[Avodah] Microphones on Shabbos

[saul mashbaum]

RMB wrote, regarding microphones on Shabbat:
>>
I do not believe the teshuvos are *based* on the problems. Rather, there was a
gut instinct that it doesn't fit with the gestalt of hilkhos Shabbos. Then it
was a matter of reasoning through why that is.

Which would explain why so many poseqim reached the same conclusion through
such different means -- hav'arah, bishul, makeh bepatish, boneh... The
reasoning is actually ex post facto, justifying something they knew to be true
in some ineffable way, the gefeel of din.

>>
In his most recent weekly shiur, Rav Asher Zelig Weiss expressed himself about electricity in almost exactly the same terms as RMB does here: the prohibition was determined first, and then the poskim looked around for a category to fit it into. 
He cited a Yerushalmi (which unfortunately I cannot quote pefectly accurately) in which chazal categorized actions forbidden on Shabbat; any activity they knew, apparently intuitively,  was prohibited which they could not fit into one of the other categories was classified as makeh-b'patish. This illustrates the concept that in some cases,the prohibition anteceded the classification.
I think it's fair to say that he indicated that this phenomenon is uncommon, but he was emphatic that it definitely exists.
Saul Mashbaum
 
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