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.
You should read some of the things the old Jewish Rabbis temporized over. It's amazing.
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).
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!
Orthodox Jewish friends that I grew up with who now live in Israel tell me that on the Sabbath the elevators are continually running and stop on every floor. When their father was terminally ill several years ago my wife and I visited frequently on the Sabbath because the family here in Dallas couldn't drive to visit him (though his wife sometimes did when the situation was urgent).
Since telling us to do something -- like open a door or push an elevator button -- was also considered work, we would walk with them and they would wish for something like this, "I wish this elevator door would open and we could go to the 7th floor." That way they did no work and I was able to function as sort of a Shabbat Goy.
Strange customs, yes, but the family has been close friends for more than 30 years and has always treated me as a son. The father and I did quite a bit of work together (we were in related fields) during the 1990s and he LOVED to talk about religion. The first question he asked me when I introduced him to my future wife was, "Does she go to church?" Even though I was a Christian, he considered it very important for me to a practicing, faithful Christian.
You have a couple of issues with the elevator.
First, most modern elevators generate electricity from going down (capture the energy of raised elevator). This is work.
Second, “kindling a fire” is prohibited. Electricity, being the modern equivalent of a fire falls under this category.
Opinions also differ in these regards, so people opt for the most coservative position, some of whcih (IMHO) are stupid; problem of not having a “Sanhedrin” to cut a lot of the (IMHO) B.S. out.
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.
On the Sabbath, they are not allowed to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics by creating energy. ;-)
The sentence was poorly worded.
But to try to help:
Although I am not Jewish, growing up in Miami, just by osmosis, I am culturally semi-Jewish and I have had to explain to Reform Jews on the West Coast what a Shabbat Elevator is. My sister owns a condo in Miami Beach in a building that has one.
On the Sabbath, you are not allowed to do "labors" and it all gets very complicated but the bottom line is that you can not "use" an elevator.
But.....If an elevator just happens to open it's doors automatically through no action of yours and you happen to walk into it and it happens to go up to your floor and open the doors by itself and you happen to walk out, you did not "use" that elevator, did you?
Do not try to answer that. No mater what your answer is, you will have some Jews explaining to you why you were wrong.
That comes under the Ask Five Jews a Question and You Get Ten Answers Rule.
The Shabbat Elevator and other Sabbath Subterfuges
I don't try to explain it. I just accept it and that is what makes traditional Jewish culture part of "home" for me ......... but not West Coast Reform Jewish culture ...... invoking "your Karma" at a West Coast Passover Seder is just too weird for me which is why my Sephardi friend thinks I am more traditionally "Jewish" than some of the Reform Jews out here on the West Coast.
You are absolutely correct.
But people invent "compromises." It's not that energy cannot be created --- it's that the person who observed Sabbath shouldn't do that him/herself. It's pressing the button that is a problem here.