[Avodah] Explaining boneh/electricity to a non-religious person

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Jan 04, 2010 at 05:39:10PM -0500, Avroham Yakov wrote:
: But with fluorescent, or some of the newer bulbs, they don't get hot.

First, a flourescent bulb is IMHO a bigger bishul problem than an arc
lamp. You not only heat up two filaments rather than one, but you use
that heat to boil mercury within the bulb -- so the bishul is definitely
nicha lei.

Similarly, old-style TVs and monitors, those with cathode-ray tubes
rather than flat-screen.

Second, anything that almost inevitably sparks, even lo nikha lei, would
be bishul. That would include AC switches, many motors, etc...

Third, anything that is supposed to be constantly running, eg a clock,
would be makeh bepatish.

Fourth, a radio, MP3 player, cell phone or TV are possibly within the
gezeira against keli zemer, since they're adjustable and can play music.

Even without boneh, the list of items still permissable is quite small.
LED flashlights, calculators, passive element microphones (not turning
it on or off, just speaking into it) if there is no indicator light that
has a filament...  Not much else comes to mind but I'm sure a creative
mind can come up with a few others.

Still, it would be far from general usage.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur
micha at aishdas.org        with the proper intent than to fast on Yom
http://www.aishdas.org   Kippur with that intent.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter