Question

Hello Rabbi. For a long time I’ve been wrestling with the issue of electricity on the Sabbath, and I haven’t been able to convince myself that there is justification to prohibit it. All the methods used to prohibit it seem to me completely beside the point. It is really obvious that people view this as a rabbinic prohibition because we couldn’t find a reason to prohibit it under some primary category of labor, so they say it’s rabbinic without explaining what makes it into something the Sages enacted as prohibited (two thousand years ago?). The prohibition on the grounds of creating something new also seems somewhat forced to me. Likewise, the category of weekday-like activity also does not seem to me to get out of the basket of prohibitions without rationale that people want to prohibit at any price. After all, it’s no worse than a Sabbath timer. Only the prohibition on the basis of custom is somewhat convincing, but since Jewish law is not flimsy in my hands, I do not see a decent basis for a custom to prohibit this; rather it seems like a custom without reason, rooted in error (fear of something new, perhaps?). I know I’ve burst through an open door. Even so, I want to ask whether the Rabbi was convinced by one of the reasons for prohibition, and why. And secondly, if I was not convinced, may I rely on my own opinion in Jewish law.