inside.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That doesn’t matter. You—it’s the way you connected the bricks to each other and created a structure. Even when I place bricks, I didn’t do anything. I put one brick, then I put concrete, then another brick, and afterward the concrete dried and they stuck to each other on their own. I didn’t do that. We always only prepare the ground; in the end nature does the final hammer blow, right, the completion of the matter. That is always true. So that is my claim.

Now, my example for this is basically—perhaps in more general language—I want to claim that the labor of building in practice means creating an organism. Not necessarily in the biological sense, but biology is a good illustration of the concept of organism. What is a biological organism? A biological organism is a collection of cells. But a corpse is also a collection of cells. A corpse too is composed of a collection of cells, but a corpse is not an organism. Why not? Because the collection of cells is not joined into a functional whole. In a living body, the collection of cells is like bricks that create a structure which is a functional whole; in that case its function is biological. It is a living structure, okay? This enlivening of the collection of cells turns that collection into a structure.

Therefore I claim, for example, that the Golem of Prague—if you were to insert the Divine Name into its mouth and breathe life into it—you would violate a Torah prohibition because of building, because you would be turning the collection of its molecules or atoms, its inanimate matter, into a functioning organic whole. That is literally the labor of building. It is true that the whole created by building a house or building is not a biological whole, but still conceptually it is obvious that the bricks from which I made the house lost their particular, individual significance. They were absorbed together, and what I now have is a complete functional whole. That is what I call an organism for the sake of this discussion. Not an organism in the biologists’ sense, but an organism in the sense that a complete functional whole has been created, and now there is no significance anymore to the individual components. The bricks, each one separately—there are no bricks here anymore. This collection of bricks is not a collection of bricks; it is a building. A building is not a collection of bricks. A corpse is a collection of cells; a living human being is not a collection of cells. A living human being is a person.

And therefore my claim is that the labor of building, by definition, quite apart from electricity right now—we are dealing with the labor of building as of the twelfth century in Maimonides, yes?—the labor of building means taking parts and creating from them a complete functional whole. Their “composite blending,” by the way—an expression that appears in the Chazon Ish. Yes, yes, in the column I wrote about this, someone commented that this is an example regarding collectives. I don’t have time to get into that here now. Maybe I’ll actually continue next time, because I see I’m not really going to finish. But if I leave it for next time, then I’ll speak about it a bit more.

In any case, my claim is that the definition of the labor of building is to take parts and produce from them a functioning complete functional whole. That is called the labor of building. And that is what happens in making cheese, that is what happens in making a tent, and that is what happens in building a house.

Now if you look at all the Chazon Ish’s expressions regarding electricity on the Sabbath, you will see that this is in fact what he meant. Right? Let’s remember what his expressions were. He awakens the wire from death to life. Therefore it is the labor of building. What does that mean? When no current passes through the wire, that wire is nothing but a collection of atoms, like the collection of cells in a corpse. When I run current through it, it becomes a living body. Functioning. It has a function. All those atoms that are there one… and therefore when you awaken the wire from death to life, that is the labor of building. I no longer need to add a word. After I defined the labor of building earlier, what more is there to add? There is nothing to add to what the Chazon Ish says. This is the most classic form of the labor of building imaginable. It is the parent category of building. It is more building than making cheese and more building than making a tent—it is literally the parent category of building.

And therefore he says that when you “fasten” the current in the wires, the meaning is not that this is fastening two things into each other. Rather, the meaning is that when the current is inside the wire, the flow of current in the wire connects all the atoms of the wire into one whole. And now they are considered connected. By the way, that is also an expression of the Chazon Ish’s: the Chazon Ish says that the parts of the circuit are considered connected to one another even though they are loose. Why? Because current flows through them. I asked, so what? Still, the connection is very loose; it can disconnect easily, and then there won’t be current either. Correct. The connection between the parts is not a physical connection. The connection between the parts is the functional connection. Once they are all parts of a functioning organism, they are considered connected. Once they are connected, I have created a structure here. And that too counts as building even in utensils. In such a case, even in utensils one is liable because of building. That is what the Chazon Ish means when he says one is liable because of building.

[Speaker B] How in utensils? What—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Did you hear?

[Speaker B] How does it become building in utensils?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said: building a utensil from the outset.

[Speaker B] Or—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or fastening—that too is building in utensils. Not according to Rashi and the Ran, but according to most of the medieval authorities. The Chazon Ish says: here this is no less than fastening, or building a utensil from the outset, or fastening. You are putting a soul into a body. So all the cells physically were already connected to each other before. But turning them into a functioning organic whole is a different kind of connection. The connection is not the physical connection between them. Rather, the fact that together they create an organic whole makes them functionally connected, not physically connected.

[Speaker B] So that’s what also happens in building. In making cheese, what the Rabbi is saying is that before I had milk dispersed around, and now I turned it into some kind of organic block that is functional, that I can eat.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. And that also gets a different name. Before it was milk, or crumbs, and now it is cheese. Before it was stones, and now it is a structure. By the way, in the Talmud itself, when something has a certain name—for the Talmud that is an indication that there is something different about it. “Anything that has an accompanying name”—there are various sugyot in the Talmud that speak about this. If it receives another name, then that means it has now become something new.

And therefore I think the words of the Chazon Ish are a brilliant understanding of the labor of building, and in my eyes very convincing logically. The most correct explanation of the prohibition of electricity on the Sabbath, in my opinion, is the explanation of the Chazon Ish. This is basically the foundational conceptual analysis. What is building? What is an organism? What an organism is, I’ll get into a bit more in the next lesson, although I’ve also spoken about it a bit in the past. So part of the next lesson I’ll continue this. But let’s stop here. If anyone wants to comment or ask, that’s possible.

[Speaker D] If I may, regarding the view of Even HaEzel and regarding derivatives. The Rabbi basically assumed, in the way he refuted the view, that a derivative has to contain all the essential features of the parent category itself. Right. That’s an assumption—but is it necessarily true? What did I hear? Why assume that? Because if it’s not an essential feature—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it is an essential feature and it is missing, then how can you prohibit it? After all, what does “essential feature” mean? An essential feature means that without it, it is not prohibited.

[Speaker D] The question is whether maybe, maybe one could say that what has all the essential features is the parent category itself, and derivatives are something that has one of the essential features?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then it’s not essential. Then even without that feature it is still prohibited by Torah law on the same level as the parent category. Because a derivative is prohibited exactly like the parent category. So in fact it is not an important feature at all. So why is it there? Why is it interesting? And what is the relation between the two features, if there are two? If neither of them matters, then how do both together become important? I don’t think you’ll be able to close that structure. That would really be the labor of building if you did that.

[Speaker D] Even though the Rabbi says that ostensibly the parent categories are prohibited on the same level as the derivatives, there isn’t really any superiority to the parent category apart from that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Now I’m asking: so what for? In order for it to be prohibited, does there need to be gathering of parts or not? Is that essential to the prohibition? If yes, then a tent should not be prohibited. Is space essential in order for there to be a prohibition of building? If yes, then making cheese should not be prohibited.

[Speaker D] Fine, the claim is that for it to be prohibited it is enough that there be one essential feature; there’s just a difference between derivative and parent category.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Which one? If each one of them—then they are two separate things. If they are two separate things, and each one by itself is enough to prohibit, then there should have been two different parent categories. One would be gathering parts and the second would be creating space. And not one parent category that is either this or that. Meaning, what connection is there between these two things? It’s like saying either the parent category of trapping or the parent category of cooking—make one parent category such that if you either trap or cook you violate it. What’s the connection between those two? Define them as two parent categories.

I elaborate on these things a bit more in the column. Maybe I’ll say a bit more next lesson; I’ll expand a little more. I thought we’d get to it today, but we didn’t finish. So next lesson I’ll sharpen the issue a little more. Thank you.

[Speaker B] Thank you very much. Have a peaceful Sabbath.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Enjoy your meal, have a peaceful Sabbath.

[Speaker B] Have a peaceful Sabbath. Have a peaceful Sabbath.