Q&A: Sabbath
Sabbath
Question
Hello Rabbi,
This week, as part of my role, I mapped out grama devices on the base where I serve. So there is a grama device at the gatehouse: unlike on a weekday, when you press and it opens immediately, the grama device causes it to begin opening a few seconds after the press, and then we have gone down from a Torah prohibition to a rabbinic one rather than a Torah-level prohibition. I feel as though the Sabbath becomes a technical matter this way, that with a few tricks you can easily reduce Torah prohibitions. If so, what is the Sabbath, really? We even had a conversation this Sabbath about a Jew who comes to pray in his car, and my friend said, at least it's an electric car according to the view that this is only rabbinically prohibited. So instead of someone publicly desecrating the Sabbath, whose punishment is karet, he is violating a rabbinic prohibition. Presumably you understood my question even though I did not manage to phrase it very well.
Answer
Unfortunately, I didn't understand. What is not forbidden is not forbidden. It's true that little by little it becomes possible to get around more and more prohibitions, and there is a question of what will remain of the Sabbath. In my view, that is not an important question. What remains will remain.
By the way, according to the Rabbi's approach, I thought it was worth noting that, as I understand it, quite a lot of grama devices are prohibited to the same extent.