Q&A: Tap Water on the Sabbath and an Inevitable Result
Tap Water on the Sabbath and an Inevitable Result
Question
Honorable Rabbi, hello,
I am wondering: how is it permitted to open and close a tap on the Sabbath? After all, this involves a purchase and an entry being made in the water account. Seemingly, there is both buying on the Sabbath and the prohibited labor of writing here. Do people rely here on the fact that it is “not beneficial to him”? Why? After all, the ruling is generally not to rule like Rabbi Shimon.
Thank you very much,
Answer
Why don’t you ask on the website?
This is not a form of purchase, and there is no reason to prohibit it. It is use of a service for which payment follows. The recording is done unintentionally and automatically, and in fact, as I understand it, there is no writing here at all (not even automatic writing). But beyond all the pilpul, it is clear that there is no practical sense in prohibiting this, and this is not what the Sages decreed.
As for Rabbi Shimon, I did not understand your comment. According to all halakhic decisors, the Jewish law in the case of an unintended act follows Rabbi Shimon (only regarding labor not needed for its own purpose, according to Maimonides, the ruling follows Rabbi Yehuda).
Discussion on Answer
As an outside observer, I actually thought of a different problem: the person opening the tap is himself using and activating electric water pumps. How is that different from turning on a light yourself on the Sabbath?
Usually that’s not what happens. The pumps raise water to reservoirs, and the tap draws from there.
In high-rise buildings there can be a problem, and there are also solutions:
If the water were coming out of the tap by the force of gravitational potential energy or from height differences, then the tap would not have the pressure you can see that it does. And second, there are lots of horizontal pipes that bring the water long distances from the water tower. And the farther you get from the tower, the pressure drops, because those who are close benefit from it and those who are far do not.
And who says the water at the top of the tower does not run out? So indirectly the tower is filled on the Sabbath just as electrical energy is generated on the Sabbath when a light is switched on.
Only with electronic water meters *might* there be a problem.
And even with those there is room to discuss it; see the Zomet Institute: https://www.zomet.org.il/?CategoryID=198&ArticleID=697