Sabbath Elevators

[nogods4me]

We have had a recent dust up in the Baltimore area after a condo's Board of Directors voted against converting one of the condo elevators to a "Sabbath Elevator". Many of the Jewish residents are claiming discrimination.

Apparently , observant Jews are not allowed to even press elevator buttons on the sabbath, so "sabbath elevators" are those that are set to stop and open the doors on every floor, every time, during sabbath.

Man, what weird things people do in the name of religion.

I know I would hate to rise the elevator in a tall building if it were sabbath equipped, sheesh. :rolleyes:

[WWJD4aKlondikeBar]

Why can't these horribly oppressed Jewish people just hire a hell-bound xtian to push the buttons for them? At their own expense, of course.

[steamer]

Apparently , observant Jews are not allowed to even press elevator buttons on the sabbath, so "sabbath elevators" are those that are set to stop and open the doors on every floor, every time, during sabbath.

If they can't push an elevator button, then how will they use the doorknobs on their apartments or use the keys to get in?

[nogods4me]

I think it is the electric switch in the elevator button that is the problem.

But you have to push a button to call the elevator, so does this thing just run constantly, stopping and opening the doors on every floor, for the entire sabbath? That is nuts.

[Mageth]

If they can't push an elevator button, then how will they use the doorknobs on their apartments or use the keys to get in?

They aren't allowed to make a spark to start a fire on the Sabbath, and some dumbass in the past equated electricity with "fire".

[steamer]

They aren't allowed to make a spark to start a fire on the Sabbath, and some dumbass in the past equated electricity with "fire".

That's funny. I guess my assumption that they couldn't use mechanical mechanisms would just be viewed by them as just plain whacko. This on the other hand makes total sense.:Cheeky:

[JamesABrown]

That's funny. I guess my assumption that they couldn't use mechanical mechanisms would just be viewed by them as just plain whacko. This on the other hand makes total sense.:Cheeky:

Oh it gets better. Turning on a battery-operated device on Sabbath is lighting a fire. Driving a car is lighting a fire. If a battery-operated flashlight is turned on and remains burning through Sabbath, then you're okay, but moving the lit flashlight on the Sabbath is forbidden, because that's working. If a fire is burning, and a metal rod is close enough nearby to absorb radiant heat and grow warm by the time Sabbath rolls around, then that too is considered lighting a fire, which is forbidden. However, if you find a piece of metal growing warm because of a nearby fire on the Sabbath, you may not move the metal rod away, because that's extinguishing a fire, also forbidden.

Here's more for your edification: Electricity and the Sabbath (http://science-halacha.com/elec/elec_eng_B1.htm)

[Anat]

And during the Gulf War of 1991, when Israelis were anxious for news about missile attacks, the religious folks determined it was OK to have the radio on at low volume during the Shabbat, and in case the alarms went off it was permissible to use a stick to turn the volume higher. (IIRC someone also suggested training pets to do so, despite the fact that some religious authorities object to unnecessary contact with pets of Shabbat.) Just imagine all that creative energy directed to a really worthwhile purpose...

[Revolutionary]

Religious stupidity never ceases to amaze me.

[Clete]

We have had a recent dust up in the Baltimore area after a condo's Board of Directors voted against converting one of the condo elevators to a "Sabbath Elevator". Many of the Jewish residents are claiming discrimination.

Apparently , observant Jews are not allowed to even press elevator buttons on the sabbath, so "sabbath elevators" are those that are set to stop and open the doors on every floor, every time, during sabbath.

Man, what weird things people do in the name of religion.

I know I would hate to rise the elevator in a tall building if it were sabbath equipped, sheesh. :rolleyes:
So they can't push the button but using a fucking elevator is okay!? Talk about obeying the letter of the law but not the intent.

[Scifinerdgrl]

Why can't these horribly oppressed Jewish people just hire a hell-bound xtian to push the buttons for them? At their own expense, of course.

They're not allowed to carry money on the sabbath, either.

[purple_kathryn]

I'm sorry but WHY do they think their god is so petty that it really considers pressing lift buttons a no no.

Could they not take a step back and see how silly it is?

[Scifinerdgrl]

Oh it gets better. Turning on a battery-operated device on Sabbath is lighting a fire. Driving a car is lighting a fire. If a battery-operated flashlight is turned on and remains burning through Sabbath, then you're okay, but moving the lit flashlight on the Sabbath is forbidden, because that's working. If a fire is burning, and a metal rod is close enough nearby to absorb radiant heat and grow warm by the time Sabbath rolls around, then that too is considered lighting a fire, which is forbidden. However, if you find a piece of metal growing warm because of a nearby fire on the Sabbath, you may not move the metal rod away, because that's extinguishing a fire, also forbidden.

Here's more for your edification: Electricity and the Sabbath (http://science-halacha.com/elec/elec_eng_B1.htm)

Yet according to one Jew I knew in Brooklyn, smoking is okay as long as you turn on the gas burner before sunset friday and leave it on to light the smokes with.

[Mageth]

I'm sorry but WHY do they think their god is so petty that it really considers pressing lift buttons a no no.

Could they not take a step back and see how silly it is?

It's not possible for them to step any farther back.

[Mageth]

They're not allowed to carry money on the sabbath, either.

Pay someone on Friday, before sundown.

Actually, this solution has been used in some places (hiring a lift operator for the sabbath).

[steamer]

I thought it was just the devil who lived in the details.

Oh wonderful god that is so easily pleased.

Oh horrible god that is so easily displeased.

[JamesABrown]

Yet according to one Jew I knew in Brooklyn, smoking is okay as long as you turn on the gas burner before sunset friday and leave it on to light the smokes with.

When faith and convenience collide, faith usually loses.

[Lixma]

This is all depressingly hilarious. The iPod must've sent shockwaves through the Jewish community when it was released.

[Pavlov's Dog]

If they can't push an elevator button, then how will they use the doorknobs on their apartments or use the keys to get in?

The door will not be locked. They are not allowed to carry keys on the Sabbath.

[Glimmung]

They aren't allowed to make a spark to start a fire on the Sabbath, and some dumbass in the past equated electricity with "fire".

Someone should tell them to induce brain death to totally eliminate any use of electricity.

-G

[sea star]

I can't remember it, but there is a name for a gentile hired by Jews to turn the lights on and off for them on Sabbath.

I knew a Jewish man who had a newspaper subscription for just weekdays, so as not to make someone work on the Sabbath, but he would walk down to the paper box on the corner and buy one. Just when was the Saturday paper put in the box? Friday afternoon?:huh: And he must not have observed the "no money' rule.

[nogods4me]

I can't remember it, but there is a name for a gentile hired by Jews to turn the lights on and off for them on Sabbath.



entrepreneur

[credoconsolans]

Soooo, they sit in the dark all day?

So why don't they just take the stairs - or do they not want to be that inconvenienced by their religion?

[WWJD4aKlondikeBar]

They're not allowed to carry money on the sabbath, either.That's no excuse for them not to just make those arrangements on a previous day. My proposed solution was sincire, if dripping with a sarcastic impatience for people who dress themselves up as victims.

[Gwen]

Like an elevator operator?

[ross ewidge]

I can't remember it, but there is a name for a gentile hired by Jews to turn the lights on and off for them on Sabbath.
The Shabbas goy of course.

http://judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_o/bl_simmons_shabbatgoy.htm

[Patronus Potter]

The Gibbs Free Energy is holy in the eyes of the LORD. You shall cause no exothermic reactions to occur, and all endothermic reactions are also forbidden. The sacred Potential Difference you shall not disturb.

[NZSkep]

Never ceases to amaze me that people who believe in an all mighty god creator of the entire universe and all that is in it, with the power to do anything it wants even bending and breaking the laws of logic, and with all the suffering and war in the world, would get pissed of by someone listening to a radio or pushing a button or carrying money in an arbitrary 24 hour period.

[Patronus Potter]

It is not really about God getting pissed off. Religious Jews value their traditions and their faith in what they believe is God. I grew up with many religious Jews here in Maryland, and I never saw anyone follow a religious law out of coercion, either directly by an authority figure or by their fear of God. They choose to follow the laws out of a sense of faithfulness to God and a desire to be holy. Some of the laws are idiotic but that does not mean the people following them are stupid. No one I have ever met really thinks that God will get mad for turning on a light switch. I might have become a religious Jew were it not for the inconvenient fact that Jewish beliefs are not true.

They really need to bring their laws up to date with science though. The ones for Passover are maddeningly ridiculous.

[chieftain]

Strictly speaking, religious Jews can't hire someone to do a task on the Sabbath, because the 10 Commandments say that "the hired person who lives in your home" also has to rest.

However you can imply to a person that you need something done: "Isn't it getting cold in here?" or "Wouldn't it be great if this elevator stopped on the fifth floor?"

Also, to contradict what someone else said, there's no particular restriction about keys. You can't carry anything outside, unless your area is enclosed in a magical thing called an 'eruv'. But you can wear your keys by attaching them to a special belt - they have to be an integral part of the belt, you can't just wear them round your neck on a chain.

Like others have said, it's amazing what people will do in the name of religion.

[WWJD4aKlondikeBar]

Like an elevator operator?Yes, except they'd only work on Sabbath day and the Jewish residents could pool $2.37 each to pay for it. I don't think that this should be newsworthy. The condo board should just tell them to celebrate their holiday and stop expecting everyone else to shell out time and money over it.

Or they could just invite these r-tards over for the day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF-Ayhib_LY

[Lucretius]

In the dim and distant past when I was in college the University library had a "Pater Noster" type lift/elevator that went round on a continous loop type thing (I know the name Pater Noster may be a problem though :) ) so maybe that would be a solution :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster#United_Kingdom

[Wolfie]

Time is so arbitrary...

In the UK, it is Friday evening and observant Jews slip into Sabbath mode. At the same time, observant Jews who live on the Eastern Seaboard of the US are not observing the sabbath - why? - because it is 5 hours earlier there and it is still early afternoon.

My point is that it was a purely arbitrary decision (although perhaps more logical) to divide the world into time zones. There were arguments in favour of sticking to one world time - which, of course, is technically the case in the military who operate on Zulu time.

Hmmm - what about observant Jews in the military - do they determine the sabbath according to Zulu time?

[chieftain]

Time is so arbitrary...

In the UK, it is Friday evening and observant Jews slip into Sabbath mode. At the same time, observant Jews who live on the Eastern Seaboard of the US are not observing the sabbath - why? - because it is 5 hours earlier there and it is still early afternoon.

My point is that it was a purely arbitrary decision (although perhaps more logical) to divide the world into time zones. There were arguments in favour of sticking to one world time - which, of course, is technically the case in the military who operate on Zulu time.

Hmmm - what about observant Jews in the military - do they determine the sabbath according to Zulu time?

The sabbath isn't based on time zone, it's based on sunset. Sabbath begins just before sunset on Friday, and finishes when it's dark enough to see three stars on Saturday evening. This means that even places within the same time zone will start and finish the sabbath at different times.

For instance, this week shabbat begins at 8.20pm in London, but 8.37pm in Manchester 200 miles to the north-west.

[Ruiner]

The sabbath isn't based on time zone, it's based on sunset. Sabbath begins just before sunset on Friday, and finishes when it's dark enough to see three stars on Saturday evening. This means that even places within the same time zone will start and finish the sabbath at different times.

For instance, this week shabbat begins at 8.20pm in London, but 8.37pm in Manchester 200 miles to the north-west.
This reminds me of the conversation in Gremlins 2 about time zones and other various oddities with "No food after midnight."

Say, if a Jew were flying west on a Friday morning and crossed the IDL would he have to shut the plane off midflight?

[BigJim]

They choose to follow the laws out of a sense of faithfulness to God and a desire to be holy.

Yeah, it's somewhat of a symbolic gesture. I knew a guy who would eat kosher at home (even going so far as to have separate dishes and refrigerators for meat and dairy), but wouldn't do it when out.

[Anat]

It is supposed to be forbidden to light or put out a fire (including a 'fire equivalent' such as electricity) on Shabbat, or to carry it from one's private area to apublic area and vice versa (unless there is immediate life endangerment, as in putting out a burning house). Thus Orthodox families usually keep the light on non-stop all Shabat in the bathroom and one or two rooms in the house. Some also tape the switch inside the fridge to keep the light off when they open the fridge door.

Once, when I was about 7 or 8, we were visiting an elderly relative in Antwerp, Belgium. It was my first time to spend a Shabbat in an Orthodox home. Out of habbit I made the mistake of turning out the light when I got out of the bathroom. I didn't even realize what inconvenience I had caused my hosts.

Fast forward to more recent times. My Father-in-law is married to a woman from a 'sort of traditional but not exactly Orthodox' family, with varying levels of observance among her relatives. Once we were at some family gathering, on Shabbat. out of consideration for her more observant relatives the light was left on in the bathroom. But of course one of us secular types turned it off out of habit. We had the amusing sight of one of the observant teen-agers approaching the light switch attempting to make it flip on 'accidentally', in a way that neither his parents nor his god or his conscience would notice...

[Eldarion Lathria]

They don't get special priviliges, so they're discriminated against? Bosh, if they won't press the elevator button, let them take the stairs. The walk will do them good.

Eldarion Lathria

[J-D]

And during the Gulf War of 1991, when Israelis were anxious for news about missile attacks, the religious folks determined it was OK to have the radio on at low volume during the Shabbat, and in case the alarms went off it was permissible to use a stick to turn the volume higher.What was the logic? Did they link it somehow to pikuakh nefesh?

I knew somebody years ago whose father had the radio on a timeswitch so he could listen to the news on Saturday without turning the radio on (or off). His son, being more stringent in his observance, didn't really like this. (IIRC someone also suggested training pets to do so, despite the fact that some religious authorities object to unnecessary contact with pets of Shabbat.) Just imagine all that creative energy directed to a really worthwhile purpose...Richard Feynman made essentially the same observation in a story he called 'Is Electricity Fire?', collected in Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character. Some rabbinical students posed this question to him, and it was in the context of using the elevator on Shabbat, and they had a Shabbas goy. Feynman argued that electricity was not fire, and also (being a physicist and knowing this stuff) that if the spark was the problem, they could put a condenser across the switch and there'd be no spark. I don't think he changed their minds, though. And he also lamented the waste of good brainpower represented by rabbinical study.

[mac_philo]

1) Orthodox Jews don't adhere to these laws because they think their petty God will get pissed if they push an elevator button. I'm sure you can find a few who think that way, but the psychologizing in this thread is bunk on par with "atheists can't have morals" or "atheists are angry at god" or whatever other canard you like.

2) Nobody is recognizing the fact that each resident is part owner of the elevator.

3) They were already renovating the elevators so the additional cost of this feature is marginal. If it's a full renovation the added cost is probably $0.

If this came to a vote at my condo, and we were already renovating the elevators, I would hope the board approved having a Sabbath elevator. The altruistic reason is that it costs me basically nothing and helps my neighbors who want it. The selfish reason is it expands the buyer's market and hence can increase the value of my property.

The apparent pettiness and shortsightedness and selfishness and un-neighborliness of this board is an unfortunate risk of condo life.

FYI this has nothing to do with "observant Jews" generally but rather Orthodox Jews specifically.

[Vicious Love]

Time is so arbitrary...

Tell me about it. The orthodox Jews around here have a whole bunch of early-morning penitentiary prayers to recite just prior to and during yom kippur, which might seem inconvenient to a simple-minded goy such as yourself. It isn't, though. Because daylight savings time ends the Sunday before yom kippur.

[Vicious Love]

1) Orthodox Jews don't adhere to these laws because they think God will get pissed if they push an elevator button. I'm sure you can find a few who think that way, but the psychologizing in this thread is bunk.

I get that impression, yeah. At least locally, the various communities of orthodox Jews seem more... well, orthodox, than anything else. Sure, they came up with all sorts of modesty-based rationales for wearing those ridiculously cumbersome black outfits and fur hats out in the middle of the desert (well, scrubland), but there's nothing in the Torah or even the Talmud or Gemara about those things, they're just what they wore in Eastern Europe (y'know, where it's fucking cold) for the past few centuries, and they do so hate to break with tradition.

[Ruiner]

There are, I guess, ways of making this arrangement livable for both the Orthodox and the differing religions. I don't see any inconvenience to any other tenants provided the pressing of a button overrides the Sabbath operation of the elevator. This is not only for convenience to other tenants but also in case of emergencies. Granted a lot of floors could be bypassed but there is still ground being gained for the Orthos, right? Plus elevators won't stay busy all the time.

Speaking of emergencies... how the hell do they get help if they can't even pick up a phone and press the numbers? Are there exceptions?

[Godless Dave]

Every time I see this thread title I imagine Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler in an elevator.

Carry on.

[chieftain]

Richard Feynman made essentially the same observation in a story he called 'Is Electricity Fire?', collected in Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character. Some rabbinical students posed this question to him, and it was in the context of using the elevator on Shabbat, and they had a Shabbas goy. Feynman argued that electricity was not fire, and also (being a physicist and knowing this stuff) that if the spark was the problem, they could put a condenser across the switch and there'd be no spark. I don't think he changed their minds, though. And he also lamented the waste of good brainpower represented by rabbinical study.

Although the 'spark' issue is often given as the reason for not turning on lights, I've just as frequently heard the reason as "not showing dominance over nature". In other words, on Shabbat you're supposed to recognise that God is the creator and master of all, by not exercising control over your environment. It's a much less physical thing but is at least defensible in the way that the spark theory isn't.

[BaldySlaphead]

Hi - first post - I've seen elsewhere (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-te.md.ci.elevator08may08,0,2291816.story?page=1)that the lifts in this particular building were being overhauled anyway and that the change to accomodate this 'Sabbath elevator' would have been no more expensive than what was already proposed (thought this is debated), so it does seem a little churlish on some levels.

However, that doesn't negate the fact that it's utterly woo woo, whilst also being, as previously expressed, a weasily way of getting around the spirit of the law. I suppose you could make an argument that it's not exactly the greenest way to behave and that all residents will end up paying a higher premium for the lift too.

[hclincha]

3) They were already renovating the elevators so the additional cost of this feature is marginal. If it's a full renovation the added cost is probably $0.

If this came to a vote at my condo, and we were already renovating the elevators, I would hope the board approved having a Sabbath elevator. The altruistic reason is that it costs me basically nothing and helps my neighbors who want it. The selfish reason is it expands the buyer's market and hence can increase the value of my property.

The apparent pettiness and shortsightedness and selfishness and un-neighborliness of this board is an unfortunate risk of condo life.

FYI this has nothing to do with "observant Jews" generally but rather Orthodox Jews specifically.
But wouldn't it cost a shitload of money having a lift running up and down an entire day of the week? I can't say this with any certainty, but intuition kinda tells me that pulling a ton up and down continously for a long period of time is going to use a lot of energy.

[Seeker630]

Why can't these horribly oppressed Jewish people just hire a hell-bound xtian to push the buttons for them? At their own expense, of course.

Or maybe they could've just gotten a house or condo somewhere where they cater to Jewish peculiarities? Seems to me they had to know the building was not equipped with a kosher elevator when they moved in.

[BaldySlaphead]

Or maybe they could've just gotten a house or condo somewhere where they cater to Jewish peculiarities? Seems to me they had to know the building was not equipped with a kosher elevator when they moved in.

The building was formerly mainly for Jewish residents, but has become more diverse over time. The lifts are due for renovation and it is alleged by the pro-Kosher elevator side that there are no cost implications for having such a system installed, so from that perspective, is it a particular hardship for it to be favoured?

As I said before, one can make an argument that it must surely cost more to install a lift that constantly moves for one day a week, but this additional cost could surely be split between those residents who made use of it?

Clearly the underlying rationale for requiring such a lift seems pretty assinine, but given that is their position and that no one is suggesting the residents convert to atheism, I'm not sure that it's a particularly strong argument to deny them.

[mac_philo]

There's two issues here. 1)What is the right way to run a condo and treat your neighbors. 2)What you think of these laws.

Let's do (2) first. Obviously some of you think they are "woo-woo". Fine. Some also think this is a "weasely" way to meet the standard of the law. Maybe so, maybe not. I don't know enough about Jewish law. Do you? Or are you just making a knee-jerk reaction couched in distaste for religion?

In any case, the issues of (2) are irrelevent to (1). I don't act like a good or bad neighbor, or make condo governance decisions, based on whether I think my neighbors are acting goofy. In the scale of kookiness, wanting an elevator to have some added functionality when it is already being renovated is way, way, way down on my list.

So let's consider the substantive worries recently raised.
1) It's not green. So what? I seriously doubt their condo has made any other decisions based on environmental concerns. You already have an elevator, which is itself non-green. Letting it run more frequently 1/7 of the time seems a petty place to draw the line between reasonable and wasteful. Environmental friendliness can be a consideration but not if it only comes up in the context of dealing with special cases. If you run the entire building based on that concern, then you have a point.

2)It will cost more. Well, it won't cost more to install, because they are already renovating the elevator. So you're saying it costs extra to power it on the Sabbath. What's the unstated premise here? That the costs associated with communal space must be borne in equal proportion to how the individual residents benefit from the spending. That is just false when it comes to condos. You will end up paying for electricity, materials, labor, and building improvements for things that you don't use, or aren't even accessible from your part of the building. E.g. if 3/4 of the building has porches, and 1/4 don't, and the board votes to rehab the porches, even the people without porches have to pay. Or say you live in a garden-level unit with a direct entrance. You still pay to power the elevators and keep the stairways illuminated, even though they are of zero use to you.

[BaldySlaphead]

There's two issues here. 1)What is the right way to run a condo and treat your neighbors. 2)What you think of these laws.

A lot of your post that follows seems to be picking up on things I raised, but your point above was the same one I was making! The story has been touted in a few places as 'look at the silly Jews' whilst overlooking the more obvious fact that there appears to be no particularly logical reason for refusing the request given the lifts are being renovated anyway and it won't cost anything.

This doesn't negate the fact that a) the Jewish laws about work are ridiculous and b) they're extracting the urine in their workaround but it remains incidental to why they can't put in the lift.

Let's do (2) first. Obviously some of you think they are "woo-woo". Fine. Some also think this is a "weasely" way to meet the standard of the law. Maybe so, maybe not. I don't know enough about Jewish law. Do you? Or are you just making a knee-jerk reaction couched in distaste for religion?

Personally, I know enough about Jewish law to recognise having your cake and eating it when I see it, and it's undoubtedly influenced by my distaste for religion. Not sure it's particularly knee jerk though! :D


In any case, the issues of (2) are irrelevent to (1). I don't act like a good or bad neighbor, or make condo governance decisions, based on whether I think my neighbors are acting goofy. In the scale of kookiness, wanting an elevator to have some added functionality when it is already being renovated is way, way, way down on my list.

Agreed.

So let's consider the substantive worries recently raised.
1) It's not green. So what? I seriously doubt their condo has made any other decisions based on environmental concerns. You already have an elevator, which is itself non-green. Letting it run more frequently 1/7 of the time seems a petty place to draw the line between reasonable and wasteful. Environmental friendliness can be a consideration but not if it only comes up in the context of dealing with special cases. If you run the entire building based on that concern, then you have a point.

If you're referring to my point on the issue, I did acknowledge it was a fairly weak argument to begin with. ;) Not being American, I wouldn't claim to have any great understanding of how condo's operate, but certainly in the UK it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect to have to take account of the environmental impact.

2)It will cost more. Well, it won't cost more to install, because they are already renovating the elevator. So you're saying it costs extra to power it on the Sabbath. What's the unstated premise here? That the costs associated with communal space must be borne in equal proportion to how the individual residents benefit from the spending. That is just false when it comes to condos. You will end up paying for electricity, materials, labor, and building improvements for things that you don't use, or aren't even accessible from your part of the building. (Snip)

No, the unstated premise was that even if x proportion of the residents were vetoing a kosher lift on the basis of cost, it wouldn't be difficult to work around it i.e. as an objection it didn't have legs.

If all this reads very defensively, and I'm just being paranoid and you weren't singling out my points, I'm happy to walk up fifteen flights of stairs as penance. ;)

[mac_philo]

Oh, it doesn't sound defensive at all. I hope I didn't sound too aggressive. :)

The unstated premise I cited was coming from other posts, I wasn't responding to just your points specifically. We are mostly in agreement I think. Especially on the point that the cost argument is BS. The added cost of running an elevator overtime on Saturdays, spread across all the units of a building big enough to need an elevator, is trivial and totally in line with other "unfairly" distributed costs of condo ownership.

In fact if you read the link above, you see that the vote was made before they even established whether or not it would cost anything more. Then they cite another condo board that said it didn't cost them more, and raises property values. (I'm not vouching for the truth of this.) We know it will cost more to power the thing, but the board didn't mention that (in the article), and that's trivial anyway.

[NZSkep]

But wouldn't it cost a shitload of money having a lift running up and down an entire day of the week? I can't say this with any certainty, but intuition kinda tells me that pulling a ton up and down continously for a long period of time is going to use a lot of energy.

It wouldn’t cost much I think because lifts use a counterweight system meaning the energy used to raise an empty lift is pretty low.

I think the main objection to this would be that it would waste everyone’s time – especially those living on the top floor.
Everyone knows how annoying it is to get in a lift bound for the top floor when some prankster has just pushed the button for every floor. This would be the same but even more annoying because it would be happening every time you got in the lift on that day. If you just miss the lift normally you would only have to wait for it to go up and stop on one or two floors before coming back down. With these ones you are probably stuck there for 5 miutes before it returns – stopping at every floor on the way up and every floor on the way down (depending on how many floors) and then anther 5 minutes whilst you wait for it to stop at every floor on the way up to your floor.

[chapka]

I grew up with many religious Jews here in Maryland, and I never saw anyone follow a religious law out of coercion, either directly by an authority figure or by their fear of God.

I don't know about Maryland, but in Brooklyn there absolutely is coercion to follow orthodox practices. Some of it is direct, as when orthodox men literally throw stones at people they see violating sabbath laws (for example, driving on the sabbath). Some of it is indirect, for example; some Hasidic Jews essentially refuse to provide basic educations to girls on the grounds that they are mentally inferior, resulting in 18-year-old women being faced with the choice of either leaving everyone they've ever known and trying to make a living with a grade school education or agreeing to an arranged marriage.

I realize that the Baltimore situation involves orthodox and not hasidim, but I just wanted to point out that in some cases these beliefs are imposed on people and do cause real harm.

[chapka]

There's two issues here. 1)What is the right way to run a condo and treat your neighbors. 2)What you think of these laws.

Let's do (2) first. Obviously some of you think they are "woo-woo". Fine. Some also think this is a "weasely" way to meet the standard of the law. Maybe so, maybe not. I don't know enough about Jewish law. Do you? Or are you just making a knee-jerk reaction couched in distaste for religion?

I do know what I'm talking about, as it happens. I'm pretty familiar with talmudic reasoning and have read several volumes of both the Jerusalem and the Babylonian Talmud. It's an interesting intellectual enterprise, and a better example of a complex, thought-out code of law than many of its contemporaries. But it's also mired in superstition, fallacies, silly appeals to authority and false premises. When talmudic scholars reason from sensible first principles, they generally end up with interesting conclusions. When they reason from false or bizarre first principles, they don't. And too often they simply use legalist tricks to get around restrictions that don't make sense in the modern world, rather than getting rid of them. This leads to silliness like sabbath elevators and eruvs.

In any case, the issues of (2) are irrelevent to (1). I don't act like a good or bad neighbor, or make condo governance decisions, based on whether I think my neighbors are acting goofy. In the scale of kookiness, wanting an elevator to have some added functionality when it is already being renovated is way, way, way down on my list.

This is the big fallacy in your approach, to my mind. A sabbath elevator is not an elevator with added functionality. A sabbath elevator is an elevator which is basically unavailable to be used by anyone else one day a week.

So let's consider the substantive worries recently raised.

These aren't the downsides I would think of first. I don't know how big this building is, but in the extreme case, if there are only two or three elevators, taking one elevator out of service is going to be a significant inconvenience to the rest of the residents. Added to that, if you've ever lived in a unit next to an elevator, you know that elevators aren't quiet. Running it constantly, all night, is going to be annoying to the people in the units on either side all up and down the building, even if the elevator doesn't ding when it hits every floor. And that assumes that there was no extra cost involved, which I think is far from a foregone conclusion.

[bocajeff]

Whether or not the practices of Sabbath are silly isn't the point. How are the Jews living in the building being discriminated against?

Assuming they are being treated like all the non-Jew residents, I don't see how they are being discriminated against by not putting in a special elevator that inconvienences every non-Jew resident on the Sabbath.

They have one of two options: move into a silly superstition-friendly building or take the freakin stairs.

If my apartment building has green walls and my God abhors green walls, it's not my apartment building's responsibilty to rid the walls of the abhorrent color.

[Metaphor]

The most important objections have already been raised - and I don't see that they've been answered. Leaving aside the electricity cost and environmental cost, having one of your elevators stop at every floor, especially if 1) your building has many stories or 2) it has a poor elevator to resident ratio will affect your wait times.

The problem with the appeal to reasonable accommodation is where to draw the line. What if, instead of only being on the Sabbath, Orthodox Jewish residents needed a 'Jewish' elevator every day of the week? I can see no substantive difference between that request and the first request. How would the 'let them have the elevators' crowd respond to the second request?

But the most important objection I can think of is that requests based on religious reasons are given more respect than requests based on personal, but not religious, reasons. For example, let's say I was particularly lazy, and I didn't WANT to press any buttons to get on and off an elevator. My request would probably be laughed out of the building.

And I would be weary to hinge my defense of providing the elevators on the basis of innocuousness. Where do you draw the line? What if the Christians in the building want to affix a gigantor crucifix to the back wall of the Jewish elevator? Let's say the Christians fund the crucifix and the affixing themselves. Why should that request be denied if the Jewish residents get their elevator?

[Aria]

Compromise with inconvenience on both sides. Let the elevator run at every third floor (or whatever, depending on how big the building is) two or three times an hour.

[J-D]

Although the 'spark' issue is often given as the reason for not turning on lights, I've just as frequently heard the reason as "not showing dominance over nature". In other words, on Shabbat you're supposed to recognise that God is the creator and master of all, by not exercising control over your environment. It's a much less physical thing but is at least defensible in the way that the spark theory isn't.The list of activities prohibited on Shabbat is not derived from the principle you cite. That principle is an ex post facto justification (or rationalisation). See the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/39_categories_of_activity_prohibited_on_Shabbat) for more details.

[mac_philo]

This is the big fallacy in your approach, to my mind. A sabbath elevator is not an elevator with added functionality. A sabbath elevator is an elevator which is basically unavailable to be used by anyone else one day a week.

Hi chapka. Can you explain this? I certainly don't see how it is a fallacy nor how the elevator is 'basically unavailable'. How does stopping on every floor make it unavailable? Doesn't it just add roughly 5-10 seconds per floor to the time it takes to travel?

The building is 9 stories so that is a maximum inconvenience of 30-60 seconds if you just count the time from entrance to exit, and 60-120 seconds total if you count the wait time for the elevator to show up and it is as far away as possible.

These aren't the downsides I would think of first. I don't know how big this building is, but in the extreme case, if there are only two or three elevators, taking one elevator out of service is going to be a significant inconvenience to the rest of the residents. Added to that, if you've ever lived in a unit next to an elevator, you know that elevators aren't quiet. Running it constantly, all night, is going to be annoying to the people in the units on either side all up and down the building, even if the elevator doesn't ding when it hits every floor.

These are good points.

Not responding to chapka here, but I defended the idea without claiming that there was any religious discrimination. So those positions are seperable.

Metaphor -- Is that how you deal with neighbors, by worrying about slippery slopes and counterfactual cases and 'where does this end'? Nobody is asking or does ask for a 'Jewish elevator'. (In any case, they are not equivalent. The actual request requires no segregation and everyone has the same elevator access. This difference explains why you see buildings that actually have Sabbath elevators and don't see buildings with Jewish elevators, or elevators that don't allow women, or whatever.) If your neighbor asks you to babysit their kid in a bind, do you think, "would I do this if they had octuplets?" You can imagine all sorts of demands that are basically equivalent to the desire for a Sabbath elevator but nobody is making those demands. We aren't talking about court cases setting accomodation precedents, we're talking about condo owners making a decision on communal property that they all own.

So my position is that if it's a trivial inconvenience, which it seems to be in this case, I'd be happy to approve the proposal. If you live in a gigantic building with insufficient elevators, that's a different story.

It's easy to turn this into some abstract argument about religious accomodation and superstition or whatever, but we're talking about a bunch of elderly people setting elevator policy. If you lived across from a little old lady who asked for a little accomodation for a religious reason, and it would cost you next to nothing, would you really start bullshitting about how your God wants the walls a different color, or tell her to move, or like that?

[Metaphor]

Metaphor -- Is that how you deal with neighbors, by worrying about slippery slopes and counterfactual cases and 'where does this end'? Nobody is asking or does ask for a 'Jewish elevator'. If your neighbor asks you to babysit their kid in a bind, do you think, "would I do this if they had octuplets?" You can imagine all sorts of demands that are basically equivalent to the desire for a Sabbath elevator but nobody is making those demands. We aren't talking about court cases setting accomodation precedents, we're talking about condo owners making a decision on communal property that they all own.

So my position is that if it's a trivial inconvenience, which it seems to be in this case, I'd be happy to approve the proposal. If you live in a gigantic building with insufficient elevators, that's a different story.

It's easy to turn this into some abstract argument about religious accomodation and superstition or whatever, but we're talking about a bunch of elderly people setting elevator policy. If you lived across from a little old lady who asked for a little accomodation for a religious reason, and it would cost you next to nothing, would you really start bullshitting about how your God wants the walls a different color, or tell her to move, or like that?

I'm all for religious accommodation. What do I mean by that? I mean it in the more general sense of allowing personal liberty. If you want to wear your religious garb in public, feel free. If you want to preach on street corners and can rustle up a decent crowd, feel free. Hell, a few years ago there was a case where banks wanted to prevent employees wearking burkas/Muslim garb (I can't remember why, possibly security or to be consistent with the no headgear policy), and I was on the side of those wanting to keep their burkas - it's the bank robbers you have to worry about, not the tellers.

What my main points were

1) If you accede to this case, why should you not accede to more burdensome requests? It isn't even obvious to me that this case is not causing 'inconvenience.' Perhaps I am reacting too strongly, but the building I frequent most at university is 16 floors, constantly has at least one elevator out of order, and the wait times at the start and end of classes is obscene.

2) Why do religious requests get accommodated or at least shown respect but requests based on personal preference do not?

[Patronus Potter]

I don't know about Maryland, but in Brooklyn there absolutely is coercion to follow orthodox practices. Some of it is direct, as when orthodox men literally throw stones at people they see violating sabbath laws (for example, driving on the sabbath). Some of it is indirect, for example; some Hasidic Jews essentially refuse to provide basic educations to girls on the grounds that they are mentally inferior, resulting in 18-year-old women being faced with the choice of either leaving everyone they've ever known and trying to make a living with a grade school education or agreeing to an arranged marriage.

I realize that the Baltimore situation involves orthodox and not hasidim, but I just wanted to point out that in some cases these beliefs are imposed on people and do cause real harm.

Yep. That is pretty rare here, although we do have a very insular, Orthodox community in a place called Kemp Mill.

I think the idea of God as a petty micro-manager who will punish you for breaking a silly rule needs to be addressed though. The all but total absence of the afterlife from Jewish liturgy is something that makes Judaism very different from Christianity. Following the rules is seen as good in and of itself, not because disobedience leads to eternal punishment.

Another difference is that following the letter of the law is in some ways more important than following the spirit of the law. Consider kashrut and the separation of milk and meat - all the Torah says is "you shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk." And in order to avoid breaking that law, we don't baste chickens with butter. Chickens. When I asked my orthodox friend how that came about, he said, well, they're in the same "spiritual universe" as goats and cows. In other words, we know it's bullshit, but we do it anyway.

There are plenty of old people who can't just walk up and down a dozen flights of stairs all day. I don't see the problem with setting aside one elevator to stop every two or three floors. As far as being green, the fact that Jews can't fuckin' drive a car, turn on a light switch, or sure as shit fucking roll on Shabbas will make up for it.

[Patronus Potter]

Metaphor -- Is that how you deal with neighbors, by worrying about slippery slopes and counterfactual cases and 'where does this end'? Nobody is asking or does ask for a 'Jewish elevator'. (In any case, they are not equivalent. The actual request requires no segregation and everyone has the same elevator access. This difference explains why you see buildings that actually have Sabbath elevators and don't see buildings with Jewish elevators, or elevators that don't allow women, or whatever.) If your neighbor asks you to babysit their kid in a bind, do you think, "would I do this if they had octuplets?" You can imagine all sorts of demands that are basically equivalent to the desire for a Sabbath elevator but nobody is making those demands. We aren't talking about court cases setting accomodation precedents, we're talking about condo owners making a decision on communal property that they all own.

Exactly, acceding to one request does not mean that you must automatically accede to all requests or be inconsistent. It's a reasonable request.

[Metaphor]

Exactly, acceding to one request does not mean that you must automatically accede to all requests or be inconsistent. It's a reasonable request.

But can't you see - you HAVE to be inconsistent. Even if you accede to only 'reasonable' requests - how do you draw the line? Is it what YOU consider to be reasonable?

[Metaphor]

There are plenty of old people who can't just walk up and down a dozen flights of stairs all day. I don't see the problem with setting aside one elevator to stop every two or three floors. As far as being green, the fact that Jews can't fuckin' drive a car, turn on a light switch, or sure as shit fucking roll on Shabbas will make up for it.

I don't think the environmental cost is as big a concern, but I wouldn't rely on the arguments you make above - considering that other posters have described that rather than go without light and other amenities, they just LEAVE IT ON from Friday afternoon onwards.

[Metaphor]

Who would accede to the same request if it were made by a number of obsessive-compulsives living in the building? If not, why not?

[mac_philo]

1) If you accede to this case, why should you not accede to more burdensome requests? It isn't even obvious to me that this case is not causing 'inconvenience.' Perhaps I am reacting too strongly, but the building I frequent most at university is 16 floors, constantly has at least one elevator out of order, and the wait times at the start and end of classes is obscene.
That sounds quite different from this building. You aren't even talking about neighbors anymore, plus your building apparently already has insufficient elevator service. As I said, my opinion is about being neighborly, and was contingent on the level of inconvenience. Plus, who in this context would both want a Sabbath elevator and go to a high-rise University hall on the Sabbath? You don't go to work on Shabbos. (And as said above, you sure as shit don't fucking roll.)

So it's pretty easy to answer why I can accede to this case and not others. (You seem to be using quasi-legalistic language even though this is not a court case or a petition for legal accomodation and sets no precedent.) I am happy to suffer a minor inconvenience for the benefit of my neighbor. Plus, your case doesn't even seem to be a candidate for having a Sabbath elevator. So we have cases where I think it's warranted and cases where it's not, and the hard cases in the middle.

2) Why do religious requests get accommodated or at least shown respect but requests based on personal preference do not?
I'm not sure what you mean here. Don't literally millions of personal preference requests get satisfied every day? The last personal preference satisfied at my condo was banning pets from the courtyard. This was not a religious request.

As for consistency per se, what does that have to do with how you treat your neighbors? Don't you just try to get by as best you can without worrying about counterfactual scenarios and slippery slopes? I dislike cats, but have spent many hours over the last few years taking care of the neighbor's cat when he's away. Is that also a problematic inconsistency? It's sure some kind of inconsistency. To me it is not meaningfully different from asking me to feed a sewer rat to which he's grown attached, which I wouldn't do. So should I thus not feed his cat because I want to be consistent, or because I'm worried where this slope leads?

[Metaphor]

That sounds quite different from this building. You aren't even talking about neighbors anymore, plus your building apparently already has insufficient elevator service. As I said, my opinion is about being neighborly, and was contingent on the level of inconvenience. Plus, who in this context would both want a Sabbath elevator and go to a high-rise University hall on the Sabbath? You don't go to work on the Sabbath. (And as said above, you sure as shit don't fucking roll.)

My point was merely that it would cause other people to wait longer to get the lift. Either you get the Sabbath lift and it stops on every floor, or, the other lifts are more burdened/busier and you have to wait for those as well.


I'm not sure what you mean here. Don't literally millions of personal preference requests get satisfied every day? The last personal preference satisfied at my condo was banning pets from the courtyard. This was not a religious request.

As for consistency per se, what does that have to do with how you treat your neighbors? Don't you just try to get by as best you can without worrying about counterfactual scenarios and slippery slopes? I dislike cats, but have spent many hours over the last few years taking care of the neighbor's cat when he's away. Is that also a problematic inconsistency? It's sure some kind of inconsistency. To me it is not meaningfully different from asking me to feed a sewer rat to which he's grown attached, which I wouldn't do. So should I thus not feed his cat because I want to be consistent, or because I'm worried where this slope leads?

I think religious requests are treated with more seriousness and respect than other requests based on personal preference. At my university, exams have to be scheduled around holy days of various religions (Christian ones are already public holidays, but Jewish and Muslim ones are not). If an exam is scheduled on Thursday but it turns out that Thursday is a holy day for a particular faith, the exam is either rescheduled or those people who cite 'religious reasons' get to take an alternative exam on another day.

But if you are working that day, or you are just too lazy to go to the exam, you won't get the exemption. One kind of personal preference is treated as legit (religious) whilst other personal preferences (nonreligious) get the raw end of the deal.


I might be coming across as a mean-spirited militant secularist. I am not. I do not wish to inflict undue suffering on others, and there is a case to be made for a slight or negligible inconvenience to some if it greatly reduces the distress of some others.

What I don't like is the deference paid to religious delusions/preferences over non religious delusions/preferences.

[chapka]

Hi chapka. Can you explain this? I certainly don't see how it is a fallacy nor how the elevator is 'basically unavailable'. How does stopping on every floor make it unavailable? Doesn't it just add roughly 5-10 seconds per floor to the time it takes to travel?

The building is 9 stories so that is a maximum inconvenience of 30-60 seconds if you just count the time from entrance to exit, and 60-120 seconds total if you count the wait time for the elevator to show up and it is as far away as possible.

Say 10 seconds per floor, which I think is conservative. Say you're on the ground floor, trying to go up to your apartment on the ninth floor, and the elevator has just left. If you wait for the Sabbath elevator, it will take 80 seconds to get to the top floor, then 80 seconds to get back to the ground floor, then 80 seconds to get back up to the ninth floor with you, for a total of about four minutes. Take 15 seconds per floor, which I think is more realistic, and the maximum delay would be something like six minutes. This means the average wait, from anywhere in the building, will probably be about three minutes.

Realistically, since the call button is unaffected by the sabbath elevator (at least the ones I've seen), this means that you'll probably get the regular elevator first. And even if you don't, the regular elevator will be slower because it'll be stopping more often for people who pressed the call button, regardless of whether they then got the sabbath elevator.

I'm not saying it's the end of the world, but yes, it's an inconvenience, and yes, it's going to make the other elevators slower.

[nogods4me]

There are also other questions that I would like see answers to.

Must the elevator run continuously for the sabbath, certainly if you cannot press a button for your floor, you cannot press the call button for the elevator.
How long does it stop, how long are the doors open? If the elevator is crowded and the door starts to close before everyone is off the elevator, must you ride the entire circuit again to return to your floor?
Is it a violation to have the elevator doors have sensors that tell when it strikes something?

I think the 10 seconds est is a bit low, you should logically have it stop long enough on each floor for the entire elevator to empty and to fill again, so the higher the capacity of the elevator, the longer the stop on each floor.

And the wear and tear on the elevator , if indeed it needs to run full time, up and down opening and waiting on each floor, for 24 solid hours each week, plus holidays is enourmous. How much more often would it need to be services?

[Boro Nut]

I'm sorry but WHY do they think their god is so petty that it really considers pressing lift buttons a no no.

Could they not take a step back and see how silly it is?Not without great personal risk. Lift doors aren't allowed to close on the Sabbath.

Boro Nut

[lpetrich]

I wonder if following such goofy customs is a status symbol -- the more of them you follow, the higher your status will be?

And I wonder if our metabolism qualifies as "work". If starting fires and using electricity are no-nos, then some of our metabolism must also fall into the forbidden category. There are several types, notably:

* Digestion of food. Our food takes a couple days to go through, and one would have to fast a couple days beforehand to keep from digesting any food during the Sabbath. But the last I saw, eating on the Sabbath is not a no-no.

* Building of new cells, like outer-layer cells of skin and the digestive system, and blood cells, both red and white. This requires the duplication of the cells' genomes and the manufacture of more of the cells' other biomolecules, like proteins and membrane lipids. Yes, I know; red blood cells aren't true cells, but they get that way by having their nuclei removed (more work!).

* Energy metabolism. This is an elaborate Rube Goldberg process of disassembling food molecules and combining them with oxygen, while extracting their energy and putting it to work in various ways. More specifically, electrons are stripped from carbohydrate, fat, and protein building blocks (sugars, fatty acids, and amino acids), passed down a "respiratory chain" in the inner membranes of mitochondria, and ultimately combined with hydrogen ions and oxygen to make water. This chain pumps hydrogen ions across that membrane, and those ions are allowed to return in structures that add phosphate ions to the phosphate part of RNA base adenosine phosophate to make adenosine triphosphate (ATP).

This molecule's extra phosphates may then be transferred to other molecules as part of assembling proteins, nucleic acids, and other such molecules. They may also be transferred to cell-membrane pumps that pump sodium and potassium ions in appropriate directions, and to muscle fibers to make them move relative to each other.

Switching off energy metabolism would mean doing what a variety of relatively "primitive" organisms can do: suspended animation. But observing the Sabbath in that way would mean that one experiences and does absolutely nothing from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. Including no worshipping, no praying, no synagogue attendance, no scripture reading, no avoiding Sabbath no-nos, absolutely nothing that requires one's consciousness to be active.

[chapka]

There are also other questions that I would like see answers to.

Must the elevator run continuously for the sabbath, certainly if you cannot press a button for your floor, you cannot press the call button for the elevator.

Yes; that's the way all of the Sabbath elevators I've seen work. Basically, you stand in front of the elevator and when the doors open you get in. Then you ride until it gets where you're going.

If the elevator is crowded and the door starts to close before everyone is off the elevator, must you ride the entire circuit again to return to your floor?

Yes.

[chapka]

And I wonder if our metabolism qualifies as "work". If starting fires and using electricity are no-nos, then some of our metabolism must also fall into the forbidden category.

The rules are silly, but not that silly. "Work" is an English approximation of a concept that encompasses a number of specific categories of activity, specified in mishnayot. It's not a general rule against expending any energy, and in any case, there are always exceptions, one of which is that anything is allowed when someone's life is in danger.