Electricity / Electronics / Electric Cars (5) – Electricity on Shabbat (Part 1)

This brings us to one of the central issues – are you allowed to use electricity on Shabbat? While most Shabbat observant Jews assume that the answer is categorically no, it isn’t as straightforward as that. Electricity is a new technology that wasn’t known at the time of the Mishnah and Talmud. It doesn’t clearly fit any of the forbidden categories of labour that were listed in Mishnah. The mainstream position on the use of electricity on Shabbat is something that emerged over time.

Using Electricity also doesn’t meet the definition of Melakhah that we proposed above – making a lasting change to the environment. Using electricity in and of itself doesn’t make a lasting change – although electricity can be used to do so. So – what is the status of electricity in the Laws of Shabbat?

There have been many attempts to root the prohibition of using electricity in the 39 Avot Melakhah – the master categories of Shabbat prohibitions mentioned above. There isn’t room here to go through them all, so I’ll focus on the most common ones. For a fuller treatment of this subject, I highly recommend reading The Use of Electrical and Electronic Devices on Shabbat by Rabbi Daniel Nevins. [CJLS 2012]

The main categories that have been suggested as the source of the prohibition of using electricity are: Fire, Building, Finishing and Object and Creating Something new. This week we will look at the most common explanation given for the prohibition of using electricity – that it is similar to fire.

FIRE: Mavir and Mechabeh (lighting a fire and extinguishing a fire).

As electric appliances are used for many of the functions that were previously done by fire, this is the most obvious category to investigate as the source of the prohibition of using electricity. Electric power can be used to create both heat and light – which in the past would have come from burning a fire. But electricity doesn’t seem meet the halachic definition of fire. There is no combustion or flame and it doesn’t produce charcoal – which are the main characteristics of ‘real’ fire.

The Talmud discusses a source of heat that doesn’t involve combustion (which it calls a גחלת של מתכה – a metal ember). Heating metal to the extent that it gives off light and heat is basically the way that traditional light bulbs worked – and therefore this discussion is relevant to modern life.

Rambam summarises the discussion as follows:

A person who heats metal in order to anneal it in water—this is a derivative form of burning and is forbidden. [MT Shabbat 9:6] The Shulchan Aruch rules (when talking about removing fire hazards on Shabbat): If a coal is situated in a place where many can be damaged, it is permissible to extinguish it, whether it is made of metal or wood, but the Rambam forbids this if it is wood. The Magen Avraham then clarifies that ‘regarding metal there is no [prohibition of extinguishing] for it is not burning.’ [OH 335:35].

The conclusion at the end of that discussion is that even heating a filament to a very high temperature isn’t considered fire according to the Torah [DeOraita]. It is, however, forbidden by the Rabbis for other reasons.

In spite of this, intuitively, electricity feels similar to fire as both are important sources of energy that power our economy and our society. While that doesn’t make it into a Melakhah – it does have halachic significance. We will return to this point later in this series.

We will look at some of the other explanations that have been given for prohibiting the use of electricity on Shabbat in our next post.

Based on: A New Responsum on the Sabbath. Rabbi Mordecai Schwartz and Rabbi Chaim Weiner and  The Use of Electrical and Electronic Devices on Shabbat. Rabbi Daniel Nevins. CJLS 2012