Electricity / Electronics / Electric Cars (1)- Revisiting Shabbat in the Age of Technolgy

It has been a while since I last posted on this blog. I was recently asked to write a responsum for the Masorti Movement on the use of electric cars on Shabbat. This provided an opportunity for me to review some of the basic laws of Shabbat, the discussion around the use of electricity on Shabbat, technological change and the way that the halacha deals with these changes. The responsum that I wrote (together with my colleague Mordecai Schwartz) was quite a lengthy and technical piece. I have therefore decided to produce a more accessible version of it to share on this blog. I will break it down into multiple sections over several weeks. I hope you enjoy it.

It is possible to address the question of driving an electric car on Shabbat in a narrow sense: clarifying what actions one undertakes when driving an electric car and determining if these actions are permitted or not. It is also possible to take a much wider view of this question. We have chosen this second path.

We have chosen to see driving a car on Shabbat as one of many examples of cases where developing technology threatens to render part of the Jewish tradition irrelevant. It is not hard to imagine a world in which people no longer do physical ‘work’ in the traditional sense, where the normative rules of Shabbat would not apply. A world in which lights turn themselves on, home heating adjusts itself automatically to the outside world, where food cooks itself and cars drive themselves without any close human intervention. What is the meaning of a day of rest in a world in which most people no longer work?

The same thing is happening in other areas of our lives. What will Kashrut look like when food comes out of petri dishes or is printed on 3D printers? Will the categories of Meat and Milk disappear? Will sanctifying one’s life through the food they eat cease to be part of our tradition? What do you do with such profound changes? How do we address these changes in a meaningful way?

Social and technological change isn’t a new phenomenon at all. Jewish law has undergone profound change over the centuries. The Conservative Movement in Judaism was established as a response to change. One of the mottos of the Movement – Tradition and Change – sees the movement as defined by its approach to change, specifically its ability to further the preservation of Jewish tradition through a process of guided change.

It is our belief that in the face of such unprecedented change. it is our duty to reimagine Jewish practice and to adapt it to the new reality, Technological innovation may make some of our traditional practices seem irrelevant, but the core values of our tradition remain as important today as at any time in the past. In our rapidly changing society, traditional Jewish values are more important than ever. Tradition and Change doesn’t mean undermining traditional practice in the face of change but rather recasting it in a form in which it will retain its relevance in the Modern World.

Our approach to the question of driving an electric car on Shabbat is to attempt to reimagine Shabbat for a world where most of the traditional categories of Melakhah (work) are not relevant. In doing so we will need to have a new look at some of the key elements of a traditional Shabbat: What is the meaning of work on Shabbat? What is a Melakhah and how was this definition reached? What is the relationship between ‘not working’ and ‘resting’. How do you define ‘rest’? What part of Shabbat practice is Rabbinic and what comes from the Torah? After setting out our approach to these questions, we will give a ruling on driving an electric car as an example of how our vision of Shabbat can be applied to the many questions new technology poses.

I will continue to investigate these issues in my next post.

Rabbi Chaim Weiner

Based on: A New Responsum on the Sabbath. Rabbi Mordecai Schwartz and Rabbi Chaim Weiner.