Gadgets help Jews observe Sabbath
Published 22 May, 2009, 15:02
In a hi-tech world, Orthodox Jews observing the Sabbath face a problem using modern gadgets because they're not allowed to do any work. An Israeli company has recently come up with some ingenious solutions.
Cheri Tannenbaum’s fingers do the talking her lips can’t. 35 years ago, she started having problems with speaking and walking. Doctors diagnosed her with dystonia or neurological movement disorder. Today she can’t talk and struggles to get around.
For many years she felt her handicap most acutely on the Jewish Sabbath. When her family would set off for the synagogue, she’d be left behind because, according to Jewish law, she can’t use transport to get there.
But then scientists, rabbis, and engineers in Israel got together and designed a scooter that is 'Sabbath-proof.' When the key is turned, an existing electrical current is set in motion, and as the wheels turn on the ground, they pick up speed.
Cheri also has a keyboard through which she talks. It’s allowed on the Sabbath, and she says it helps her to become part of the things.
“In the case of great need or security we’re allowed to use this keyboard on Shabbat because it doesn’t cause any surface to be closed or anything new to be produced,” says Dan Marans, Executive Director of Zomet, an Israeli high-tech organization.
Dan Marans and his team of engineers work in a research facility in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut. They’re constantly on the lookout for new ways to match the technology of the twenty-first century with Jewish rituals that are more than five thousand years old.
Their main concern is not to create anything new, or do any kind of work, on what is supposed to be a day of rest.
“The Sabbath is a sacred day when we are forbidden to start new things. This is the day during creation when God rested. But if there’s an emergency during the Sabbath and a person’s life could be at risk, then you are permitted to break the Sabbath,” says Rabbi Itzhak Barth.
The Zomet inventions affect the world’s more than 1.5 million Orthodox Jews.
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