<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.18812"></HEAD>
<BODY style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 10pt" id=role_body
bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 rightMargin=7 topMargin=7><FONT id=role_document
color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial>From: Gershon Seif <A
href="mailto:gershonseif@yahoo.com">gershonseif@yahoo.com</A><BR><BR><BR>>>
My understanding is one may not set up a thermometer on shabbos as it falls
under the issur of medida.<BR><BR>But may one read a thermometer that was put in
its place before shabbos? ie. a large weather thermometer hanging in the
backyard <<</FONT></DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent"
color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial>>>>>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial>Assuming that "reading" the thermometer involves nothing but looking
at it, without touching it or doing anything to it, what could possibly be the
problem? You can't hang a clock on the wall on Shabbos or plug it in, but
would anyone think there was any problem with /looking/ at the clock to tell the
time?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial>You asked about ambient temperature but reminded me of a more
practical problem, viz., taking a /person's/ temperature on Shabbos.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial>During our long infertility saga, most of the shailos that arose had
to do with Shabbos. If you take your temperature every morning
immediately upon awakening and plot the temps on a graph, you can see that your
temperature is relatively low during the first two weeks of your cycle
and relatively high the last two weeks. In mid-cycle, there is a
distinct dip one day followed the next day by a definite rise in
temperature (with the temperature remaining high for the rest of the
month). The dip and rise signal the day of ovulation, a critical
piece of information if you want to try to get pregnant and especially if you
want to check whether you are getting to the mikva too late in your cycle,
which might be preventing pregnancy. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial>The question was, could you take your temperature on Shabbos?
Missing one day would ruin the usefulness of the graph. The answer we were
given was that yes, I could take my temp on Shabbos (recording it on the graph
could wait till after Shabbos of course). We were using an old-fashioned
mercury thermometer. Those are hard to come by these days. I don't
know what would be the psak with a new-fangled battery-operated thermometer with
an LED display and a beep-beep signal.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><B>--Toby
Katz<BR>==========<BR><BR><BR><BR>_____________________</B></FONT></DIV></DIV></FONT></FONT><DIV CLASS="aol_ad_footer" ID="8c1943f19f5d803aa7b4118fb00f090c"><br/><font style="color:black;font:normal 10pt arial,san-serif;"> <hr style="margin-top:10px"/></font></DIV></BODY></HTML>