[Avodah] electronic key card

[Akiva Miller]

.
R' Joel Rich wrote:
> During a shiur I mentioned this program focusing on the use
> of electronic key cards on Shabbat:
>
https://torahinmotion.org/classes/electricity-and-shabbat-the-views-of-rabbi-nahum-rabinovitch
> ...
> There were a number of interesting elements to this discussion
> and I send it out with a bit of trepidation since I really do
> resonate to the concern that people who have never heard of
> Rabbi Rabinovich will act because it’s more convenient, but if
> you're interested, I’d be interested in your comments on that
> and any other parts of the discussion you care to comment on.

Disclaimer: That's a 75-minute video, and I watched only the first 6
minutes. Then I googled "Nahum Rabinovitch electricity shabbat" to *read*
how he holds, and this post is based on what I read. If there's anything
particularly unusual in that video, please summarize it, or point us to
which part of the video we should watch.

Decades ago, I had already read enough of these sort of articles that I
perceived a consensus among the poskim that:

A) If an electronic device generates zero light and zero heat, then it does
*not* violate the melachos of mav'ir nor bishul on a Torah level.
B) There *are* other areas of concern, such as makeh b'patish and molid,
but the poskim don't seem very concerned about them.
C) Nevertheless, even if we cannot point to a specific reason to forbid a
given device, ever since these things were discovered and invented, Klal
Yisrael has accepted - for whatever reason - not to use them on Shabbos, at
least not l'chatchila.
D) But in some Sha'as HaDchak (a/k/a b'dieved) situations, they can be
allowed, and see your LOR for a determination about your specific situation.

R' Rabinovitch's view seems to fit all the above. He seems to hold that the
Oneg Shabbos of entering one's room trumps whatever problems those key
cards have. Other poskim might say that opting in for a vacation which will
require you to use these cards is not a real Sha'as HaDchak, and so you
should find a different vacation or a better workaround.

I can also imagine yet other poskim saying that vacations are important,
and it is becoming so difficult to find one that doesn't involve these key
cards, that the default is to allow it. This is similar to a person who
*could* walk home Friday night using a route that avoids motion detectors,
but it is much farther than his preferred route, so we allow the preferred
route. (Among the factors that the posek will look at is whether the
electricity is doing something Nicha Lei (the amount of benefit that the
person gets), which could be very different for a person walking home from
shul in the ambient light, vs. one who is totally locked out of his hotel
room.)

Akiva Miller
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