[Avodah] How do you explain issur of electricity (boneh) to a non-religious person?

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Jan 04, 2010 at 12:40:16PM -0500, R Davidovich wrote:
: Planting a tent peg into the ground constitutes an act of Boneh - Building.
: Conceptually, Binyan can be defined as the act of affixing something to the
: structure of the ground....           Building may be accomplished by
: rooting something to the ground, even when done without force.  Hence,
: plugging an appliance to the wall is in fact connecting it to the entire
: infrastructure of the Electrical Power-Grid and buildings that make it up.
: Binyan.

And would this imply that the CI would have allowed battery-powered or
solar powered devices that aren't attached to any real estate?

Given the number of other shitos, and the fact that they are all less
than airtight when dealing with devices with no sound, internal glowing
filaments or near-certain sparking that either don't plug in or are
already plugged in, I would be more comfortable going the meta-level.

How is it so many posqim reached the same conclusion through such
different routes? Is halakhah ends-driven? Or, is it that that the truly
great posqim have an inarticulatable notion of what Shabbos ought to
include, and it's only in trying to articulate a decision that is really
based on the whole gestalt that these numerous weak reasons get presented?

While some of us question the existence of daas Torah WRT decisions
where the open question isn't halakhah or even what's the best AYH,
do any of us doubt the concept of daas Torah within the domain of pesaq?

And if so, how do you explain this "mysterious" convergance of
conclusions (in a way that still justifies following the pesaq)?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is our choices...that show what we truly are,
micha at aishdas.org        far more than our abilities.
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