[Avodah] LED "tealights" for Shabbos candles

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 06:02:53PM +0300, D&E-H Bannett wrote:
> Re: <<whether you can make a Beracha or not on electric lights
> and specifically fluorescent bulbs (the same would apply to LEDs).>>
...
>                                                         Every 
> fluorescent, however, includes two sources of bright white incandescent 
> light at the electrodes, one at each end of the tube. So, turning on a  
> fluorescent is halakhically equivalent to turning on two incandescent 
> bulbs and one LED.

Yes, but we're not talking about melekhes Shabbos, we're talking about
neir Shabbos. And the light you're using to make your meal brighter it
the flourescent, not the filaments that cause it to flouresce.

I did think of one possible way the issur melakhah could be connected
to derabbanan of neir Shabbos. The purpose of the gezeira is to make
sure there is light at the meal even though you can't light anything
once Shabbos began. So it is possible that the taqanah explicitly only
includes lighting something that is assur deOraisa to light after sheqiah.

But even so, in a flourescent the thing your using as neir is not the
actual glowing filament.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Zion will be redeemed through justice,
micha at aishdas.org        and her returnees, through righteousness.
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