Q&A: Refrigerator on the Sabbath
Refrigerator on the Sabbath
Question
Is it permitted to open/close a refrigerator on the Sabbath if the light will turn on/off? Does it make a difference if there is already light in the room, so that I do not benefit from the refrigerator light? Would it help if I close my eyes so that I do not benefit?
Answer
The prohibition against turning on a light does not depend on whether you benefit from it. You are mixing up this prohibition with the prohibition of deriving benefit from an act done on the Sabbath. When someone lights a candle in a room, if there is other light in the room you may remain there, since you are not benefiting from the light that was turned on on the Sabbath. But when there is light in the room, that does not mean it is permitted to light a candle there. Lighting the candle is a prohibited labor, and the act itself is forbidden regardless of whether you benefit from it.
Discussion on Answer
An inevitable result that one does not want is forbidden, according to most views, perhaps rabbinically. According to Tosafot, this is a prohibited labor not needed for its own purpose, and according to the other medieval authorities there is no leniency at all for a result one does not want.
What does the Rabbi think of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach’s reasoning that turning on the light is forbidden as an intentional act even when one does not want it, because that is the normal and regular mode of operation of the device?
I wasn’t familiar with that. On the face of it, it sounds strange to me. At most it would put us in the category of an inevitable result, but why would that have anything to do with whether one wants it? Dragging a bench across soft ground in the normal way also makes a furrow.
I meant that if I do not benefit from the light, and it is of no use to me at all, and I also do not intend to turn on the light, then it is an unintended act; and although it is an inevitable result, it is something I do not want.