[Avodah] Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum's Position on the Kosher Switch

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 04/16/2015 03:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 03:43:24PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
> :> BTW, I found a reference to the case in the SA at
> :> <http://www.kosherswitch.com/liv/tech/the-analogy>. To quote:
> ...
> :>       * More accurately:  A person opens/closes the window before the wind
> :>         is created, before the candle is placed by the window, at a time
> :>         when the device's indicator is green, knowing that sometimes gusts
> :>         of wind hit the candle [its future location] and sometimes they
> :>         miss, and even when they do strike the candle, sometimes they're
> :>         able to extinguish it, but other times they do not... Welcome to
> :>         KosherSwitch (R).
>
> : Yes, and it seems from the SA that this would be permitted.   The big
> : difference, though, is that in the SA's case there is no intention to
> : extinguish the flame, and here there is.
>
> Getting back to the post that started this tangent, the question was
> whether this last bullet item actualy is relevant.


According to the SA even the penultimate bullet item is permitted:
>>      * On Shabbat, a person opens/closes the window while the device's
>>         indicator is green, knowing that a wind will ultimately blow and
>>         succeed in extinguishing the candle
Surely the last bullet item makes the heter much stronger.  But again,  the case
discussed is where this is not one's  intention.

Note also, in the mashal, that not only is there no wind right now, there is
no candle right now either.



> What's relevant is the probability of the wind eventually blowing the
> candle out or the switch turning the light off. If it's a rov or maybe
> a rube deruba, then it's gerama.

That doesn't seem to be what the SA says.  But again, with the caveat that
intention might make a difference.


> Whether you can break down the likelihood of the melakhah occuring into
> a union of the probability of a number of sub-steps or not doesn't seem
> to me to impact the question. Because this isn't a safeiq situation,
> it's whether your action can be blamed for the melakhah.

It's putting further causal distance between "cause" and "effect".
What if you had a series of these routines, each of which may or may not
call the next one, until the last one which may or may not do something?


-- 
Zev Sero               I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you
zev at sero.name          intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in
                        the street and commands me to surrender my purse,
                        I have a right to kill him without asking questions
                                               -- John Adams