In agreement Seymour Kleiman, 86, on the balcony of his second-floor condominium at Berkshire E in Century Village, serves on the board and agrees with the decision on the elevator. (Sun-Sentinel/Mike Stocker / August 28, 2007)
Posted on 08/30/2007 9:43:52 AM PDT by MotleyGirl70
The day of rest is causing some unrest at Century Village East in Deerfield Beach.
Most of the 56 owners in Berkshire E are Orthodox Jews barred for religious reasons from pushing the buttons on their elevator during the Sabbath, which runs from Friday evening to Saturday evening.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
In agreement Seymour Kleiman, 86, on the balcony of his second-floor condominium at Berkshire E in Century Village, serves on the board and agrees with the decision on the elevator. (Sun-Sentinel/Mike Stocker / August 28, 2007)
Wait till the Muslims want to install a foot bath.
If the majority of a condo is muslim, and the rule permit it, that’s their business.
this is news?????
Private people + private property + majority ownership vote = not news.
Can a Jewish Freeper explain this to me?
The energy to run the elevator is being expended whether one pushes the button or not.
Seems to me that the only way to strictly respect the Sabbath is to take the stairs.
No disrespect, just curious as to how far this goes: If you can’t push an elevator button, can you push the toilet flush lever? I am trying to imagine going through a day not doing any work, where pushing a button constitutes work.
This would’ve made a great Seinfeld episode.
Americans have an easier time when forced to spend money to accommodate a minority. It’s when the money is spent to accommodate a majority position that people get nervous. If they were spending to install special foot washing basins for a few Muslims everyone would think it was great.
My wife and I actually liked it because we would go shopping on Saturdays so we would never have to press the buttons to operate the elevator while we had our arms full of groceries.
One thing I don't understand: Orthodox Jews will ride an elevator up and down on Shabbos, but they will not ride a city bus to and from shul on Shabbos.
Is it because the elevator is indoors?
I know you are allowed to carry objects back and forth in your home on Shabbos, but if you are outside you cannot carry objects.
Is there a similar rule for conveyances?
Because otherwise, there is no difference I can see between riding an elevator or a city bus.
That was silly. All they had to do was replace each button with a electric eye switch...point your shooting finger (or nose) at the proper eye and you’re on your way.
You should read some of the things the old Jewish Rabbis temporized over. It's amazing.
“The board held at least three meetings with unit owners before casting the unanimous vote to take the money — which comes out to about $200 per unit — from the treasury.
“But the board ‘felt our vote wasn’t good enough so we sent letters to every owner,’ said board member Seymour Kleiman, 86. ‘Of the 56 owners, 50 gave us approval outright, two said absolutely not and the others were wishy-washy, they didn’t care.’”
The whole point is that you are taking advantage of something that is already happening independent of you - by pushing a button or waving your finger under an electric eye, you are undertaking an individual action to accomplish something for yourself that would not have happened otherwise.
The Jewish law is that if nothing is being done that wasn’t already being done anyhow it’s generally not a violation of the sabbath (cooking things has its own rules). So if the elevator is programmed, before the sabbath, to stop at every floor, then a person getting on it and off of it isn’t desecrating the sabbath by doing so if he needs to. But someone who doesn’t need to do it (i.e. anyone who doesn’t have difficulty walking up and down stairs) still should do just as you say — walk. this is an accommodation for the old folks, people in wheel chairs, etc., of whom there are obviously quite a few in Florida, aka heaven’s waiting room.
a person interested in the technicalities of these rules can spend quite a bit of time mastering them, and at the margins there’s always room to learn more (and to argue).
It could be that according to Orthodox Jewish understanding, you're not supposed to go more than a certain distance in paces from your home on Shabat.
I'm curious about that myself.
The Orthodox community over by Emory University has set up an outdoor demarcation line around their neighborhood (wish I could remember the proper term for it) to allow people to travel within the neighborhood on the Sabbath. Basically they strung cables under the telephone wires. They paid for it, it doesn't interfere with the telephones or traffic, it's their money.
I suppose some may file it under "Quaint Religious Customs", but so what? I've got plenty of quaint religious customs too, but so long as it's my chalk and my front door that has 20 C+M+B 07 chalked over it, whose business is it but mine?
elevator button = electricity = fire = forbidden action.
Toilet flushing has no electricity so there’s no prohibition. Plus it’d be very icky if you couldn’t flush a toilet. I know this may sound strange, but Jewish law works hard in a certain way to make common sense. plus it works hard to make the sabbath pleasant, and unflushed toilets would not be pleasant.
I know that the car prohibition is an extension of the pre-auto days when your transport animal (horse, mule, whatever) would have to work on the Sabbath to transport you. Making another being work is a definite taboo.
I also never quite understood the turning on of a light (or lighting a stove). My mom told me stories of how, when she was younger, one of the neighborhood kids (the “Shabbos Goy”) would come to the house on Saturday morning and turn on the stove and maybe turn on some lights, so my great-grandmother could cook lunch and dinner. Then, on Sunday, the kid would come by and my great-grandfather would pay him a nickel or so for lighting the stove. A case of you can’t turn it on, but you can use it if it’s on already.
Don’t even ask about the elevator button, that one’s well past me!
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