As technology changes, the proper application of halakhah may require changing practice to remain in step with the new reality. However, when evaluating new technology we have to look at reality and not hype. The new “Kosher Switch” (link) is billed as a game-changer that will radically redefine the practice of Shabbos. In truth, it is a next-generation “Gerama Switch” that seems to this writer to fall short of the requirements of many major authorities. To fully understand the product and why its halakhic implications are probably minimal, we have to wade through some background.
I. Gerama
Over a century ago, halakhic authorities debated the status of a standard light switch. R. Yechiel Mikhel Epstein, author of the highly influential Arukh Ha-Shulchan, published an article in a 1903 Torah journal arguing that lights may be turned on and off on Yom Tov. Part of his calculations was the incorrect scientific understanding (as pointed out by R. Yehudah Borenstein in a rebuttal in that journal) that electric current is fire running through the wires. Another of his arguments was that flipping a switch is considered gerama, indirect action. While gerama is generally forbidden, it is allowed when extinguishing a fire on Yom Tov. In a similar fashion, R. Tzvi Pesach Frank, the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, published an article in a 1934 Torah journal arguing that flipping an electrical switch is gerama.
However, the overwhelming consensus of subsequent authorities rejected this approach. In 1935, the young Jerusalem scholar R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach dared to disagree with the two aforementioned scholars and devoted chapter three of his monumental study, Me’orei Eish, to this issue. He argued at length that flipping a switch is considered direct action, rather than gerama. He obtained for his book a glowing approbation from the eminent authority, R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinski of Vilna. R. Grodzinski also penned a responsum arguing the same, later published as Achiezer vol. 3 no. 60. R. Eliezer Waldenberg, also a young scholar in Jerusalem, after studying R. Auerbach’s book and a copy of R. Grodzinski’s responsum (which he obtained from R. Auerbach), wrote a responsum of his own disagreeing with details of argumentation but agreeing with the conclusion (Tzitz Eliezer vol. 1 no. 8). Others, both before and after, have concurred that flipping a switch is direct action. The reasons offered why impact greatly both the Gerama Switch and the Kosher Switch.
II. Ungerama
Halakhic engineers attempt to avoid issues like gerama through creativity. Examining their proposals and the objections they face will offer us insight into potential objections to the Kosher Switch. The Zomet Institute bases its solutions on the concept of modulating currents. This interesting but controversial approach is irrelevant to our current discussion. The Institute for Halacha and Science developed a Gerama Switch based on the concept of obstruction removal (meni’as meni’a) that serves as a basis of the Kosher Switch. There is a certain amount of rivalry between the institutions which I do not fully understand. I suspect that I may be oversimplifying the distinctions between their approaches but this should suffice for our purposes. However, both work with the assumption that turning electricity on and off is forbidden on Shabbos. Their goal is to find workable solutions by avoiding the user’s closing and opening circuits.
The Gerama Switch is poorly named because it is designed to avoid gerama. The switch contains an optical signal that closes or opens a circuit through an impulse light sent at random intervals. If the light is received, the circuit closes and if not it is opened. The switch, in the off position, blocks the impulse light and prevents the circuit from closing. By moving the switch to the on position, you merely stop preventing the circuit from closing. You are neither directly nor indirectly closing the circuit, just removing the obstruction. Because this is not even gerama, moving the switch should be permissible on Shabbos even to perform an act indisputably prohibited.
Why isn’t this gerama? Conflicting passages in the Talmud describe gerama as either permitted or forbidden. Placing bottles of water to break when hit by fire, thereby extinguishing the fire, is permitted. Tossing grain into the air so the wind separates the wheat from the chaff is prohibited. Some early authorities forbid all gerama except where explicitly permitted and others permit it except where explicitly forbidden. The Rema codifies what is essentially a compromise position: we forbid gerama on Shabbos except in cases of great need (Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chaim 334:22). However, he does not define the boundaries of gerama, leaving the task for later authorities.
There are four main theories explaining the difference between permitted and forbidden indirect actions (R. Dovid Miller explains these views nicely in a lecture: link).
- A time delay between a person’s action and the subsequent action makes the first permissible
- If the second action will not definitely occur then the first is allowed
- If this is not the normal way of performing the act then it is permitted
- If the second action is not already in motion then the first is allowed
The Gerama Switch does not rely on the rejected views of R. Epstein and R. Frank, because its user only removes an obstruction. It also entails a time delay, until the next light impulse. However, this is only permissible according to the first approach to gerama. According to the other three, it is still forbidden. For another important reason, which we will discuss later, the designers of the Gerama Switch only allow it in exigent circumstances — for the needs of the infirm and security reasons — when the Rema would allow gerama.
III. Kosher Ungerama
The Kosher Switch adds uncertainty to the Gerama Switch. Every time the device is supposed to send a light impulse, it calculates a random number below 100 and only sends the impulse if the number passes a threshold (usually over 50). The receiver also calculates a similar random number and only receives the light impulse if the number passes a threshold. These two levels of uncertainty separate the action of moving the switch to the on (or off) position from the closing (or opening) of the circuit. The first impulse may not change the circuit, and the second and third may not as well. There is a statistical possibility, albeit remote, that the person may have to wait days or even months until the light impulse is sent and received.
This improvement to the Gerama switch is an important step forward. It renders the device permissible also according to those authorities who follow the second approach above. However, those who follow the third and fourth still do not allow it. This is particularly significant because those authorities are highly influential.
IV. Not So Kosher
R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, as reported by R. Hershel Schachter (Nefesh Ha-Rav, p. 169), follows the fourth approach. See also R. Schachter’s Be-Ikvei Ha-Tzon, ch. 7 (“Ma’aseh U-Gerama Bi-Melekhes Shabbos“). Because the Kosher Switch functions constantly, waiting for the switch to be moved so it can close the circuit, R. Soloveitchik would presumably forbid its use.
R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinski (ibid.) follows the third approach, as does the Tzitz Eliezer (ibid.) based on the Eglei Tal (zoreh n. 4). So do R. Yechezkel Abramsky (Chazon Yechezkel, Shabbos 120b) and R. Nachum Rabinovich (Si’ach Nachum, no. 25). R. Yosef Shalom Elyashiv also reportedly follows this approach (Shevus Yitzchak, p. 138; Orechos Shabbos, vol. 3 ch. 29 n. 52). See also R. Nissim Karelitz, Chut Shani, vol. 1 p. 206.
Because flipping a switch is the normal way of closing a circuit (e.g. turning on a light), these authorities would not allow any type of Gerama or Kosher Switch. If this switch becomes widely adopted, as its designers hope, then it will be the standard way of closing and opening circuits, turning lights on and off. This is precisely the situation that R. Grodzinski and the others forbade.
R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach clearly followed this third approach in his Me’orei Eish, quoting R. Isser Zalman Meltzer on the matter (Me’orei Eish Ha-Shalem, p. 217). He restated it in an early responsum on milking cows on Shabbos (ibid., p. 612ff.) and a later responsum on telephones (Minchas Shlomo, no. 9; Me’orei Eish Ha-Shalem, p. 576). A manuscript was posthumously published in a memorial book for R. Auerbach, Kovetz Ateres Shlomo, which seems to contradict this approach but his son, R. Shmuel Auerbach, insists that his father maintained his original attitude (Orechos Shabbos vol. 3 ch. 29 n. 52).
However, Prof. Zev Lev (Ma’arkhei Lev, p. 241) reports an important ruling from R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. R. Auerbach ruled that if an action is performed in a specific way only on Shabbos, that does not constitute the normal way the action is done. The Kosher Switch has a weekday mode and a Shabbos mode, which function differently. According to this ruling of R. Auerbach, turning lights on with the switch in Shabbos mode is not the normal way of turning on the lights and is therefore permissible.
I find this difficult to understand. This is a switch that is designed to work this way, functions the same way as other switches (from the user’s perspective), and performs in the same way once a week plus holidays. I make no claim to expertise but that seems to me to be the normal way the action is done. From what I have seen in the name of R. Elyashiv, he disagrees with R. Auerbach’s ruling and forbids all types of Gerama (or Ungerama) devices. I think this aspect of the issue requires further elaboration and evaluation by halakhic decisors.
V. Publicity and Endorsements
The Kosher Switch has reportedly received numerous rabbinic endorsements (link), including from R. Yehoshua Neuwirth, R. Nachum Rabinovich, R. Moshe Sternbuch and R. Yisroel Belsky. It is not clear, however, whether those endorsement are for use in exigent circumstances or in every home. I suspect it is the former, particularly given R. Rabinovich’s strict ruling on electric switches (Si’ach Nachum, no. 25).
However, the device’s promoters claim that it is appropriate for every home. Indeed, in their halakhic defense of the innovation (link – PDF, sec. 12), they claim that the device will eventually become standard in all homes, thereby enabling universal Shabbos observance and the arrival of the messianic redemption. Are the endorsements also exaggerated PR? I am in the process of checking on some of the endorsements, many of which seem to be just a well-wish rather than explicit approval.
VI. Confusion
The Institute for Science and Halacha, the designers of the Gerama Switch only allow its use in exigent circumstances for the following reason (R. Levi Yitzchak Halperin and R. Dovid Oratz, Shabbat and Electricity, pp. 32-33):
The difference between a gerama switch and a standard switch is not readily discernible to a layman. A person seeing someone using a gerama switch might conclude that the action is permissible with any switch. As a result, people could mistakenly permit many prohibited Shabbat actions, resulting in mass desecration of Shabbat. Under such circumstances, it is appropriate not to permit actions that should otherwise be permitted.
To prevent such misunderstanding, the use of the gerama switch is limited to uses where an ordinary gerama would be permitted, hence the name gerama switch and not meni’at hameni’ah switch… Accordingly, the Institute uses the gerama switch only under those conditions in which ordinary gerama can be permitted.
The designers of Kosher Switch, in their halakhic defense (sec. 7), argue that this is unnecessary for a number of unconvincing reasons. Among them is that the Kosher Switch looks very different from regular switches. I cannot speak for the situation in Israel, but in the US switches come in very different shapes and sizes. I show below five pictures of switches. Four are from my house and one is the Kosher Switch. Can you tell which one is the Kosher Switch? It doesn’t look particularly different to me. There are many different types of switches and the Kosher Switch looks to me like just another one. While it carries a Kosher Switch logo, that is hardly sufficient, as the designers of the Gerama Switch acknowledged.
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In addition to the issue of confusion, there are other issues that enter this discussion, such as zilusa de-Shabbos, diminishing the Shabbos experience, and shevisah ha-nikeres, resting in a manner different from the rest of the week. I leave that for another time but wish to emphasize that they are also significant Shabbos values.
The Kosher Switch is an important step forward in Shabbos technology and will improve the devices designed for security and health situations. However, I struggle to see how it satisfies the requirements of many important authorities and how it could possibly become a standard feature in Shabbos observant homes.
“A person is supposed to get their pesaqim from a rav with whom they have a relationship. And they may have to ask their poseqim, and perhaps the question would reach “a gadol”. But this whole notion of relying on word of mouth from “the gedolei haposeqim” is a new invention only enabled by modern communications — and isn’t the way halakhah is supposed to work”
Essentially agree
“I have trouble thinking of a statement more opposite to the truth about RYBS than this one. Try googling “soloveitchik tension”. Is not tension the opposite of relaxation?”
The Rav and tension is a metaphysical not a personal one. Same misinterpretation as calling the Rav Lonely.
Gil – I suppose the most important points here are not about what the technicalities of this or that switch (although, these are, of course, important), but what the way this discussion and others like it are being conducted says about contemporary Orthodoxy.
Firstly, I know this is inevitable – but there is something a bit distasteful about all this ‘he said, he signed’ business. I’m not just talking about this case, but think of so many others, where more effort is put into trying to find out what letter Rav Elyashiv exactly signed that what the contents of his arguments are. Have you seen a long detailed teshuva on anything from Rav Elyashiv in the last 20 years? I haven’t. So why should his opinions automatically be accepted? Old men can deteriorate mentally pretty quickly – do we really think it is in his minders’ interests to publicize exactly when Rav Elyashiv is not fully capable of answering complex shailos? I think people in America are often a bit naive as to how ‘Rav Elyashiv’ is the symbolic head of an entire bureaucracy whose interests are, to put it mildly, often not in finding out the most consistent pshat in grama.
Orthodoxy (at least in its institutionalized charedi version) seems on the verge of becoming a false gerontocracy – false in the sense that it is not even the rabbis, who, as we witness here, cannot even always remember what they said about a particular topic, but rather their minders and others, whose motivations are often far from either transparent or benevolent.
Secondly, not that I’ve studied this inyan enough to have an opinion on it one way or the other, but I’m honestly struggling to think of examples in the past few years where great poskim have successfully stood up and been mattir something for the general tzibbur in the face of opposition from other same level poskim. Do rabbanim with such tendencies make it through ‘posek school’ nowadays? In Israel, we’ve already began to hear about ‘kulos she’ein hatzibbur yecholim la’amod bahem’. Why are the vast majority of hora’os lerabbim coming to ‘asser’ things?
I’m beginning to feel that the top level of the Orthodox rabbinate mainly sees its job as very vigorously defending an extremely conservative status quo and not to come up with solutions. One positive counter-example is Rav Willig’s forceful avocation of pre-nups – but look how far that got in the charedi world.
Luckily for them, the charedi rabbinate have an (almost literally) captive audience, who are not going to leave Orthodoxy even if (or perhaps when) they forbid absolutely everything, but it doesn’t mean that the rest of us can’t get annoyed about it. Put simply, what’s a typical posek’s first reaction when he sees something ‘new’ that will make life easier for lot’s of people but force him to ‘take a stand’? From personal experience, and to anyone with ‘eynayim liros’, it’s clear that it’s not ‘I’m going to go with wherever the wellbeing of the tzibbur and the halachic emes takes me’. I just had a distinguished rav tell me that he was not willing to pasken on a particular topic one way or the other, not due to the fact that he couldn’t decide what was the correct psak (indeed he told me that whatever arguments I or others could muster would only ever be ‘le’halacha ve’lo le’maaseh’), despite the fact that it affects his community it a big way – for the simple reason that he was afraid of the political repercussions of making a psak one way or the other. It’s always easier to not take a stand/forbid something due to lack of precedent/only allow something be’makom tzorech gadol (I’m not saying that this is the case here)/ maintain that it will lead to ‘pritzas geder’ etc. etc. – but it seems to me that there are plenty of cases where rabbanim fool themselves into thinking that their self-serving conservativism is actually due to a religious imperative. The situation is frankly depressing.
J: I share your concerns but on this specific issue, do not think they are relevant. This is an issue that has been discussed for some 30+ years, which is why R. Yisrael Rozen was so shocked by the apparent endorsements. While I always appreciate the insights and positions of any talmid chakham, I don’t think I ever follow Rav Elyashiv’s rulings. However, I’m not comfortable with Gerama devices because both Rav Hershel Schachter and Rav Mordechai Willig — my rabbe’im — reject them (for what I believe are sound halakhic reasons).
Some rabbis today are courageous. That’s one of the reasons I like R. Michael Broyde so much. And he’s not alone. If some rabbis aren’t, that could be due to their specific communal concerns or simply a lack of desire to be involved in controversy.
Many — not all — of the issues about which people complain of false conservatisim are areas where I believe conservatism is warranted. So this doesn’t bother me that much. I do hear about ridiculous chumros — I live in Brooklyn, after all — but I ignore them because I see so many people living their lives normally and ignoring the controversies in the newspapers.
See Text & Texture for the letter from Rav Rosen.
http://text.rcarabbis.org/the-kosher-switch-a-response-from-the-tzomet-institutes-rabbi-yisrael-rosen/
I’m not sure why they posted a rough translation when Zomet sent out an official English letter.
It’s good that this is being clarified. I am disturbed a bit, though, by R. Brody’s implication that the confusion was all the fault of the company and that the rabbis were blameless. ISTM that mistakes — not fraud or deceit but mistakes — were made on all sides. I would suggest (i) to the company that they restart from step one any endorsement page with more attention being paid to ensuring that the endorsements or responses are clear and all caveats etc. are listed and (ii) to the rabbis that if they are going to give any type of endorsement — full, limited, whatever — they take greater care in what they say and write so it will be crystal clear to all without the need of going back to them to resolve ambiguities.
What part of misattribution to Rabbi Belsky, withholding Rabbi Harfenes’s letter, or breaking their commitment to Rabbbi S. B. Cohen was not decietful?
A mistake can happen, but their was a pattern of deciet here that goes far beyond “mistake.” This was clearly intentional and premeditated.
As for the Rabbanim not being clear, it is becoming apparent (at least to some of us) that this was being presented as a device for use in health-care facilities and for emergency/security situations. Some of the respondents made that clear in their letters of endorsement, the others likely thoughout it unneccesary, assuming that this would never be offered to the public.
You’re right, they should start from scratch. You seem to have some affinity for them,. however. In my opinion they need to earn the trust of a public that has an obligation to suspect them of any ruse possible.
The Rav and tension is a metaphysical not a personal one.
And metaphysical tension is wholly irrelevant to personal tension? All of existential philosophy indicates quite the opposite.
Same misinterpretation as calling the Rav Lonely.
Interesting argument, given how the second sentence of the first chapter of Lonely Man of Faith is “I am lonely.”
Contrary to popular impression, none of us are required to follow RYBS. But if we disagree, we should say so openly rather than twisting his thought to match ours.
Anonymous 4:41 am. mycroft obviously meant that the Rav is speaking about being lonely was referring to metaphysical, not personal loneliness. Why don’t you read the third and fourth sentences of the first chapter?
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