Halachos regarding electricity on shabbos | Rabbi Anthony Manning | July 16th 2025

It's good to see everybody. Thank you for coming. Uh just a little housekeeping at the beginning just to remind you that next week will be the final share of this series. That'll be a little break for the summer and then please God, we'll start again uh at the beginning of September uh in Lol for the runup to Rash Shana and Yamipur. Please God. So a couple of other announcements. Please could I ask you to turn off your phones uh right now? that will be very helpful to them to silence and also to thank our sponsors. The whole academic year has been sponsored Brandid and Zelik Ben Calmana. We're very grateful for that sponsorship. So, we are in the middle of a three-part series. Uh I promised you a little bit of a return to Shabbat uh focus and we're looking at some new issues we haven't looked at before. So last week we looked at the issue of washing dishes uh by hand uh and we reviewed also some of the hakod of asking a non-Jewish housekeeper or a uh cleaning help to come in and wash dishes and help man the house generally and we looked at some of those issues and this was really a a preamble to today's sh which is looking at the issue of timers timers on chabas time switches which is goes way beyond of course the issue of dishwashers but I want to focus on dishwashers because that is a a very relevant question but also to look more generally at the the main sugot that deal with the timers on Shabas and this itself is a preamble to next week. Next week is a request shar I am taking requests as well uh which is Amy has requested for a little while that we should have a shar on charging hearing aids on showers. Uh and of course that is broad broader than just a hearing aid question. Uh it goes to the issue of charging other things and use of machinery. I I was asked also to give a shar about asking uh Siri and Alexa to do things on Shabba that itself is a fascinating shar. I I won't have time to do that as well next week. Um but I will try and put that into a future series. And then as I promised you, I think we'll get in the fall to some more medical ethical issues as well. So let's have a look today. Hopefully you have the sheet. There's some really core foundational hakic material and very relevant contemporary issues coming up. So the first question we need to ask ourselves is what has to rest on Shabbat. Now we say this when we say it's in the ten commandments. Have a look with me in number one. The seventh day has to be a day of rest form. And here's a list of people who can't work. The following people can't do any you. your son and your daughter. Obviously below bar mitzvah because bar mitzvah age they're independently obligated and again we're not talking about a baby but a young child who is already reached the age of you can't get them to do break shabbat for you your servants your women's servants if you have servants in the house they have to rest for shabas as well your animals you're not allowed to work animals on shabas doing things for you which we don't really have today But a gerto a non-Jew who is living in Israel keeping the seven Noah law no laws. You may not ask them to do any either even though they're not Jewish. Okay. Notably absent from that list is your dishwasher and not just your dishwasher but any of your caim. Do you have to cause your utensils your machinery to rest on Shabbat? Wasn't included in that list. And that is a fascinating between bet shami and bet which we need to look at. Right now it's in the Mishna right at the beginning in the first peric middle of the first peric of Shabas of Mishna Shabas. Look at number two betm Sham sayim you're not allowed to put in on Friday afternoon ink. Ink here was not liquid ink but like plants are going to be ink to soak them so that they can be prepared to for ink making samanim herbs that need to be uh uh soaked on a shabas to be prepared for different things. Karenim is animal foder. They're usually translated as veetch. Some kind of animal foder that needs to be processed. You can't put them in before shabas on Friday afternoon. Only if you know they're going to be finished by the time Shabas comes in. That the process of preparing of for these things is going to be finished by the time Shabas comes in. Okay. Maternal says, "No, stick them in just before Shabas and let your pots and pans and heating equipment do its work all through Shabas. What do you care? You put them in on Friday. It wasn't Shabas yet. Let them finish the job on Shabas." But Sham says, "Nope, you can't do that. Everything related has to be done before Shabas comes in." The next Mishna goes on number two, still in second line. But you may not put flax which has to be um heated and dried out into your oven only only so that it'll be steamed and dried. All the steam will come off it before Friday before Shabas comes in. Again, you have to finish before Shabas and you can't put wool into a dye pot only if the the ink the dye rather would have fully absorbed before Shabas say it's fine started on Friday let it work on Shabas finally if you're going to set animal traps fishnetss traps on Friday you could only set them If you're going to catch all the stuff you need to catch before Shabas comes in, you can't set a trap which is going to work for you on Shabas and say fine. What is the root could? It's called Bam. I say you're not allowed to have your equipment working for you on Shabas either. Which by the way gave B Shamai a major challenge. How did they light Shabas candles? There is no indication anywhere that B Shami do not agree that you have to light Shabbas candles. Now Bhill is fine. You light them on Friday afternoon and they burn through Shabas B Shama. You can't do that. And of course, you can't have Shabas candles which finish burning before Shabas comes in. That defeats the entire object. How could you have your platter on or your food left in the oven even if it's fully cooked? How how can you do that? Certainly if it's not fully cooked, how can you do that? So the answer in the Gmorra, which I didn't bring you, is B Shamai were mafir all of their equipment before Shabas. They made them Hefka. So when you'd walk into B Shamai's Friday night dinner and you see the candles burning, B Shamai would say, "Well, they're not my candles. We've been we've given them over to Hefka. They don't belong to me." Which is very interesting how exactly that dynamic work. >> So exact because you don't have to have your candles burning. You just have light in the room on Shabas. So for owning Shabas and cover Shabas, so the Yoda the mitzvah. So this raises all sorts of questions which just historically I don't want to get into now. Obviously the Sadducees who didn't accept oral law at all would sit in the dark or the Carites later it did. I'm not sure exactly about the Sadducees but the whole Bet Shami issue is a very interesting one. Let's leave that for now. But Ben Hill says fine you can put them in before Shabas as long as you're not doing it on Shabas. Let it do itself. Sit straight forward. However, then we get a a a slightly more complicated Gmorra. Number three. So the quotes a riser. You can open up your water channel on Friday afternoon before it gets dark. Let it water the garden through Shabas. Finally have your sprinklers on. Turn them on on Friday. Let them sprinkle the shabas. Just more examples. You can put a spices that would uh perfume different cloths underneath those cloths and let them perfume through Shabas. But now's the kicker. But you cannot put your wheat into your watermill only if it's finished grinding before before Shabas comes in. Why? We've just given five or six examples. As long as you do it on Friday, let it finish on Shabas. All of a sudden, we have a statement. You can do this and you can do this, but you can't put stuff into a watermill so that it grinds on Shabas. Why ever not? Mlokus I'm a Rabba. So Rabba says it's nothing to do with resting on Shabas. Of course in terms of bethil you could do it in theory before Shabas but here the problem is because it makes a terribly loud noise and that's a separate problem in terms of the no problem. But you don't want all that noise going on Shabas. Just skip for a second to number four. Look at Rashi. Why does it have to finish grinding before Shabas? because it makes a terrible noise the mil it is a very noisy thing on Shabas which is prohibited the zilut that's a magic word zilut it's cheapen shabas it's a cheap thing to do on shabas it's not shabas dik to have all that noise grinding in the background okay your water channel it's quiet the water's going in the the the dipot is quietly bubbling in the corner But this big watermill churning all through Shabas, it's a problem. That's what Rabba says. Go back to number three. The third line says to him, "What's your problem? Why wouldn't you have a bigger issue of no the only problem why you can't put reason why you can't put your stuff in is the same as we saw before have to rest and he brings the derivation you have to keep carefully everything I tell you what's this everything this added thing on Shabbat that includes then adds the only reason You can't put your wheat into your grinder before Shabas is because of your stuff has to rest. And man, and who is the Tanner? Who is the opinion that holds the is a problem. So basically Rabas says, "No, this is the same as all the other ones. The only people who are going to have a problem with the grinding on Shabas a bet Shamai the same people that said you can't light your candles and you can't start your water sprinkler." But bed hill have no problem with it. What about the noise thing? Nah, Rab Yosph doesn't hold of that. So it's noisy. Lots of things are noisy. Let it be noisy. Since when can you not have something make a noise on Shabas? One second. We'll see. We'll see who we pasin like in a minute. So you have a locus between Rab Yosf and Rabba. Rabba says that even that allow you to start something on Friday. This is an exception. It's noisy. You can't have noisy machinery on Shabas. came along ravio and says no you can't I don't think it's a problem the only issue in this is and we bed don't hold by so let's see what we pass number five the ram says top of page two you're allowed to start any Friday even though it finishes automatically on shabas we are only prohibited from doing on the day itself Shabas if the does itself as it were through Shabas we we can benefit from that we can we we can benefit from that the fact that it works through Shabas is not a problem as long as you started it on Shabas that's the general principle of course there are a few exceptions and I listed two or three here one of the most famous ones is you can't leave food which is not cooked on the black on the stove or whatever when Shabas comes in, why not? We hold that we don't we're not worried about shasm. We pass it like B hill. So, put your raw food in and let it cook on Shabas like everything else. And the answer is no. No, that's an exception. The rabbis put a gazer on that because we're worried if the food is not at least a third half cooked. So, I'm not getting into the whole suga. You you'll get a little bit mulbal and you'll you'll think it's not cooking properly. You've got guests coming in half an hour and you'll turn it up. It's a separate thing in terms of says Kalin. Yeah, fine. and put it in on Friday, let it cook. No, we worry that you might turn it up, which leads to all of the questions we'll see at the end of the year. What if there's no knob? What if there's no setting that you can change? What if it's still a sealed unit? We'll see that. So, that's one exception. Another exception which we'll see is you're not allowed. Let's say you had a they had a they didn't like candles. They had a little flame, little Aladdin lamp, whatever, and you had a wick which was sparking and giving off and you looked on Shabas and it's giving off all sorts of sparks on Shabas. Or even on Friday afternoon, you see it's beginning to spark. You can't put a bowl of water next to the flame so the sparks will go out into the into the water. That's another why not let me do that on Friday afternoon and let it extinguish through shabas. No, we again we're worried that you might mess around with it. You might kind of put it a bit closer, move it a little bit, lift it up a little bit and you'll have all this all these sparks going out on Shabas. Um and then we see this watermill according to Rabba that's also an exception. Rabba says you're not allowed to have a mill working on Shabas because of the noise. Ravos said we're not worried about the noise. So who do we pasculan like? Are we worried about noise or are we not worried about noise? So it's interesting I brought you there's a whole mahlo in the ronim in the middle of page two just before s six I brought you on the question of ashilsa the noise raenu the rambam and the riff all go with rav we're not worried about the noise whereas raenuan the rash the smack and the smack and many others appear to go with the other answer we are bothered about the noise. So how how does that divo divide up? Is it a is it a uh ashkanazi split? Is it something else? So have a look in number six. This is the sack of the we'll see what we can work out from this. There's two very important or today and they're kind of parallel to each other. Number six says first of all of course the opening statement is these car for the you can open up your water channel for the garden so let them water through shabas nice and simple we obviously we're not worried about your machinery working on shabas and then he adds apart as far as the mill's concerned You're allowed to put stuff wheat in the mill. The water mill right before Shabas, just before Shabas, just before you light candles for Shabas, you open up your grain hopper, all the wheat goes in and it's now going to it's going to work for you all through Shabas. You can do that. No problem. Obviously passes like Rav not worrying about noise. the adds in explaining the in in the rash scripts in the second line the course obviously according to this view we're not worried about about the noise now why do we say the noise was a problem so Rashi said it's not shab gives a different reason why might we be bothered about noise this first opinion says we're not because people will say people talk right Shabas ah down the road not as you think he's working his his mill's working all through Shabas and people will cast dispersions maybe they'll think you put some weeds in on Shabas and and that's obviously a concern he says that's not a concern for this first opinion then he brings a second opinion now says but there are those who say no like we saw in you can't do it with the mill you can do it with the water but not with the mill and anytime time that you're going to get a noise, something very noisy, you can't do it. And he says for that's how you should do ideally you should follow that opinion. But if it's a situation of loss, you can be lenient and rely on the other opinion and not worry about the noise. So we have a lot of questions to ask on that. We seem to have a spar ashkanazi split. The bet the says not worrying about the noise. As long as you started on Friday, not noise doesn't bother us. The Ashkenazim seems to the says we are worrying about noise. But if there's a situation of loss, then we're not. Now, first of all, what is this loss business all of a sudden? If you're going to lose money, you can just cut through hala. That's not how hala works. If you have a a storehouse with millions of dollars worth of produce on Shabas in the middle of a non-built up area and there's a fire and it's burning to the ground, obviously not where there's any danger to life, but it's just you're going to lose all your money. You can't put the fire out. You could maybe call the fire department and things like that, but you can't you're going to lose a fortune. So all of a sudden here in loss you you can you can change that locker, you can break that locker. So Rahul Sheha often quotes the ra himself the rama in his he has an introduction and he explains when I say says the rama that this is prohibited ideally but in a situation of loss you can do it it's not that you can break hal if you're going to lose money he says I really pasan like the lenient opinion that you can do it all the time but in deference to the authorities that are strict I recommend that you should not do do it ideally but of course if you're going to lose financially it's not the right time to start keeping because there has to be you know only upside for a if there's downside for a I'm going to lose my livelihood why would you be keeping ara so always remember when the ram and others but specifically the ra says in a situation of loss you can do it he's not allowing you to get away with anything he really holds that you can do it anyway he just recommends stringency in normal situations and in a case of in a case of loss okay you can rely on the main opinion Yes. >> What if a candle candle Friday night falls onto the table? >> Okay, good. I'm not getting into all of these situations. What can you do? You can maybe uh put something wet around it and stop it from you might might burn your table, but you can stop it uh you know burning anything else. We live in a situation also now where we live in builtup areas and if there god forbid is a fire that really catches fire, there's a real danger to life. Now, I'm not saying that if a candle falls over that's immediately puak nephesh. I remember once I was at a Shabbaton and a candle fell over and set fire to a napkin. Okay, so the so the Rob who was making during kdish actually there was a candle there. So Rob took the napkin just threw it on the floor the fire went out. Okay, I'm not saying every situation you can do that but that's how you would basically react. So that's one question. Um but what's considered to be noisy? A watermill is very noisy. I brought you the decibels down here around 90 dibels. Okay. Now, the I don't know if you know how decibels work, but it's it's a it's a s of a it's not it's a geometric, not an arithmetic scale. So, 60 dibels is 10 times louder than 50 and 70 is 10 times louder than 60 and 80 is 10 times louder than 70. So, the average watermill is 90 dibels. So, how noisy is a dishwasher? Let's get back to is our dishwasher a noisy problem? Are people going to hear the noise and think, "Oh, look, he's put the dishwasher." So, you don't hear it. So I brought here the r the dishwasher range is between 38 and 53 dibels. Obviously the more money you pay the cheaper dishwasher cheap the quieter dishwasher you get. By comparison normal human whispering is 40 dibels. So there are dishwashers which are quieter than a human whisper. By comparison normal conversation is 60. A normal TV sound is 65. A wake up alarm is 80. A lawn mower is 90. A live concert is 115. You start going a bit higher than that. you end up with deafness and who knows what. And then you need next week's share to know if you can charge your your hearing aids on on Shabas because you went to too too many concerts. So the question is like is a dishwasher noisy? It's certainly not as noisy as a water mill. No question about that. But is it still too noisy? Also, what is a loss? If I don't run my dishwasher on Shabas, there's no real loss there. It's not maybe if you have a big like a summer camp when there are thousands and thousands of people or a hospital or an army base and they what they do is they have dishwashers and they have non-Jews running them on Shabas usually. So what would be considered to be a loss? Um and what about they're most worried that people are going to say that you turned it on if they hear the noise. Well, what about things that people don't turn on that everybody knows that nobody turns on? For give you an example, you have a a noisy fridge that every now and then comes on and makes a noise. Nobody thinks that people plug in their fridge on Shabas. That's a noise that everybody knows happens automatically and you didn't do it. So there's going to be no concern the not going to say people are going to think you put your fridge on on Shabas. An electricity generator, there's almost nothing louder than an electricity generator. And half of neighbor probably 90% of neighbor runs the shabas electricity from a generator. Why is that not a problem of hash at coal? What you can't imagine anything more noisier. So the kazish and we're not going to get into the whole sug of why they don't use the grid on shabas. So uh my we gave a whole she on that and I referenced it in the in in the footnotes just in parenthesis. one of my moments of parental nas which is when I was walking down the street with my son when he was you know small smaller smaller probably a teenager and we looked at some solar panels on the roof and my son Asha said why do they have all those like 25 solar panels on the roof so he says well they generate electricity and whatever they don't use they sell back to the grid so he looked at me confused he says what's that got to do with Rafolvich the solvich is the grid raon rav Ysef do right so I said to her I said oh what a moment of parental nakas when when when the grid is rasolvichic okay so so um it's very funny so what so the electric so the khaz says the kazanish said no our electricity generators that noise is screaming shabus shabas because it's the way that we're keeping again because nobody thinks you turned on a generator manually so to uh sprinklers. Even if sprinklers are noisy, and I'm not sure they are, everybody knows these days people have their sprinklers on either all the time or on timers. Um the air conditioning units very very noisy. No, people don't. Or everyone knows they they have them set. Uh a ringing phone. Well, by definition, if some if the phone is ringing, somebody else is doing a mala, not you. So, nobody's worried about the fax machine. Remember those um answering machines when people you want to leave messages on your answering machine? Yeah. Everyone knows you're not you're not setting that. You're not doing that manually. What about an alarm clock? An alarm clock goes off. Very noisy. An alarm clock. It's meant to be noisy. Are people going to be worried that you did that on Shabas? Well, if you remember the old days, alarm clocks used to used to have to turn them on the night before. So, most people used to would have to turn their alarm clock on Friday night. So, maybe it is a problem. Okay, maybe today it's not a problem because everything's electronic and everything's set for days and weeks in advance. What if it >> it goes off? >> You might turn it back. You might That's another issue. You may turn it off. That's not this issue. Are you going to make a gazer in case you turn it off? What about musical alarms where suddenly your radio starts playing or or your uh uh your uh your phone starts with a musical jingle? Do people think, "Oh, they've turned the music on. I don't know. It's interesting." Or does everybody know now? No. No. Everybody's alarms are on music goes on, music turns off. Nobody's setting anything on Shabas. There are going to be a few um gray areas but basically that is permitted. So go over to page three. So where does that leave us? That leaves us with an interesting malocus that noisy equipment that people might think you turned on and you know a dishwasher is something you turn on on Shabas even though it might not be noisy. A washing machine is certainly something that you turn on manually. Nobody has their washing machines on a timer that they're going to turn on at a certain time. That for the Ashkanazin is a problem on Shabas. If there's a case of loss, it's not a problem. Interestingly, in the washing machine case, what will be a case of loss? Let's say you have a kayal who comes home on Friday night, Friday afternoon before Shabas and they need to leave on lots of Shabas and they need clean uh you know dry uniforms. So maybe you could stick in the uniform on Friday before Shabas to wash through Shabas and okay it's making a big noise but this is a mo you know the kid's in the army and he needs to close. He's doing a mitzvah. How you dry them, I'm not getting into all of that now. Yes. >> But what if you uh have the washing machine like in the basement like in America? Ah, >> good hear it. >> So that's an interesting shil. So I heard Raasaf Bednosh who give a shir on this. I listen to it and he normally the the Rhosh says noise means anything someone could hear in a different room. Okay. He ram says he quotes that he heard from people although he never saw it written down. um that if it makes a noise but nobody can hear it, then that's not called a noise. A bit like if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, I can hear it. So, if you have something exactly your question, it's it's in a basement, nobody's it could be heard, but nobody's down there. Or it runs at 3:00 a.m. in the morning. >> And yes, someone might hear it if they were in the lounge at 3:00 a.m. in the morning, but no one's in the lounge at 3:00 a.m. in the morning. So there are I I've not seen it in writing but it might make sense especially if there are mosque concern is people might say oh they've just turned on them well if there are no people that would hear it on the other hand with rabbitic mitzvah you don't start playing around with that normally well it's okay here but not there and there but not here usually we say plug that we're not going to start it's so I'm not clear on that but it's an interesting question yes >> a dishwasher goes on only >> okay good so that's Right. You never have guests for Shabas, >> but you don't have the dishwasher on the >> Okay. So, they're already Well, you're saying you don't do that. Okay. But other people, you someone might come around to hear. Fine. >> So, let's let's see. There's another reason why the dishwasher is more of a problem. We'll get to it. Turn over to page three, please. So, let's talk about timers. >> Let's talk about timers. So, most PostKim allow you to start something on Friday and let it work on Sharabas. We saw the baked hill. Other than a few exceptions like the noisy machinery or the food that you might turn up and down or up really is the question. You're allowed to start things before Shabas. So fine, I put my my uh stuff on a timer and it happens on Shabas. I set it all up on Friday. What could be the problem? And Tacker most people say that that's true that it's not a problem if you put stuff on a timer. But there are some that say no timers are not the same thing for for maybe three reasons. Number one, all of the cases that we saw before, the the dye and the flax and the the watering channel, you started it on Friday and it ran consistently from Friday into Shabas. A timer doesn't work that way. A timer starts in the middle of Shabas. Okay, you set it up on Friday, but the thing itself, whatever is working, only started on Shabas. Maybe that's different. Or maybe um the problem uh with the the reason these other things are okay is that you can't adjust them. You set them going and uh now they're running and there's nothing you can do with a timer. Maybe we're worried that you might adjust it like the flame. Remember the flame is a case. If you have the well of water, you might nudge it and and bring it forward. Maybe the timer is a problem for this. And other people argue that the reason that you can start something on Friday and run it into Shabas is because you don't get any direct benefit from that on Shabas. My wheat is going to be ground and I'll deal with it on Monday. My flax is going to be soaked uh and I'll deal with it later. But you're not using it on Shabas. But who says you can set something up on Friday that you actually use on Shabas itself? For example, you can't give money to a non-Jewish friend or a housekeeper or something and say, "You know something? Give them the money on Friday and say, "Shabas morning. Go down to the market, the the Saturday market and pick up some nice warm uh, you know, kosher buns and we'll have them for Shabbaz breakfast." You can't do that. In fact, the saferim says that a Jew shouldn't even live in a town where there's a nearby Saturday market, non-Jewish market, because it'll be too tempting to get people to run down to the market, pick up a bit of this, pick up a bit of that because you can't have that's being done for you. Okay, you're not doing it. You set it up beforehand, but you're benefiting on Shabas. So, with a timer, you're benefiting on Shabas. >> But in those research, I have someone else here. I understand but what if it's a non-Jew that was you didn't ask them directly and you set it up in such a way and so the question you're you're right it's quite different and that's why most postkim don't have a problem with this but there are some who do specifically and I promised you last week I'd read this with you this week Moshe Feinstein he I want you to see his read his his reasoning here number seven you're not allowed to to put things on a timer on Friday and let them do something established because through this time you could work out to do everything on Shabas brackets factories all the factories could be working on Shabas through timers there's no greater zil he's focusing on the not Shabas basically Shabas has turned into a weekday it's clear to me If the rabbis ifal had known about timers, they would for sure have said this was not allowed like they prohibited asking non-Jews for the same reason. And not only do I think they would have done because, you know, maybe they wouldn't have done, he says maybe they already did prohibitive timers. Maybe the timers are already prohibited because of the existing rabbitic prohibition of of asking a non-Jew. They you're not allowed to ask a nonwe what is that prohibition? any had done for a Jew because the Jew asked for it on Friday to be done Israel. All the more so if the Jew did it. Meaning what's worse speaking on Friday and having stuff done for you on Shabas which is prohibited or doing something on Friday and enabling it to be done for you on Shabas. He said the doing is worse than the speaking. Assa is always more serious than than the Amira. So if already asking a non-Jew is prohibited if he does it for you on Shabbas then setting the time stage must be prohibited surely and even if you tell me that we we can't make up new prohibitions they didn't say it they didn't have it it's not there you can't learn out from things 200 years ago just because you don't like it because they didn't answer Even though the the reason they didn't prohibit it is because they just didn't know about it. If you're going to tell me that's not a reason to make something prohibited, he makes a statement at the end. I still don't like you to use time switches because even if it's not prohibited, it should be prohibited. >> Did he really disallow it? Yes, he allowed it for lights cuz he said already lights people are used to. What can I do? I'm not going to stop it. No one's going to No, but he did not allow it for air conditioning, for heating, for all platters, for all sorts. This is a of Rav Mosha Feinstein that most people do not follow. People are often, like I said last week, keen to quote Rav Mosha. Oh, I rely on Rav Mosha. I rely on Rav Mosha. So, Rav Mosha Feinstein has a number of real uh, you know, humdingers of Aumra. Another one he has is you can't listen to the radio any day of the year. Any music, not speech, any music. You can't play music any day of the year except to because of you're listening to jazz in the middle of uh you know November and you you don't remember the you're listening to jazz. He says you can't listen to any music at all. Now again nobody passing us like that today. Maybe they did 50 years ago. So Rav Moshi doesn't like time switches even on Shabas even on Friday rather if you set them on Friday. But we don't we the world generally speaking does not hold like that. Okay, let's go into the dishwasher issue. So what about setting your dishwasher on a timer? I set up my dishwasher. It's on a timer. It's going on at 3:00 a.m. I'm going to stack it on Friday night. It's going to turn on at 3:00 a.m. And in Shabas morning, I'm going to have nice clean dishes. So what malot happen in a dishwasher? What of the which of the 39 malafas do you break by running a dishwasher? Shutting the door. >> Okay, we'll get to the door in a minute. Shutting a door is not a mala. We'll find that shutting the door might be the thing that enables it to work. We'll get there. Well, what are the malas? So, the first one is bishial. A a dishwasher heats up water. Dishwashers, most most brands of dishwashers do not use hot water from the heating system in the house. They take cold water and they heat it up. So, heating water for sure is bishial on Shabas. It doesn't matter if you're not drinking it. That's very clear in the Gimmorra. eating uh stuff which you're not drinking for you're heating for other reasons not eating is still prohibited as bishop that's number one um havara lighting the the flame the whatever the heating element in the dishwasher that comes on that is also a uh the prohibited mala of lighting a flame and if you are a kazonish person who holds that all electricity on Shabbat is the mala of boner of connecting a circuit then you got a million more things that go wrong with the dishwasher every time the circuits connect. Now most people don't follow that position of the most people rely on and others that electricity in essence is a rabbitic pro prohibition if you connected on shabas and even what that prohibition is is not 100% clear but for sure even if you leave that aside there's turning on the heating element and there's cooking the water there's also a kind of side issue what about the detergent is there a bishial problem on cooking the detergent okay it's not food but bishell doesn't have to be food. Bishial is probit probit even with non-edibles. What about the raw um leftovers sitting on your plates? Are we worried about that? Little bits of salad that are stuck to your plates and now red hot water cooks them on Shabas. Is that Bishel? Are you going to tell me that's not Bishel? Bishel is not when I'm cooking it to throw it away in the garbage. Or are you going to say, well, no. At the end of the day, it's cooking. It's cooking. It's cooking. I mean, the stuff is cooking. It's going to happen. You don't want it to happen. It's it's going to happen. So let's have a look and see what the issues are. So now we need to get into our second major sug today is a lot of real juicy stuff. So let's try and do this uh relatively quickly. There's something on Shabas which is called grammar. Grammar is where I don't actually do it directly but I cause it to happen. Let's have a look at number eight says the Mishna. Let's say your furniture catches fire. something drops on the furniture, your furniture is smoldering and catching fire. You can put a goat skin on the other side which is not yet on fire because when the fire reaches the skin skins don't they're not flammable. The skin will just singe and the fly fire will go out. So you can throw that goat skin on the on the cupboard on the closet so that the fire won't destroy the closet. Obviously, if you're in a builtup area and there's a risk that the fire might, god forbid, catch and cause damage to, you know, life, etc., that's not the case here. The case is where there's only your money involved. That you can do. You can't put the fire out, but you can put a skin on top to to break it. And you can take jugs, bags of water, whether they're full of water, whether they're empty so that you'll make a break, a fire break, so the fire won't spread. Meaning, what's going to happen? and the fire is going to spread. Let's say in your field and it's destroying your field. You run out with bags of water and place big, you know, garbage bags of water 20 feet away or 10 feet away from the fire and if the fire spreads, which it could spread in that direction, it'll hit the bags, the bags will burst, the water will go out and the fire the water will come out and the fire will go out. That you can do. Rabio says no, he doesn't like full of water. But we pass like the first opinion. You can do that. Why is that okay? Why can you take water and put it not on the fire but near the fire in a way that the fire is going to break the bags or break the jugs and then the water's going to come out? That's called grammar. We'll see that is called grammar and that is mutah on shabas in certain situations. We once had an ants infestation on shabas um uh and it was in England. We must have had one hot day once like in England. Um and and and and uh Sarah and they were the ants were really kind of marching through the kitchen and Sarah ran to to the rav down the road and she says, "Can I use ant powder?" He says, "Well, you can't put it on the ants because that's killing the ants on shabas, but you can make like a line of powder." So when the ants march, you know, into this ant powder, they'll all commit mass ant suicide and they will that will be that's grammar that you can do like you know in ka that's what we did. So why exactly this is mut we're going to see right now. Go over to page four, please. The Gomorrah explains Rav Rav comes in with another case, not the case of the singed wardrobe or the case of the the crops on fire and the bags of water. He says as follows. Number nine, let's say a a cloak has caught fire on one side. What can you do? You can put water, probably dirty water because it's not cleansing the cloak. on the other side. Not on the fire. On the other side, and if the fire goes out, let it go out. That's fine. Why? Because it says, "You may not do but grammar is permitted." Okay. Grammar is permitted. Doing is is prohibited. >> Something's talking. Okay, great. Thank you. So, good. You can put water on the cloth and the fire will reach the water and the and the water will go out. The fire will go out, excuse me. However, and here's the case that all of a sudden is not allowed. Number 10 says the nice you can put a little jug under the flame that's sparking to catch the flames, but you can't put water in the jug in the in the bowl because that's extinguishing. Why is that extinguishing? Why is that not grammar? >> Why is that not grammar? >> What's that? >> Why can't the timer be considered? >> Oh, good. Good. We'll get there. We'll get there. We maybe the timer is considered grammar. But here, I can't take a bowl of water and put it near the candles because if the candles spark or when they spark the the candles the spark will go in the water and the water will go out. Apparently, I can't do that. Why not? Gomorrah says even if you quote me the opinion of the rabbis to say grammar is okay this is different this is worse because you are actively advancing accelerating this process of extinguishing. So there's obviously a fine difference between these two cases which we have to identify again putting if you have a fire in the field putting the jugs of water 20 feet away and then the fire goes to the jugs breaks the jugs water comes out fire goes out mut okay having a sparking flame which could catch something on fire and sticking a bowl of water underneath it you're not that you're not pouring water on it putting a bowl of water underneath it the sparks will come not okay they seem very similar they seem very very similar one is okay and one is not okay and I brought you a whole in the footnote a list of rashonim and how they explain these things in different ways um for example some uh some just explained that the second case of Ravashi's case of the of the candle which is sparking just simply overrides it disagrees with and overrules the earlier case meaning it's just prohibited even the case with the with the with the flames on on the cloth but most people don't say that some people say well the cloth is a suffic maybe it will put the fire. Maybe it'll go a different direction or the or the or the jugs of water. Who knows if the fire will actually go in that way, maybe it won't go. But where the spark situation, it's right there. It's definite. It's going to happen. Everyone's trying to work out a different way to distinguish those two cases. How does the rule? Have a look in number 13. So, everybody rules that the bowl of water is prohibited, but in terms of the the fire in the field, we'll see what happens. Look at number 13 says a a cupboard the closet that catches fire. You can put the goat skin on one side. Okay. So it won't burn and you can put a wall of these jugs of any evenware jugs which are going to break even if they're full of water. Even if you know for sure that they're going to break and the water's going to come out when the fire reaches them. Why is this all okay? Because gramma is allowed on shabas and in comes the again and says when there's going to be a loss there has to be some kind of significant loss. Doesn't have to be overwhelming. Has to be some kind of significant loss. So what what's going on here? Um effectively in grammar we're asking that on Shabas you have two opinions the mahaba says grammar is fine you can just do it and the ram saying only if it's a situation of of loss and by the way it's interesting here the really all go with the ramad says should we go with the rama on this and we allow grammar only if there's a case of loss like a mitzvah that is not going to happen if you don't do this grammar so what would be a modern case of grammar so you're asking asking about these cases of grammar, the timers. So, let's assume that adjusting a timer on Shabas is grammar. I'm not talking about now setting it before Shabas, but adjusting it. Let's say I have a timer which is set for things to go on at, you know, I I want my time to go on at 10:00 a.m. And by mistake, I notice that it's been set wrong and it's only going on at 3 p.m. And I need my lunch to be hot and all my guests are coming and this is our only hot food. Can I fiddle with the timer, not turning anything on now, and just accelerate it and put this new situation in place that I can and now it's going to go on at 10:00 a.m. Yes or no? If that is grammar, which we're going to see in a minute, then that should be allowed in a situation of need. What would be a situation of need? So, uh it could be I've made a few suggestions. Uh let's say the lights that the house is completely dark and uh no one can see anything and everyone's falling all over the place. Uh, and the lights are not going on for 15 hours. You could maybe move it forward. Moving the timer forward. If that's grammar, you're it's now the lights going on in half an hour. Maybe that's a situation of loss. >> One second. Don't make any suggestions yet. We're going to go through a lot more before we get there. Um, what about maybe a situation? Let's say your tie your food. As I say, you don't have any hot food. Um, it's not going to you're not going to have any hot food on Shabas. Maybe that will be a case where you could bring it forward. But we're going to we're going to look in more details at that. We once had a situation where um we had a guest who was freezing in our apartment. There's some girl and she was literally shivering and turning blue. Okay. And it was very cold in the apartment and our heating was not going on for another 3 hours. So the question is can you bring forward the timer a little bit? Not turn the heating on but bring forward the timer so the heating is going to go on in 15 minutes so that this girl is not going to freeze on Chabas or is is that not allowed? Do we say that a timer is grammar or not? If adjusting a timer on Shabas is grammar, then it should be permitted mockum he should be permitted if there's a real need. Okay. So let's have a look at that right now. So go to page five and let's let's answer this question and then you can ask your questions. I would just I would we just would hold off a second because I don't want us to get bogged down in questions. I would just point out that on yont the situation is different. Gromma is for sure permitted on yont according to all opinions for any need and therefore on those cases that I've given are you allowed to bring the timer forward if the timer is grammar we'll see right now then for sure that will be permitted on yont but shabas is different shabas is only permitted in a situation of real loss so let's have a look at the case how does this work for shabas timers so most postkin we're going to see soon feel that a timer is grammar Why? Why would a timer be grammar? So, it depends on how you see grammar. Why is this case of the field with the jugs okay? Is it okay because of the time delay? If it's the time delay, I do something now and in 15 minutes something happens. If that is the reason that it's grammar and therefore allowed in certain situations, then timer should be fine because whatever I'm doing, there's always a time delay by definition. Okay? You have to be careful if you're really close up to the weather clicks going to go down that a little nudge of the timer. I people may have had this experience and obey I just turned all the lights on. So you don't want to play with fire literally but the uh but if it's going to be 15 20 or half an hour why not if that's the issue or is the issue that there's some real causation which is lacking here meaning I'm putting jugs of water here the fire itself has to quote unquote decide to spread all the way across the field and then heat the jugs and then break the jugs and then pour on the water. There's a million reasons why that might not happen. And even if it's definitely going to happen, there's an entire independent force which is not yet there which has to be there for this maloca to even happen. The fire has to heat the jugs. The jugs has to break. The water has to whereas a timer it's all set. There's it's it's there. The clock is already turning. When you turn the timer, everything that needs to happen in order for this to go on in half an hour is already in process. And we'll see that there are two radically different ways of looking at timers. Salivic is Mahm. He says the only reason that the grammar is permitted in the field is because there is a an independent causation that has to come in that you it's not already there when you when you did the grammar i.e. the fire spreading, heating, breaking. But the timer, he said, "No, everything that needs to happen to make it happen is already happening when you fiddle with the timer." And therefore, that's not grammar. That's called turning on the lights. You turn on the lights in 15 minutes. Imagine when you the light switch that you know you have light switches that when you press them that the light turns on five minutes from now. That's going to be mutas of grammar. You turn on the lights. Yeah. Five minutes the light goes on. It's all set up already. Whereas Ravi yourself says, "No, no, no. The only issue that's relevant is timing. Whatever you do on Shabas, if there's a a significant time gap between when you do it and when it happens, that's grammar. So you see already that Ravaji is going to be much more lenient with time switches than Rav Salvich is going to be. So let's have a look and see how we pass and then we'll get to the dishwasher and we'll have an answer to our question. Rav Mosha, here's another of Rav Mosha. Rav Mosha held the time switches is called action. He said it's not grammar. Adjusting a time switch on Shabas is the same as you doing the thing. He didn't see any distinction between them. And he says the time switch is muka. So why did you think you could even play with the time switch in the first place? It's muka. Now why would a time switch be muka? So what kind of muka is it? So if it's muka, the most obvious suggestion is uh it's muker because it turns lights on. Yeah, but maybe it only turns lights on through grammar and therefore it doesn't turn lights on. It's not what that's not a switch. It's a it's something else. Or it's Muka because it's very valuable. No, it's not very valuable. People leave their time switches lying around. People lose them. People drop them on the floor. People don't care. But Rav Mosha said it was Muka. And I'll leave you to read number 14 in your own time. Um and you can read there. He says basically, as far as I'm concerned, any playing with any time switch on Shabas is prohibited. Of course, we're not talking about life-threatening situations. Of obviously in life-threatening situations, you do it directly, not on a timer. Um although you'd minimize whatever you could in a regular situation, you can't bring it forward. You can't bring it backwards. You can't play with the switch. It's Muka. So Mosha was very very anti- any kind of playing with time switches on Shabas. However, that is not how most rule. You'll see if you look at Shmir Shabas, he does not rule this way. And certainly Ravaji does not rule this way. And then we need so we need to answer four different scenarios. I'll try to be as clear as I can and maybe leave some room for questions before we conclude on the dishwasher. So go to page six. I've basically brought it for you how the shmeir shabas does. Let's let's deal with four cases. Case number one accelerating something turning on. Accelerating something turn. Let's talk about lights. So, my lights are scheduled to go on at midday, but I want them to come on earlier at 10:00 a.m. So, I want to fiddle with a little, let's assume we have a time switch with a little clock and little pins that you go, they almost all the time switches work this way. Now, the pins are set so it's going on at noon and I want to just fiddle with two. It's 8:00 in the morning. I'm just about to go to Shaw. I want to fiddle with a couple of pins uh so that it comes on at 10. Now, for sure, Rob Mosha would say there's nothing to talk about. You can't do that. However, it depends on how you see your grammar. Ra will say that's mut in a case of a situation where you need it. It's m like for the like we pass the ra but mock he said is the dark house is going to be dark. Then you'll have to see what's considered need. Maybe we can eat lunch in a bit darker. Maybe it's not as nice but maybe it doesn't really matter. >> Only shabas doesn't count. >> Only shabas does count but where do you draw the line of only shabas? Meaning I like to have guests in my my house on Shabas lunchtime with the lights on because it looks nicer. But with the lights off it's fine. It's just a bit dingy. So is that is that called is that called mock seda? I don't know. Maybe I'm just being that I oh I like it with the lights on. I'm not sure that's enough. I don't have any hot food. >> That's already a major issue. This my only food and my time is switched on. So according to Raad Ysef, if there is a situation of um accelerating, you will be allowed to do it. You'll be allowed to to to do that because you're it's a situation of grammar and you're bringing it forward. As long as there's a a real situation of of need, you'll be allowed to do that. Rafik says no. >> Rav Salvich says no. But many posts say yes. And therefore you have to think what would be I think if you follow this sack in the case of the girl who was shivering and freezing and turning blue I think it will be mutter according to this to accelerate to play with the switch to to bring it forward an hour or two so that the heating goes up you're not happy. >> No question can you ask someone who's not >> okay that's a different question to ask a non-dual gro for sure. Okay I'm talking about where there's a where there's a where there's no non-Jews around. >> Yes. He passed it like this. So the shabas says to bring it forward is only a situation of need >> but everybody's need is different. >> Okay. So that subjective >> it is very subjective. Seda may be subjective and he doesn't say great need. He says there's a real losses. A loss of a mitzvah usually is fairly objective. Other things may be more subjective and you have to be careful what you say is a need. Especially since Rav Mosha Finstein would say absolutely prohibited. That's like turning on the lights. And Rav Solivetic would say prohibited. You can't do that. So that's scenario number one. An easier scenario number one. Number two is delaying an activation. Let's say the lights are going on at 10:00 a.m. And I say, "No, I don't need any lights at 10 a.m. Actually, I need to delay them so they won't come on till 2 p.m. Okay. Now, I'm not accelerating anything. I'm just extending the status quo. >> It's dark now. it'll be dark for longer. I'm not accelerating anything. All I'm doing is something that was anyway going to happen is still going to happen. It's just going to happen later than it was previously going to happen. That's much less problematic. And many many postkim will permit this. Uh and maybe in Rav Solvich would also permit this because all I'm doing is extending the status quo. Now they talk about the old there was an old kind of time switch. I just about remember these where instead of the little pins that go up and down, they were holes. Remember those? and there was like a pin you could take out and put back in again. Do they still exist? >> I've not seen them for years. With those already says that you can't do because if you think about it, you've got it's it's it's due to go on at uh lights going on at 12:00 and I'm delaying it. When I take the pin out, the lights are off right now, right? I take the pin out to put it in a different hole. The lights now going to stay off because the whole thing's deactivated. No problem. But now I put the pin in at 2 p.m. I've now caused the lights to go on at 2 p.m. They were not going to go on at 2 p.m. because the pin was taken out. Unless you had two pins. Yes. Yes. Clever people had two pins. But the point is that that is not uh that is not uh the way that we uh that is these are not the time switches that we have today. So maybe that's not a problem. Accelerated deactivation and delayed deactivation are very similar. The only difference is that when turning the lights off, it's probably a durabon rather than a disser and therefore that may give a little bit more grans for leniniency. Therefore, even though you might um you might be reluctant to accelerate turning the lights on, accelerating turning the lights off might be more uh more of an accepted thing to do in certain situations. Again, Rasvich and Rav Mosha will still say it's prohibited, but I've given you the reasons there. So, where does that leave us with a dishwasher? Why does that leave us with a dishwasher? So most Ashkenazi postkim say that you may not run a dishwasher on Shabas if it's a noisy dishwasher. Okay, because most people turn a dishwasher on. They don't have it on a time switch. Not normal to have it on a time switch. Um and and you someone might hear the noise and it's turned on. Uh however, if you have a quiet dishwasher, >> that's not relevant. >> Okay, silent dishwasher. So leave that aside. Um again, so Ashkanazi postkim are concerned for the fact that someone might hear it. Posium are not concerned for that either. So do the sparadium have an issue or the Nshkanazim with a quiet dishwasher and this is where you said before the problem is the door. What's the problem with the door that almost all dishwashers have an override switch which is that when you open the door the dishwasher doesn't work. It turns off immediately in order to prevent people opening the door in the middle of a cycle and red hot water, you know, squirting out all around the kitchen. Imagine a little kid opens the door of the dishwasher and the dishwasher on a weekday. So the the closing the door is like setting the time switch. That's the key. And therefore, if I open the door of the dishwasher and stack the dishwasher and the dishwasher is set for 3:00 a.m. in the morning, so now my dishwasher is not going to work. If I leave the door open, the dishwasher is never going to turn on even though the time switch is set because the door's open. Shutting the door is like adjusting the time switch. It's like it's like bringing it forward. Now it's going to happen and it was not going to happen otherwise because that's the way the door works. It works as a grammar. According to Rav Mosha, completely prohibited according to completely prohibited according to Rabad Ysef. If it's a situation of need, then you can talk about grammar. Maybe that would be okay. And then you're going to have to define, do I really need to have a dishwasher to wash my dishes or can I just do my wash wash the dishes by hand? There's no there's no downside really in having your husband has to be a husband mind you wash the dishes. Okay. Um and that that that that's not a downside. So most postkim most will say and there are a number of articles in I refer to the articles that you cannot use a dishwasher on a timer because of the grammar angle. What if you're clever and you disable the override? Okay, so most posting will say that if you disable the override, there is no gromma. Now the dishwasher will work even if the doors open. So opening the door, closing the door, it's like setting a timer from before Shabas and you can do that. There are some postium that say, "Yeah, but you've now introduced into your house a dangerous machine that will squirt boiling water at your children if they open the door when it's activated." Who says you're allowed to have a dangerous thing in your house? That is another hackic concern. So there are postkin will say yeah you've solved the shabas problems but you've created a bunch of new problems. Okay >> kids are up at 3 in the morning. >> Okay good but if you you might forget to not fine. There's one more problem guys. There's one more problem that I just need to mention and we'll finish which I only mentioned obliquely but which is according to many post still a problem. Even if you override the switch, even if you said, "Well, grammar is okay in a case of need and for whatever reason I need," there's still another problem which is shah. What's shah? So, we said already you're not allowed to leave uncooked food on a timer to cook on Shabas. Why? Because we're worried that when it starts to cook, you might twiddle with the knob, you might turn it up, etc. You cannot have uncooked food which is going to cook through some kind of mechanism on Shabas. The dishwasher works on the basis of uncooked water, cold water that will now cook and heat and work for you on Shabas. And if there's a knob on the dishwasher that you could turn it up, you could turn it down, you could use an eco setting, you could use a special, then that should be a problem of Shahier. Just like you're not allowed to leave uncooked food on something with a with a knob that you can turn up, then you shouldn't be allowed to do this. This is an uncovered flame. This is not like a platter. This is a this or or something with a with a covering over it. This is a regular. Okay. It's not an open flame inside the dishwasher, but it's an a heating element which is not you can't cover that in an unusual way. If you think about the things we use like a ble or like aluminum foil, you can't do that to the inside of your dishwasher. And therefore, there is a real problem of shaher. I going to say, well, maybe it's okay if you cover the knobs. Well, we don't usually ask like that. Brother Aaron Cotler has a sack on Shabas. If you've got food on a on a on an open flame, but there's but you cover the knobs, then that's okay. Very few people passing like that. They pass you have to cover the flame, not just the knobs. Maybe the flame and the knobs. But if you've got a knob on your dishwasher that can change the setting, then that could be a problem here. Anyway, maybe if you take the the knob off completely, or if you're you have an ancient dinosaur of a dishwasher that doesn't have any kind of setting changes, then maybe that will be okay. >> Then it'll be noisy. But then it'll be noisy. Very good. Excellent. Excellent. So you don't your dinosaur dishwasher won't help you. It'll help with this and it won't help with that. Yes, sir. >> Heating the water. >> Heating the water is a problem. Yes. Correctly. Correct. So anyway, so but but if it's on a timer, so then that's a grammar. The problem is Shah is not okay even if it's a grammar. So let's leave it there. Next week we're getting into the hearing aid issue, which is a different kind of issue. We need to look at hearing aids generally, how they work, what the issues are, and charging them as we said. And that will be the end of this series.