Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ucf-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!yiri From: yiri@ucf-cs.UUCP (Yirmiyahu BenDavid) Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish Subject: Re: Shabbat electricity (what is work?) Message-ID: <1588@ucf-cs.UUCP> Date: Wed, 17-Oct-84 08:39:49 EDT Article-I.D.: ucf-cs.1588 Posted: Wed Oct 17 08:39:49 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 19-Oct-84 06:23:49 EDT References: brl-tgr.5198, <348@wxlvax.UUCP> Organization: UCF, Orlando, FL Lines: 28 When you say 'it is not permitted', by whom? And what is the real basis of authority for it? A simple quote from a sage does not satisfy me. While it may be an upopoular (?) point of view, I do not accept a notion simply because the sages/rabbis say it is so. For me at least, that is insufficient grounds. I insist on demonstrating some reasonable grounds for everything from written Torah. I reject the notion that reason can be built on other reasons which were built on other reasons, ad infinitum. I am perfectly willing to grant that you may be correct in relating to us what the sages permit. But sages are subject to error, and it is the Creator I serve, not the sages. The sages served the Creator just as I do and, conversely, I serve the Creator just like theyt did. They may have been more learned. On the other hand, they may also have been mistaken in some matters. Reason and statistics would seem to argue the likelihood that they were mistaken here and there. Unlike the pope, they didn't pretend to be inerrant. Incidentally, when God causes rain on Shabbat, does he contravene His own Torah (watering grass)? If so, which is imperfect, God or Torah? Am I alone in thinking that some of these notions are carried out mechanically to ludicrous extremes? It sometimes seems that these rules are applied mechanically without the use of the brain, without questioning their real basis, validity, authority, etc? I'm not being sardonic nor cutting, I have sincere doubts about what seems to me a blind acceptance of what the medeival sages decided - and sometimes based upon what seems to me less than scientific grounds and questionable religious grounds. I'm not pushing a point here, I'm asking for opinions from other Jews.