A group of inventors claim to have developed a solution to one of the most pressing questions facing every Orthodox Jew: how can I turn the lights on and off during Shabbat without running afoul of the prohibition against using electricity on the day of rest?
The Kosher Switch, introduced to the Jewish world last week (see page 34) with a flurry of social media buzz, looks a lot like your run-of-the-mill light-dimming switch. But there’s much more to it: inside the white plastic casing, the dimmer is not actually connected to an electrical current – instead, it acts as a sort of internal canvas onto which an electrical light pulses randomly.
Manipulating the dimmer is purely a mechanical act, the developers say, and since the Kosher Switch does not directly lead to any electrical modification, there is no reason it can’t be used on Shabbat.
The Kosher Switch follows on the heels of the Shabbos App, a cellphone-based program in development that claims to provide a halachically permissible way to send and receive text messages on Shabbat. Together, these two inventions have energized an important debate about the intersection of technology and religious observance.
It may very well be true that the Shabbos App and Kosher Switch do not transgress the letter of the law. The question is whether that’s good enough, or if these devices nonetheless violate the spirit of the Shabbat rules. Even if it is technically okay to flip a switch or send a text, in other words, doing so may still infringe on the very idea of what Shabbat represents.
Orthodox authorities have been almost unanimous in opposition to the Kosher Switch, as they were to the Shabbos App before it. (On their website, the New York-based entrepreneurs behind the Kosher Switch include endorsements from several Jewish legal authorities, but some of the Orthodox rabbis involved have since claimed they were misquoted.) It’s not hard to see why: for many Orthodox Jews, electrical abstention is a pillar of Shabbat observance, right up there with blessing the candles on Friday night and going to synagogue on Saturday morning. These new instruments represent a challenge to the classic Orthodox interpretation of Shabbat laws since the dawn of modern electrical science.
Technology and tradition will always be difficult to reconcile for many Jews. I include myself among them, especially when it comes to Shabbat. Still, I sure could have used a workaround to those pesky electricity laws these last few weeks.
We welcomed the latest addition to our family, a son, on the eve of Passover, literally minutes before the holiday and Shabbat arrived simultaneously. Despite all the preparation, in the hectic hours and days since then, I’ve found myself turning on lights, baby monitors, swings and other electrical devices on Shabbat and yom tov – anything to maintain some small degree of order, peace and quiet.
If I’d had a couple of Kosher Switches, maybe I could have at least avoided some more blatant breaking of laws – and if Shabbos App had been installed on my phone, perhaps I would have been able to share the happy news more immediately. What would have been so bad about that? — YONI