Another Peek Into How My Brain Works

[gnomi]

So, sometime over the weekend (well, some time after Thursday night, because I work from home on Fridays), the office building I work in changed the (relatively new and perfectly good) faucets in the bathroom to the automatic ones that are sensor-driven. I saw them this morning, and my thought process went something like this:

1. Oh, they did something new with the faucets.

2. Oh! They installed those automatic ones!

3. Yikes... that's going to be a Shabbat problem.

4. Oh, wait... silly, you don't work here on Shabbat.

Comments

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

Can I ask why that wouldn't be allowed on Shabbat? Is it something to do with technology, or....?

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

By passing your hand under the sensor thus triggering an electric circuit and causing the water to flow you are violating Shabbat, because turning an electric current on or off is generally regarded as forbidden.

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. Thanks!

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

I was going to ask the same thing. Thanks!

[eal.livejournal.com]

I was going to ask, too. Thanks for asking :).

[prettypammie.livejournal.com]

So opening or closing a valve is ok but altering an electric current is not? Technically when you open or close that valve you are making use of electricity, which is maintaining the pressure. It just isn't running at the same time you move the faucet handle.
What is the underlying principle? And would I be correct in guessing it has multiple interpretations?

-P

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

Opening a valve (for water) is ok. I'm not sure what you mean by maintaining the pressure - in my house we don't have pumps for the cold water. If you are referring to the pumps at the pumping station the connection is too distant - there is no way that my opening or closing the water valve has a discernable impact on when those pumps are on and off. On the other hand, the connection between waving my hand and making the electric sensor send a signal is direct and immediate.

The intermediate case is a home hot water heater. When you turn on hot water in a home with a hot water heater, new water is immediately drawn into the boiler to be heated. For this reason traditionally observant Jews will not use hot water from a tap on Shabbat. They will draw hot water from a hot pot, since no new water is added.

Some people will use hot tap water on Shabbat in a hotel in America. We can assume the majority of the people in the hotel are not Jews, and so many people are turning the taps on and off at any given moment that the direct connection between your turning on the tap and water getting heated is not apparent. Others are more stringent.

And yes, there is lots of dispute over the details.

The underlying principle is something called gramma - indirect action. This is too big a topic to go into here. The classic example of gramma in the talmud is as follows: Putting out a fire on Shabbat is forbidden. What do you do if something catches on fire? One possibility is to take water barrels and put them in a circle beyond where the fire is presently burning. When the fire reaches the barrels, it will burn them and the water will spill out and extinguish the fire(*). This is considered indirect extinguishing. On the other hand, pouring water onto an incline and letting it roll down onto the fire is considered direct action and is forbidden.

(*)Kids, don't try this at home!

[1-rhiannon-1.livejournal.com]

I had the same question - thanks for asking that! :D

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

I have the same sort of reaction. I used to know all the treif restaurants in Westborough on my path back from shul to my house that didn't have sensors in the bathroom, so if I needed to stop during the 3 mile work home on Shabbat and Yom Tov I'd know which one to go into. The habit of noting this remains even now.

[sorek.livejournal.com]

I started to ask "why only treif restaurants?"...and then re-read your comment (obviously, the kosher restaurants aren't open on shabbos.)

3 mile walk to shul. Ouch!

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

Also there were no kosher restaurants in Westborough. :>)

[malkaesther.livejournal.com]

LOL, every now and then for a couple of months Worcester had a kosher restaurant but pretty much all other kosher restaurants in MA are in brookline (or that area). This is a 45 minute in really good weather and no traffic trip by car from Westborough.

[sorek.livejournal.com]

Oh wait, Larry was talking about Westborough MA?!? I thought he was talking about somewhere in NY. Remember, I know Brookline! :)

Looking forward to seeing Larry this weekend.

[malkaesther.livejournal.com]

I could not resist teasing you. (grin)

May you both have a great time at Boskone.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I still miss the kosher deli that used to be on Water St.

[malkaesther.livejournal.com]

I suspect that was before my time? We went kosher in 1999/2000 and moved to NJ about 5 years ago.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure when it closed/went nonkosher; sometime in the 80s?

[malkaesther.livejournal.com]

Before my time. I graduated high school in 1985. I did not convert until 2000.

[twitch124.livejournal.com]

Beware the soap dispensers. I had trouble getting one to trigger and when it finally did the white soap goo dispensed with so much force it bounced off my hand and hit my sweater. At least it cleaned up easily.

(Yeah, "dispensed" was not my first word choice there, but then I reread my original comment.)

[introverte.livejournal.com]

I hope they have the temperature set right. Too many of these are icy cold or burning hot.

[sorek.livejournal.com]

Hmph. With some of those sensor-types, I can't figure out where the darn sensor is, so I'm helplessly waving my hands in generally random patterns.

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't that make it gramma, thus usable? You don't know if any given wave of the hand will actually turn it on, so any given wave is gramma, so go ahead and use it.

I can sometimes fool the sensor-toilets in hotels into not flushing.

[sorek.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, but it still makes them hard to use the rest of the week :)

[malkaesther.livejournal.com]

LOL, I've had situations where I've gone through a very similar thought process.

[cellio]

I had the same kind of reaction to the auto-flushing toilets in an airport once -- hey, that'd be a problem and what would I do if I really had to go... wait! I wouldn't be here! :-)

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

When my office moved we got a new bathroom with a new automatic hand-dryer... that just about every user of the sink has turned on by accident and without realizing until the *WHIRRRRR* makes them jump. It's in just the right place to be activated by the left shoulder when one is looking in the mirror.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

That would be my reaction too!