Comments on: Plugging in Differently on Shabbat http://www.chicagocarless.com/2012/09/14/plugging-in-differently-on-shabbat/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=plugging-in-differently-on-shabbat A Jew-By-Choice Blog About Judaism Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:55:51 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Michael Doyle http://www.chicagocarless.com/2012/09/14/plugging-in-differently-on-shabbat/comment-page-1/#comment-12240 Michael Doyle Thu, 08 Nov 2012 19:17:41 +0000 http://www.chicagocarless.com/?p=5480#comment-12240 Hi, Jeffrey, and thanks for your comment. I do agree with these three points. Like you, I take issue with the rabbi’s response to the third point. My disappointment is not simply that one Jew makes such a decision. It’s that a Reform movement leader makes such a decision and then the movement promotes that decision without comment. Remembering the Sabbath and Shalom Ha-Bayit are good things. But just because we have peace on Shabbat doesn’t mean we’re truly marking Shabbat. That’s the slippery slope with Reform–because we don’t consider the halacha binding, some RJs would say we can call anything observance. I disagree. Reform still has standards, and I don’t see how these particular practices on Shabbat qualify as actually observing the Sabbath. I think our rabbis can and should do better.

]]> By: Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones http://www.chicagocarless.com/2012/09/14/plugging-in-differently-on-shabbat/comment-page-1/#comment-12237 Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones Thu, 08 Nov 2012 18:57:10 +0000 http://www.chicagocarless.com/?p=5480#comment-12237 For better or worse, when you choose non-Orthodox/Progressive Judaism you have to accept that people will do things differently from you, sometimes (as here) even seeming to do things “in reverse”. Who knows, maybe out there somewhere there’s a Reform Jew who gave up every meat BUT pork. This is probably why the most oft-cited reason I’ve heard from the not-totally-observant Orthodox “laity” is because in Orthodoxy, “you know what you’re doing wrong”. Equally, anyone in PJ who goes about doing things in an “Orthodox” manner is, as I think you know well, laying themself open to criticism, either from the less observant who will think you’re being fundamentalist or ostentatious, or from the Orthodox (or anyone else), who will think you are picking and choosing or faking it. (Just in the last week, I have twice been (half-?)jokingly labelled a “fake” Jew by well-intentioned non-Jewish friends as I have started to dress indistinguishably from the Orthodox barring the pink, and other colourful, shirts, and matching kippot and ties.) As a fellow convert who also finds himself adopting (increasingly) “Orthodox” practices (though I haven’t yet graduated to laying tefillin), I know where you’re coming from. But in defence of the rabbi, I think we can establish he’s doing the following three Jewish things:

1. Establishing a separation between Shabbat and the rest of the week;

2. Creating shalom ha-bayit (peace in the home), both on Shabbat and the rest of the week (though I am slightly astonished that he managed to get the kids to agree to no tv or video games any day BUT Shabbat, as this means most of the week they are without them whereas Shabbat, even if followed to the letter of the law, is only 25 hours.) In his place, maybe I would have said “no tv, no video games on Shabbat, but ball games and swimming lessons are ok” (even many Orthodox shomrei Shabbat apparently play ball games on Shabbat, presumably only if there’s an eruv). But since I’m not Orthodox, not a rabbi and not part of his family, IMHO I don’t get to comment.

3. He’s attempting to engage with the difficulty of observing Shabbat in a (necessarily) non-fundamentalist way, which, even if his solution is not to my taste, again IMHO is infinitely better (especially for a rabbi) than not bothering to keep Shabbat at all, which, in turn, and again in my perhaps increasingly less HO, is infinitely better than keeping up the pretence of keeping Shabbat whilst not actually doing it. In my case, if anyone asks whether I’m Orthodox, I answer, truthfully, “no,” whilst anyone who doesn’t ask is no more left in the dark than those who would assume, if I wore jeans, a t-shirt, no beard and no kippah, that I’m not Jewish. I’m also stuck with “looking Jewish” due to my physical appearance, despite the fact that I wasn’t “born that way”.

Suppose this rabbi is a pulpit rabbi (one who leads services, which historically wasn’t necessarily the case). Suppose also that he’s a particularly lazy, shomer Shabbat Reform rabbi who does the minimum required of him, ie leads services but doesn’t visit the sick or give advice on observance. Like any rabbi, by Reform standards he “works” on Shabbat, but he hasn’t given any indication that either he and his partner (who could be a rabbi, a banker or a shop assistant for all we know) or his kids (who could have “Saturday jobs”), have ever expressed a wish to work (by the Reform definition) on Shabbat. Shabbat shalom!

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