January 29, 2010--Kosher Elevators

Some years ago I was visiting a friend in the hospital. Mount Sinai in New York. I was eager to get to see her and was impatient with the crowds clustered at the bank of elevators. They were very slow getting on and off and so when I saw one arrive at the end of the bank where the crowd was thinner I pushed my way toward it. People backed away and surprisingly, though the others were packed, this one was nearly empty as the doors closed. There was only one other person with me, and she go off on the second floor. My friend was up on twelve.

Even though I had pushed just that button, the car proceeded to stop, with agonizing slowness, at every floor. It was a great mystery to me why it did so since at each floor no one was there to summon it.

When I finally got to twelve, feeling confused and a little impatient, I noticed for the fist time a sign by my elevator that read, Sabbath Elevator—On Saturdays This Car Automatically Stops At All Floors. And since it was Saturday, it was the Sabbath. Or in Yiddish, Shabbos, which means cessation or rest.

This was my first experience with a kosher, yes, a kosher elevator.

On the Jewish Day of Rest many things are prohibited in order to make sure we do not do anything that smacks of work. This includes not walking a total of more than 2,000 cubits (3,049.5 feet), driving a car, carrying any money, using the telephone, or for that matter any electrical device, including a stove or a lamp. All are considered forms of work.

You may wonder where in the Old Testament there is any mention of telephones or lights or elevators. Of course there isn’t. But since to orthodox Jews the bible is a living document that must be interpreted for different times and different eras, much like the American Constitution, through the ages groups of the most senior and esteemed rabbis have taken on this complicated interpretive task.

Which brings me back to elevators.

During Shabbos, although observant Jews are not allowed to use anything powered by electricity there are permitted ways in which they can benefit by electrical devices such as lights and elevators. This is allowed if a non-Jew, a Shabbos Goy, activates them for us. Thus, famously, even synagogues can have their lights turned on on Saturdays if a gentile is hired to do so. And it is all right to benefit by an electrical light on Saturday if it is left on overnight or turned on automatically by a timing device. And it is permitted to use an elevator if it is programmed to stop automatically at each and every floor. This allows us to us them without having to push any buttons. Clever, no?

As with matters of this kind, things can get very complicated and disputatious.

For example, there is much controversy right now about new-fangled elevators that have sensing devices in them that determine if too many people are on board. If they are unsafely overloaded. This is done by automatically measuring the weight of all the passengers. If the car is quite full and just as the doors are about to close a portly person pushes his way on, a warning beep is emitted and the car will not begin to ascend until he or someone else gets off.

Among the rabbis who spend long day and nights considering these perplexing matters, they ponder that if you are that person who gets on at the last second and sets off the alarm are you doing the equivalent of pressing an elevator button? You were not just a passive elevator user who benefited from the fact that the car is preset to stop on every floor without your active engagement; but to the sternest rabbis, by your action (a version of “work”), you “desecrated the Sabbath.”

In the early days, the prohibitions were for things such as weaving or planting seeds or threshing grain or slaughtering or skinning an animal. Making a fire was also forbidden and was listed separately on the generic list of 39 categories of prohibition, the 39 melakhot. And from not being allowed to make or extinguish a fire (even one causing serious damage to a house) comes the ruling that activating an electrical light or circuit is the equivalent of making a fire.

Forgetting for a moment the actual physics—yes, they are both acts of releasing or using energy—it is pretty hard to live in the modern world and follow strictly all of these kinds of rules.

Which brings me back to the elevator situation. Many cities’ current safety codes require these kinds of warning devices on elevators. This then presents a problem to observant Jews who live on the 16th floor and on the Sabbath must get out—for example to go to shul for worship services. The Shabbos sanctions do not allow them to walk down and up the stairs and so they are left with having to use the elevator, presumably having a gentile neighbor press the buttons for them. But as was reported in the New York Times a few weeks ago (article linked below), a group of the most-esteemed rabbis in Israel issues a decree that said that even activating one of these weight sensors is a desecration. What is one to do? Move to the first floor? Make sure to always be the first one to get on the elevator?

As you can see, being this kind of Jew is a very dicey business. Thus, I think I’ll stay in bed tomorrow. But without turning on the TV or reading or doing the crossword puzzle. And for sure no raiding the refrigerator, that is unless I remove the bulb that lights when the door is opened. But then again, when I open the door (opening a door is permitted—it is not considered to be work) I will let some of the cold air out and that will start the electrical compressor and . . .

I think I’ll just let the rabbis figure that one out. In the meantime, I’m off to the Green Owl for coffee. Before the sun starts to go down.