[Avodah] goy vs chiloni

[Chana Luntz]

RAF writes:

> No, the circuit does not visibly modify the door. The act of boneh (as
> per CI) is not on the door, but on the invisible circuit. The door
> changes place, but remains as it always was.

In the case of a door which is meant to operate electronically, and only
ever operated manually in emergency situations (often by breaking
something), I don't think that is the case.  The electronic circuit is a
part and parcel of the door and is what makes it function.  I do agree in
the case where a buzzer arranges for a release of a circuit, which then
allows the door to be opened manually - the electronic circuit is just put
there to protect the door and would seem more analogous to an envelope.  But
an electronic door is "live", that is how it works. If, for example, you
take the lift door on our lift at home (which we had modified by tzomet so
as to allow for grama operated switches for shabbas - as you probably know
my son is very disabled, and needs such a thing) - it gets *very* upset if
it gets opened or shut manually, and it takes a few pushes to reset itself
(it just won't go until you do that, ie you reopen the door electronically
and shut it electronically a few times). The manual operation in fact messes
up the electronic circuits. There is indeed a mechanism for operating it
manually, in case the electricity fails or there is some problem, but it is
not straightforward, and certainly not the way it is meant to be done. And
no question, if the circuit fails to respond, the door is considered broken,
and a technician would be called to fix it.  Nobody would say "oh the
circuit is broken but the door is fine", they would say, "the door is
broken". Thus to my mind the door and the circuit are part and parcel of
each other. That is how they were made, as an integrated whole, and the
electricity runs throughout the door.  In most cases if you touch the door
or the opening or closing space during the time it is opening and closing,
it triggers some sort of electrical reaction (you see this most obviously in
the sliding doors where if you put your hand in the gap, even if it is
closing it will reopen).

So I don't see the visibility aspect of it being relevant (well not if you
hold that an invisible circuit is in itself considered to involve binyan and
stira). 

Again a door that is meant to be opened both manually and electronically (eg
from the inside manually, and from the outside electronically) may be
different - but even then, that is not necessarily the case.  For example,
went away for Pesach year before last (held at a fancy hotel in Malta).  The
usual means of opening the doors from the outside was by electronic swipe,
the usual means on the inside by the handle.  The doors did however, also
have key locks and they gave us a key for use on shabbas/yom tov.  However
being of a suspicious mind, I carefully tried it a few times before
shabbas/yom tov, and it became clear that when I turned the key in the lock,
the light on the door switched from yellow to green (just as it did when one
successfully swiped the electronic swipe).  We jumped up and down (a lot!)
and in the end (after it went all the way to the top of the caterer and the
hotel and everything) they sent a specialised electronic technician to
change it.  And he had to pull out the whole door lock (I think even the
bits on both sides, the one part in the door jam and the other in door
itself - but certainly the bit in the actual door part that does the
moving), take out various bits and pieces that were part and parcel of it
and then reinsert the lock - at which point there was no longer a light
(green or yellow) at all - and the electronic swipe no longer worked, the
only way to operate it was with the manual key.  I just don't see how you
can say that the electronic circuit the lock was separate from the door in
such a case - even though it had a key option, and so, if the electricity
had failed, it could have been operated quite happily on the key alone as a
back up method.

> No, that should be better than reading a letter that was opened on
> Shabbat, because the door could have been opened otherwise; the letter
> could only be opened by ripping the envelope.

Well as I said off list, in Rav Zilberstein's teshuva, which RET kindly sent
me, he refers, as a sniff l'heter, to the safek of the Pri Megadim in siman
319 si'if katan 1 as to whether, in the case of an item produced by borer,
perhaps the item was permissible since it was possible to produce the same
item by a mutar method.  What this shows, however, is that the Pri Megadim
had a safek about this, ie it is not so pashut that even if the door could
have been opened otherwise, if it was done in a forbidden manner, it might
still make the door assur.

 And as I have indicated above, the fact that there appears to be a manual
method of opening the door, does not necessarily mean that circuits are not
of necessity being triggered by the use of that manual method.  I did not
really investigate what happened when the door was opened from the inside in
our hotel case, - but it would not surprise me if the light had gone from
yellow to green when the door was opened from the inside as well, despite
the fact that, from the inside, one did not, and probably could not, see
this.  In circumstances like the hotel case,  really find it very hard to
see the circuit(s) as somehow independent of the door - this was an
electronic door made up of a number of circuits (and other parts) that
needed as special technician to turn it into a manual door.  

> Arie Folger

Shabbat Shalom (and now I really must sign off until motzei shabbas)

Chana