Modern Judaism & Technology

In the NYTimes - extracts:-

The rabbis, scientists and engineers of the Zomet Institute are trying to solve the problems that arise when technology and the Torah collide.

Working from their research facility in the West Bank settlement [community!] of Alon Shvut, they create electronic devices — from phones to alarm systems to motorized vehicles — that obey Orthodox Jewish laws about the Sabbath, when even turning an electric current on or off is forbidden.

“We’re trying to combine making a modern Jewish state with age-old Jewish law,” said Dan Marans, executive director of Zomet. That requires both a deep knowledge of Judaism’s legal code, or halacha, and a bit of ingenuity.

“Every day, God gives us things to take advantage of,” Mr. Marans said. “We just have to know how.”

...While modern technology was intended to make the chores of daily life less difficult, the proliferation of automatic motors, sensors and lights into more household items has become a growing problem for the strictly observant.

For decades, Orthodox Jews trudged through their houses in a pre-Sabbath ritual of turning off home security systems, taping down the button that turns on the light inside the refrigerator when the door is opened, and lighting a flame to leave burning on the stove so food can be heated.

In the last 10 years, manufacturers like Whirlpool and Viking have put Sabbath mode settings on most of their ovens, refrigerators, and even wine cellars. General Electric introduced its Sabbath mode in 2000, and said the special setting is featured on more than 150 of its wall ovens, ranges and other cooking appliances.

These modes either turn off certain lights, fans and alarms, or use a Jewish legal concept known as “gramma,” or indirect action, to operate the appliance on holy days.

In refrigerators, for example, a built-in delay prevents the compressor from turning on immediately after the door is opened.

...Zomet created the metal detectors used to screen worshippers at the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site, in a manner that uses electricity in a way not prohibited on the Sabbath. It also developed pens that use ink that disappears after a few days, based on a rabbinic interpretation that only forbids permanent writing, and Sabbath phones, which are dialed in an indirect manner with special buttons and a microprocessor.

...Zomet has invented Sabbath-friendly wheelchairs, sound systems and elevators that stop on each floor, and developed a Shabbat scooter with Michigan-based Amigo Mobility International.

Rabbi Herschel Schachter, the head of the rabbinical school at Yeshiva University in New York City and a Jewish legal expert for the Kosher division of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, said that there have been disagreements between Israeli and American rabbis over the permissibility of some Sabbath devices.

He said he has rejected certain inventions because the interpretations of religious law supporting them were too murky, and the products did not address a great need.

Still, he said, “if you make the burden slightly lighter, it’s O.K. The Torah doesn’t want to make life impossible.”