Q&A: Your Approach to Electricity on the Sabbath
Your Approach to Electricity on the Sabbath
Question
I understood that the Rabbi forbids electricity on the Sabbath משום construction, and I read column 397 on the subject. I do agree with your words, except for the conclusion, which is to forbid electricity on the Sabbath because of construction.
How can you say that turning on a light on the Sabbath is forbidden because of construction?! I don’t see how you can say about something that can be “taken apart/built” with the flick of a finger that it counts as construction, especially since its normal way is constant opening and closing. In a minute you’ll tell me that it’s forbidden to open and close a door on the Sabbath, or a folding chair. I don’t understand how you answer this difficulty.
Answer
That entire column is devoted to answering this question. If you didn’t understand something, or you don’t accept something there, please specify.
The question of whether this is done with the flick of a finger or not is not relevant to the discussion.
Discussion on Answer
Yes.
It seems to me that the more basic question is this too: even if we hold that there are things significant enough to have the category of construction, once they become an everyday matter and no longer involve the mindset of a significant act, does that disqualify it from being construction and turn it into its normal manner of use?
There is real logic to such a reasoning. But one could say it regarding something like a hearing aid, where you aren’t really doing any action, or something genuinely completely trivial. Activating a device doesn’t seem to me to fall into that category.
I think that in fact a hearing aid has no halakhic problem at all, and that is also Rabbi Moshe Feinstein’s reasoning (and incidentally also the Chazon Ish’s reasoning regarding reading the Megillah). Broadly speaking, anything that is not visible to the eye, or has no tangible halakhic substance, is judged based on the visible use of the device. And ordinary, everyday use contains no halakhic novelty that would allow one to apply construction to it.
Do you permit opening a folding chair on the Sabbath?