[Avodah] mavriach ari

[Chana Luntz]

RET writes:

> Thus for example I assume that everyone agrees that if 
> someone changes a shabbat clock (even through an averira) so 
> that a light that was supposed to go off remains on that 
> there is no problem of benefitting from the light. In 
> practice the light simply remains on all shabbat and we dont 
> take into account that it was meant to go off and someone 
> sinned and changed those facts.

Is this so clear?  Take the case brought in the second half of si'if 4
Shulchan Aruch siman 276  - where a NJ puts more oil into a lamp that is
already lit, and the halacha is that one is permitted to use the lamp until
the time it would have stayed alight on the oil that was already there, and
after that it is forbidden.  Now this is of course a case of a NJ, but I do
not believe the din vis a vis a Jew acting b'mazid and adding more oil is
not any different.  

In fact in that teshuva of RSZA that I referred you to (Minchas Shlomo
chelek 1 siman 5) he gets a bit worried about why one is allowed to use the
light until the point when it would have gone out on the old oil, as the
oils mix immediately, but argues that it is a zeh v'zeh gorem situation, and
zeh v'zeh gorem is mutar - and he adds that perhaps this is true even if the
oil was added b'mazid by a Jew - indicating that where it is not zeh v'zeh
gorem it would seem to be assur.

Now what is usually different about a shabbas clock is that if one changes
it, usually one is actually doing nothing that can be described as an averah
(moving a knob from here to there or pressing a few bits of plastic that
were in position out to in - well not totally sure about mukza, but other
than that) ie he is not, as you describe it above, doing it "through an
averira".  It is only subsequently that that action, when the clock moves
around to where the knob or bit of plastic is (or would have been if you had
not taken it away), that you action has caused something to happen - or in
this case not to happen.  This is prime Tzomet territory - you do something
that in and of itself is a mutar act, but only later because of the way the
electronics have been designed to detect patterns at various intervals, does
it cause the system to act (or even better, not to act).  Even if you hold
that a pure circuit is d'orisa (which of course is a minority opinion) then
by including the delay, you have a grama situation, which with shinui and
various other things to support, may well make it OK for use for a choleh
etc.  And if in fact you only have a d'rabbanan, plus you add in grama, plus
shinui, then you should be fine, especially with the tzorech gadol hospital
and medical equipment type scenario. 

But let us say that this particular shabbas clock is not manual, ie that the
way of adjusting it is indeed to connect up a circuit with flashing lights,
so that when you adjust it, you do it by programming new numbers in in place
of the old - and let us say we hold this is an issur d'orisa.  Why is this
different from the case of adding more oil?  It does seem to get us over
RSZA's worry about the immediacy of it - the power flowing down the circuit
during the intermediate time is indeed only the power that would have been
there before - no need for zeh v'zeh gorem, but after the time when the
light would have cut out, why is what has been done not the equivalent of
adding more oil?

So anyway having a hunt around a bit I see that ROY addresses the (mutar
type of) shabbas clock in Yabiat Omer chelek 3 siman 18.  And he brings
initially a machlokus between Tosphos and the Rosh, first on the case of
taking away oil, and then on the case of adding oil.  First on the case of
taking way oil, Tosphos says it is assur because immediately on taking it
away, he extinguishes the light a little bit, but the Rosh says it is assur
because causing extinguishment is assur, and similarly he say that the
reason Tosphos assurs adding oil, it is because if you do that immediately
it starts to burn better and this is considered madlik b'yadaim.  He then
says whether one can move a dial on a shabbas clock so as to extend the
light would be dependent on this machlokus between the Rosh and Tosphos,
because by extending the time on the shabbas clock, one is not making the
light burn more brightly, so according to Tosphos it would just be grama and
permitted b'makom mitzvah. But according to the Rosh, and that the Mechaber
holds like him, to continue it to be lit would itself be like lighting with
one's hands and would be assur.  Except that, putting in oil is a direct act
of lighting while turning the dials on the Shabbat clock is not a direct
act, and all the Shabbat clock is doing is causing it to go out (garom
l'kabui) and even more so to is it OK to turn it so as to allow the light to
continue.

And indeed ROY goes on to say that there is not the same kind of
consideration in bone even according to the Rosh, because when we are
dealing with bone, it is not like extinguishing, where the Rosh holds that
gorem kibui is k'kibui, but agrees that with bone, the issur is on doing a
new act immediately, so gorem helps.

[Oh and he says there that is not in this an issur of muktza (which was my
other worry above) - because one can have taken it away completely.  I
confess I do not understand this though - well I do if he is talking about a
kind of shabbas clock that shuts everything down and stops working, but most
of those I know keep on working and moving around, hence allowing for
multiple settings, so I am not sure how this helps.]

In terms of dealing with gorem kibui, (ie moving the dial on the shabbas
clock earlier, rather than later)) which is the more problematic of the two,
he does refer to the importance of the fact that the shabbas clock is a dvar
acher and external to the light, and not like the oil or wick which can be
considered intrinsic.

But all this is in relation to a situation where the actual act being done
is in and of itself mutar, the only issue is what it causes (ie the grama).

But in the case you describe, there seems to me to be a fundamental
difference.  Because the act itself is assur.  And not only that, however
you construct the issur on the act, the intention of the person doing the
act is to cause extinguishment or continuing lighting (the shabbas clock has
no other purpose).  If you follow the opinion of the Rosh, that gorem kibui
is ossur then it really doesn't seen so far fetched to say that this case is
just like adding the oil, ie you have done a forbidden act which then causes
an issur of continued lighting after time, and hence this is like you did it
b'yadaim.  And even if you follow Tosphos, - it would seem possible to say
that Tosphos does not just assur the use of the light immediately upon
adding the oil, but later on as well (ie it is not just at the immediate
moment when the oil is added and the light burns better that it is assur)
you just need an immediate act of chillul shabbas to trigger off the issur,
and here you would have that.

But one of the differences between this case of the time switch and the case
of chasing away a lion is that this time switch's purpose (almost certainly
sole purpose) is to regulate the lighting and extinguishing of lights.  And
when a person fiddles with it by way of an issur d'orisa, his intention in
doing so is either extinguishing or lighting the lights, albeit after a
predefined time.  It is not so hard to see the time clock and the light and
its circuitry as really all of a unit.  Whereas, I would have thought in
most cases of killing a lion, there is a fair chance that the intention of
the person has nothing to do with the benefit so enabled of being able to
access the road, which may or may not occur (not clear anybody wants to go
anyway).  There is no necessary connection between the desire to do that act
and the benefit (although there may be, if the person only killed the lion
in order to pass by the road).  That to a large extent gets to the heart of
my concern about the application of the lion case elsewhere.  The lion case
seems at one extreme (two objects with no necessary connection), this case
of the assur shabbas clock in the middle (two objects but with a direct
connection), and the door case even further the other way (so bound up with
one another that most people would refer to them as one object), with it
being clearer they are one item and not a dvar acher chutza lo.
> -- 
> Eli Turkel

Regards

Chana