[nickcarraway]

When I was a freshman in college, there was an (observant) Jewish guy I'd sometimes see in a common are after classes in the afternoon. He was an older guy, I don't remember what degree he was there for. We only saw each other there, but we would occasionally talk.

He would talk about all these inventions he was developing. One day there was a commercial for inventors on a communal TV, and I saw him look really intently. I realized it was a Friday, probably around 4:00 PM, so I thought, he's trying to memorize the telephone number, since he couldn't write it down on sabbath. I offered to write it down for him, but he declined. I don't now the exact rules, but it seems like more work to memorize it.

[Jamestown1630]

This is interesting. I knew people had to get rid of all leavened products in the house, but I thought they just threw them out...

[Tell It Right]

Luckily, Latter-day Saints are allowed to own it, just not drink it.

Like Bill Clinton saying he once put a joint up to his mouth, but did not inhale. LOL

[Kenny500c]

Man o Mana Shavitz

[ConservativeMind]

Interesting story.

[waterhill]

My southern Baptist ass went to a bar mitzvah once. I was like wow. I could not believe it. I considered converting. My teenage brain.

Never seen alcohol in a Baptist marraige ceremony/party. Kegs and bottles. It just doesn’t happen.

[exDemMom]

I don’t understand and the story never explained why Oman drove all the way to Philadelphia to buy those items. I’m pretty sure they are available in Williamsburg.

[threefinger]

"...I offered to write it down for him, but he declined. I don't now the exact rules, but it seems like more work to memorize it."

You were offering to be a "Shabbos Goy," a gentile who does tasks that are forbidden for a Jew on the Sabbath. Which is forbidden if the Jew does anything to enlist your aid or to encourage you. If you had just written it down and left it for him without asking, making sure he seen you do it, he might have taken advantage of your thoughtfulness.

Judaism can be incredibly complex like that.

It's only been in the 21st Century that anyone invented the Kosher lamp shade. A Jew can't turn an electric light on or off on the Sabbath, so once upon a time, they tended to turn on a minimum of lights to get by before Shabbos and leave them on until Havdalah (end of Sabbath) and just put up with the glare when it was time to turn in. So some inventive guy invented a light-tight lampshade, sort of like vertical Venetian blinds, that could be opened and closed by turning.

But the inventing was the easy part. The hard part would have been getting it proclaimed Kosher. But the adjudicating Rabbis apparently agreed that the turning of the lampshade did not violate any of the rules against work or other forbidden activities on the Sabbath. I don't know how many attempts might have been made before that but it was 2004 before anybody got a kosher lampshade "approved."

As for memorizing being more work, one of the reasons the Jews are such accomplished people is that theirs is a religion that values and encourages development of the human intellect. Not to put too fine a point on it but it was the Jews who invented the abstract god. The gods of all the religions before that needed to have a physical representation (i.e., idol). And great deal of their history has survived only because people were carrying it around in their heads, sometimes for generations, before someone received the story who had the capacity to write it down. Carrying facts and figures around in their heads is what they do.