[Avodah] West Hartford Doctor Challenges GE On `Sabbath

[Chana Luntz]

RTK writes:
>It seems to me that Harris is wrong about the halacha.  You can't turn  an 
>oven on on Shabbos (even by setting a timer to do it) in order to heat up  
>food.  You can put cold food on a blech but IIANM you can't put cold food in 
>a hot oven on Shabbos.  
 
Well not so pashut even if you are talking about a hot oven - many
Sephardi poskim will allow a time clocked oven if the food is already
fully cooked and there is more solid than liquid, and the controls
are covered (or whatever else deemed necessary to consider it garuf
and katum).

But even for Ashkenazim, you are assuming the oven is hot. Why not
assume that he was planning to put the food in when the oven was cold,
for the oven to then turn itself on (by way of time clock) and warm
the food. As this seems to add grama to the mix, why should that not
be permissible even for Ashkenazim?

Note that ROY has a fascinating teshuva (Volume 10 of the Yabiat Omer,
siman 26) in which he holds that in relation to fully cooked *soup* -
ie a liquid, you can put it on a blech attached to a time clock while
the time clock has made the blech be off and leave it there, knowing
that the time clock will then turn the blech on and warm up the soup for
your shabbas lunch! This is despite the Sephardi position regarding
heating liquids being if anything more machmir than the Ashkenazi one
(ie clearly holding yesh bishul achar bishul for a d'var lach - although
ROY holds that this is d'rabbanan).


On Fri, Jun 01, 2012 at 04:58:27PM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: I've wondered about this too. My guess is that both are grama, and those
: rabbanim would say so. The difference (I'm guessing) is that they're
: willing to allow this grama for the need of those cholim etc. who have
: a real need for Machon Zomet devices, but they're not willing to concede
: this leniency for more ordinary cases. Again, this is just my guess.

Tzomet itself will draw this distinction. We had a whole long discussion
with Rabbi Rosen about our lift. He was perfectly happy for us to use
the grama switch to open the lift to put my disabled son in, to close
it with him inside, to send it up to the next floor, then to open it to
take him out. Similarly with my husband's elderly uncle, who could also
be classified as a choleh. BUT the question was, what about closing the
lift door again. The problem was that the lift door opened against the
bedroom door of the room of my other (non disabled) son, and covered
about three quarters of it. That meant that, while it was possible
(especially since he is just a kid) for him to squeeze himself round
the lift door and in or out of his bedroom, we were worried that (a) he
might hurt himself going to the bathroom in the middle of the night and
(b) he might damage the lift door (and if the lift is disabled then we
have no way of getting my disabled son up and down the stairs without
seriously doing our backs in). Tzomet was very unhappy about us using
the grama switch to close the door, because that particular closing was
primarily for the benefit of my non disabled son, not for my disabled
son. My husband ultimately spoke to his own Rav, who being Sephardi,
was much more relaxed about grama, and who had no problem us closing
the lift door in these circumstances.


BUT then RMB writes:
>What they signed, at least as translated by "a prominent rov and posek"
>who sent it to YWN:
>>  In our opinion, pressing the keys on Yom Tov is strictly forbidden
>>  since pressing a key immediately closes an electrical circuit and
>> instructs the microcontroller to carry out an action. Pressing the
>> key is forbidden just as all manipulation of electricity is forbidden
>> on Shabbos and Yom Tov either because of "Makeh B'patish" or because
>> of "Mesaken" as described in Igros Moshe (vol.3 ?42 and vol.4 ?84)
>> whereby there can be a Torah violation immediately upon pressing the
>> key even if no "fire'" is created. This operation is not considered
>> "Grama".

I do not know how the keypad modifications on these ovens work, but if
this Rav is correct that pressing the key immediately closes an electric
circuit then it is very different to the way the Tzomet grama switch
works on our lift.

As I understand it, the pressing of the Tzomet button only has a
mechanical effect - think of it like physically moving a piece of
plastic from point A to point B. Then there is some sort of beam that
checks every minute or so to see where the plastic is. If it finds it
at point A, it does nothing, if it finds it at point B, it then operates
the mechanism (actually, I think it is even more complicated than this,
it has to find it at point B twice in a row, to make sure that you are
not moving it to point B just at the particular time the beam is doing
its check, making the action-reaction immediate). The beam is checking
regularly every minute or so from before shabbas (indeed all week if
you never bother to switch the grama switches off, but just use the
manufacturers buttons during the week). I also believe that how often
the beam checks may be somewhat randomised, so it is not even as though
it checks every 80 seconds or whatever, but a slightly random number
within certain parameters.

Regards
Chana