Echo and Alexa: The Laws of Shabbat in a World of Technological Transformation

Rav Nachum Rabinowitz

It is self-evident that if a person performs of the 39 melachot using electricity, such as grinding with an electric grinder and the like, the one who uses it is liable biblically. However, some use electricity for goals which are neither, nor resemble, melachot…. The use of electricity, even where the electric currents are closed, when no actions defined as melacha are performed, is definitely not forbidden biblically, but there is room to forbid rabbinically because of “weekday activity.” In the past, when electricity was beginning to spread, the great authorities saw a danger for keeping Shabbat, because electricity could be used to do all the 39 melachot… However, in our days, electricity has been applied to different usages that are fully automated, without human hands at all, not on Friday, and for sure not on Shabbat itself… Now the question is: How much can we ascribe these actions to human beings when they are fully automated? I already wrote in Siach Nachum (25) that there must be a limit to when we can ascribe action to people when they are fully automated. However, it is clear that the limit must be defined must be when the person acting is separated from the system he is acting on – i.e. where he cannot be considered part of the system. Additionally, the action must be noticeable to the senses… Only then can you forbid, even rabbinically. However, if a person doesn’t touch the electrical system at all, and does no specific act to initiate the system, and it happens totally by itself – how can one even think that it is forbidden, especially when none of the 39 melachot are being done? This is even if you appreciate and benefit from it.

Raavad's Glosses

Behold this is a subset of Kindling and is liable. Says Avraham, and why not for cooking?

Responsum Be-Ohalah Shel Torah 2:23

It seems to me that the opinion of the Gaon Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach zt”l is the accepted law according to most authorities in our generation. Namely, that using an electric appliance involves a rabbinic prohibition, unless the appliance performs a biblical melachah, such as milking, shaving, lighting a fire, and the like. However, the opinion of the Chazon Ish is that using an electric appliance is forbidden biblically. According to him, there are two prohibitions – the very closing of the electric circuit that enables the current to flow through the wires is building, and using the appliance as a result of this is fixing a vessel which is biblically prohibited, either because of building or delivering the final hammer blow… The Gaon Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach disagreed with him... If I am allowed to presume to grasp the depths of his great opinion, he was worried, quite correctly, that if these appliances would be permitted, the Shabbat would, G-d forbid, become a weekday. He understood, with the breadth of his knowledge, the knowledge of Torah, that the Torah would presumably not agree to permit use of electric appliances. Therefore, it seems to me that even those who disagree with Chazon Ish, [holding] that there is only a rabbinic prohibition in using certain electric appliances, they mean this only with a single, incidental use. However, it is possible that using many electric appliances on Shabbat would involve a biblical prohibition, based on what the Ramban wrote in his commentary to the Torah (Vayikra 23:24): We are biblically commanded to rest on Yom Tov even from those activities that technically do not qualify as melachah. We should not strain all day to measure grain, weigh fruit… to move utensils, and even stones, from house to house and place to place… to load up donkeys… And all packages would be delivered on Yom Tov; and the marketplace would be filled with ongoing commerce… and the workers would arise for their duties and hire themselves out like the rest of the week, and so on… Therefore, the Torah commands us “Shabbaton”-- that these should be days of rest and cessation of work, and not days of labor and toil. This is specifically true for our generation. As technology has developed and moved forward, and even during the week most people do not toil and work with their bodies, but rather they press buttons,, listen and talk and receive decisions, and all is done with virtually not work, but with psychological stress. And thank G-d, Who gave his nation of Israel Shabbat and the holidays, when the world’s Sambatyon rests for us. No phone, no fax, no computer, no radio, no car, and no other appliance. Just the holy Shabbat! How lucky we are, how good is our portion, and how great is this gift that the Holy One Blessed be He gave us, the One who gives his nation of Israel Shabbat and holidays for holiness and rest, for Torah and joy. And therefore, it seems to me that event he authorities who hold that electric appliances are only forbidden rabbinically, we should not be lenient regarding their use unless there is great need and with other reasons [to be lenient], and with responsible and deliberate decision making, so that we shall not, G-d forbid, breach the floodgates of the holiness of Shabbat, which is the foundation of all of Israel’s Torah.