[Avodah] A Day to Disconnect

[Akiva Miller]

.
R Micha Berger points out that many of the melachos involve truly creative
acts that changed the physical world, and were ever-present in our agrarian
society of millennia ago. If I'm understanding him correctly, he sees a
disconnect between that sort of Shabbos rest, as opposed to the emphasis on
disconnecting from electronic media, which are not very creative at all,
and certainly not as creative as planting seeds or building houses.

He seems to ignore the creativity of manipulating electrons to put words on
a screen, and have those words appear on another screen a world away. I'm
totally okay with that, because the thrust of the thread is not about "does
this violate halacha", but rather, "is this the sort of resting that
Shabbos is supposed to provide?"

My answer is that RMB is looking only at the D'Oraisas. Let's think about
the neviim who warned us about Mimtzo Cheftzecha and Daber Davar. A major
factor of what they considered "unshabbosdik" was business activities --
which are "merely" a gezera against the creative activity of writing
receipts and such. "Im tashiv mishabas raglecha..." If if it is
anti-Shabbos to simply enter one's farm to simply check on how the crops
are doing, then isn't checking one's email even more so?

OTOH, if anyone wants to ask, "What is unshabbosdik about non-creative
things like doing business or even merely talking about business?", that
would be interesting.

Akiva Miller
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