Posted by:
Tevai
(
)
Date: October 12, 2020 09:27PM
Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
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> I don't know. Having two sets of plates for
> fleishich and milchich (I hope I didn't botch the
> spelling too badly) and programming elevators to
> run continuously and stop at every floor on
> Saturday because God disapproves of pushing
> elevator buttons from Friday night until Saturday
> night, that kind of strikes me as a superstition.
> Not that there aren't a lot of Jewish people who
> have moved beyond that, but still....
>
> I do have some new appliances, and the owner's
> manual still discusses the Sabbath settings. This
> still exists.
Oh, of course these practices still exist--but they're not superstitions, they are direct rules (albeit subject to interpretation, not only by historical sages/learned persons/experts, but also by each person who makes these decisions, one by one, for him/herself).
It is not the elevator buttons that count, it is "making fire." There is a prohibition against "making fire" (lots of sub-interpretations here, depending on all kinds of possibilities) on Shabbat and some specific other Jewish holidays. Electricity has been interpreted as a form of fire, and (absent a life-endangering situation, when all laws of observance instantly cease until the emergency is over) an observant Jew cannot "make fire" on Shabbat (or some of the other holidays), but that observant Jew can USE fire that has already (past tense) been created. It is the same thing as sticking the stew pot over the pilot light on the stove: you can keep the contents hot or warm, but once Shabbat (etc.) begins, you don't have to "make" fire to do it.
A superstition is a BELIEF. The rules of kashrut, etc. (whether a given person adheres to them or not), are RULES, definitely not beliefs. If I have to use a Shabbat elevator on Shabbat, I am not "believing" that what I am stepping into is an elevator, it IS an elevator. Period. Whether I choose to use it or not is another thing, but its existence is totally, three-dimensionally, REAL, regardless of any beliefs I may, or may not, have.
Not eating meat and milk at the same meal is following the biblical RULE [which is interpreted in somewhat different ways by different Jewish groups] which which says: "it is prohibited to cook [an animal] in its mother's milk."
Every Jew decides for him/herself whether they are going to follow this rule, but the rule itself, and the meat, and the milk, are definitely not "beliefs," they actually exist, as a rule, a piece of meat, and a given quantity of milk.
So far as your appliance instruction book goes: Mine are frequently written in English, Spanish, and two or three Asian languages. I just use the English-language instructions, and I may skim over the Spanish instructions to try to keep my Spanish up, and then I ignore the rest of the possible selections. Doesn't everyone automatically do something like this with appliance instructions?
Superstitions are BELIEFS, which is a whole lot different than what you are citing here, which are actual, often three-dimensional, facts and potential actions.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2020 09:39PM by Tevai.