Hurricane Sabbath Guidelines Issued By Rabbis

By Michele Chabin
Religion News Service

NEW YORK (RNS) Observant Jews are permitted to sidestep traditional Sabbath rules on electronics and listen to the radio as Hurricane Irene bears down on the East Coast, according to guidelines distributed to hundreds of Orthodox rabbis.

Rabbi Kenneth Brander, dean of Yeshiva University's Center for the Jewish Future, distributed special hurricane guidelines -- which he originally wrote while working in hurricane-prone Florida -- to the school's rabbinic alumni.

Observant Jews' Sabbath rules typically prohibit turning on and off electrical appliances and carrying items outdoors unless there is a ritual enclosure called an eruv.

The protocols instruct Jews to leave a TV or radio turned on in a side room, but not to change the channel. A radio's volume may be adjusted on Shabbat, as long as the radio isn't digital, Brander said.

If the storm is still raging, worshippers should stay home, the document says, noting that a missed Torah portion can be read the following Shabbat.

Jews should assume that the storm has destroyed their community's eruv, Brander said, "but carrying is permitted for life/limb threatening situations" or in cases where medical attention is required."

In anticipation of a blackout, Brander advised Jews to light long-lasting candles and flashlights prior to the start of the Sabbath. If the fire dies or the batteries lose power, it is permissible to ask a non-Jew to replace them.

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan advised his flock to stay home if Irene makes conditions too dangerous to attend Sunday Mass.

"Catholics take Sunday mass very seriously," he said, "but the church never asks us to risk our health or safety to get to church on the Lord's Day."

WATCH: BLOOMBERG -- MANDATORY EVACUATION FROM SOME AREAS:

Comments

[Sam Bark]

02:33 AM on 08/29/2011

To all those people that took the time to post their logical and/or silly comments below…..back off, aren’t you a bit out of line to tell other people, especially religious and spiritual ones how to behave and what to believe, especially when it does not affect you, or imped on your life.
For many people of faith not everything starts and ends with logic and/or materials things...some people do live differently and they do not need your approval, please some humility and acceptance will go a long way for all to live together as a society

[Dan Jighter]

02:51 AM on 08/29/2011

You can believe what ever you want, but that doesn't make it true. And more importantly, you do not get to demand my tolerance and acceptance for yours and others superstitions. Don't bother trying, you will never get it.

As for us all living together as a society, it is the Orthodox Jews who have adopted the sort of demanding lifestyle that is not compatible with living with the rest of society. Don't tell those of us who recognize this about living together as a society.

You don't really want humility or acceptance. You want my brain to fall out of my head and to overlook how ridiculous your religion is.

"For many people of faith not everything starts and ends with logic and/or materials things" That's a big problem when it comes to living together as a society, to have people who walk around making decisions that fly in the face of logic and pretend there is more than this only material world that we know of. This is a serious threat to the well-being of those who don't share in superstition.

[leor613]

11:13 AM on 08/29/2011

Mr. Jighter, I do not want, nor will I ever want, the approval of a Troll like yourself. Your every comment on this article has been an atheist screed, several of them descending into outright anti-Semitism. Please go to get your "lulz" elsewhere. This was a factual article about a single community's leaders providing instructions prior to an anticipated hurricane. It was not about Orthodox Jews sneaking into your home after midnight to circumcise you against your will. Your level of vitriol is uncalled for.

[hfpf]

03:06 PM on 08/29/2011

Unless Orthodox Jews insist that you live your life the way they do....BACK OFF! You are an an intolerant, pathetic individual.

[Semprini]

01:29 PM on 08/28/2011

" A radio's volume may be adjusted on Shabbat, as long as the radio isn't digital, Brander said."

What is so spiritually dangerous about specifically digital radios??? Isn't that splitting hairs? Counting angels of the head of a pin?

All "ritual purity" stuff baffles me...and the strident claim a supreme being, capable of apparently creating the entire universe (so believers insist), really demands all these things. No chance it could be just be about creating and maintaining a social identity, keeping "us" and "them" distinct???

Every religion's got them...is this god entity such a bad communicator that it can't get the message out clearly to all humans? It sure sounds like people make up rules so that they know who is "one of us", and who isn't.

If a hurricane hits, do you really need a priest or rabbi or whatever to tell you it's okay to think about safety first?

[Sam Bark]

02:24 AM on 08/29/2011

semprini -- do you feel better for offering your unrequested and uninvited opinion about Judaism.... what difference it makes to your well-being if you understand or don’t other people beliefs and practices......

[Semprini]

09:09 AM on 08/29/2011

Yes, as a matter of fact I do! Do you feel better for offering your opinion of my opinion?

[Luis Soto]

01:26 PM on 08/28/2011

LOL

[Sam Bark]

02:47 AM on 08/28/2011

Was wondering for some-time, why the Hpost bothers to publish articles with such marginal interest and importance to the general public, and why so many non-religious people bother to read it and post their silly comments on a subject matter that may interest a fringe ultra-orthodox group of few thousand people…..
This is quite ridiculous…but then, Judaism and Israel is an ‘attention gathering subject’ that everybody and his brother has an opinion and it is a magnet for so many to crawl out from underneath their rocks and post their obnoxious comments which trumps decency and reason…. I wonder if a similar article about the Amish beard trimming will create so many comments by so many experts…..

[dschiff]

01:12 PM on 08/28/2011

I suppose HP is trying to have a diverse selection of writers, speaking to not only the mainstream but smaller groups. As for the rest of us, it's good to learn and hear about their practices, whether we find them inspiring or misguided.

As to why the 15 million Jews earn as much media as 1.5-2 billion Muslims and Christians. Perhaps because Jews outdate them as the original monotheism? Lots of anti-semitism? Lots of nobel prizes? Definitely disproportionate attention, especially to the tiny country Israel.

[BRG Racing]

02:52 PM on 08/28/2011

Yes

[Benignuman]

12:46 AM on 08/28/2011

I clicked on this page to find out what the rabbis had said. Unfortunately an article meant to impart practical information for Jews, spurred numerous people to bash Judaism in the comments section. I wonder why these people clicked on the article to begin with.

[Tulipss]

09:18 PM on 08/29/2011

" No one would believe it unless it was written when it said it was and actually happened. They believed because they were there and heard God speak".
So based on your logic, if I said I saw something happen even though it not true and wrote it down, it means it happened?.
There is no evidence if "They" heard it or just one person heard it.
If god really spoke, the whole world would hear it not just a few people.

[Sunwyn Ravenwood]

11:52 PM on 08/27/2011

This is what happens when you let a bunch of old men sit around arguing over things for 25 centuries. All the Jewish laws made sense in the beginning, but the world has changed. "Don't work on the Sabbath" made sense when it started, people need rest, and animals do too. But 2,000 years of relentless nit-picking have gotten the definition of work down to the absurd. The same with the food laws. "Don't boil a kid in it's mother's milk" is pretty straightforward, but the road from there to "keep 2 sets of dishes so meat and cheese can never touch the same surface" is long and tortuous. These rules may be religious, but the rules of sports are almost as absurd, and they've had a lot shorter time to muddle them up.

[Benignuman]

12:48 AM on 08/28/2011

You don't know the reasons for the laws to begin with and you don't know rationales for the presents states of various laws. You are commenting from a place of ignorance. What you call 2,000 years of nit-picking, others might call 2,000 years of clarifying, refining and applying.

[Sunwyn Ravenwood]

01:45 AM on 08/28/2011

Actually I probably have a better idea than most gentiles. How could any rational human being decide that turning a dial on a radio to increase the sound level is not working, but that pushing a button is? Believe me, if women had written the Talmud and the MIshnah they would be a whole lot shorter and simpler. Men are an alien species.

[Tulipss]

05:18 PM on 08/29/2011

I am replying here because I don't see a reply button on any of your comments. Can you reply directly under the comments, maybe that will work.

"You are assuming that people back then were stupider than people today. I don't think there is any evidence of that".

You are assuming that people back then were able to hear god speak. I don't think there is any evidence of that either.

I assume that the people back then were not as intelligent based on what they thought about the world and many other myths and superstitions. The black cat crossing your path was not only for children, the mothers themselves believed this and told their children to watch out crossing the road and to avoid black cats. There were many other superstions like the belief that some women were witches and they were burned or thrown into the river.

[ChicagoKev]

11:18 AM on 08/28/2011

You think people don't need rest today just as much as they did then?

[Sunwyn Ravenwood]

01:44 PM on 08/28/2011

I don't think that pushing a button is equivalent to lifting a beam. And no, most of us don't work nearly as hard as people did when everything had to be done by hand with no machine more complicated than a pulley. Compared to our ancestors most of us are weak and feeble. Not to mention obese. People who did hard physical labor 12 to 14 hours a day never got fat. It's not my place to approve or disapprove of Rabbinic Law, but I do permit myself to make fun of some of the hair-splitting. Try reading some of the arguments in the Talmud, they could make a cat laugh.

[Tulipss]

06:12 PM on 09/04/2011

" I would say yes, He did. There are a couple prophecies in the bible about people all around the world being able to see something that was happening in Jerusalem at the same time. That would not be possible without the modern communicat ion and media network we have that is truly global and real time. So, He must have known man would invent electrical appliances".

Your reply makes no sense. All people seeing the same thing at the same time is a lie. There is no proof of many people seeing anything. What would not be possible without modern communication. Are you a trying to say that god must have known man would invent electrical appliances because we now have modern communication. That makes absolutely no sense. God can't know if people would invent a radio and insist that they don't change the channel. He might have know that electricity existed but he can't know what men would do with that electricity.

[westral]

11:10 PM on 08/27/2011

If their house is flooded are Jews allowed to swim to safety, the rules sound pretty silly to me.

[hfpf]

11:57 PM on 08/27/2011

Jewish laws are allowed to be broken to save a life.

[Sam Bark]

01:32 AM on 08/29/2011

westral -- I will call a Zen Monk to ask him if it OK to reply a foolish question......

[SamSeven]

09:15 PM on 08/27/2011

In anticipation of a blackout, Brander advised Jews to light long-lasting candles and flashlights prior to the start of the Sabbath. If the fire dies or the batteries lose power, it is permissible to ask a non-Jew to replace them.

They cant replace their own batteries. (sigh)

[hfpf]

12:01 AM on 08/28/2011

It's not about replacing the batteries, it's about handling things that are not allowed to be handled on Shabbat. So if someone is available to change the batteries who is permitted to handle them, then that person may be asked to change them. If the flashlight was needed in order to save a life or to prevent harm to a person, you may change the batteries yourself, and no one was available to do so, you may change them yourself.

[2083]

03:01 AM on 08/28/2011

Don't bother with that one...

[Sam Bark]

01:33 AM on 08/29/2011

samseven -- you are so smart.............

[thinkingwomanmillstone]

08:47 PM on 08/27/2011

Excuse me rabbi, may I use my brain that you think God gave me?

[hfpf]

12:02 AM on 08/28/2011

Excuse me thinkingwoman, you do not understand the basis of this prohibition, so please keep your mockery to yourself.

[thinkingwomanmillstone]

08:24 AM on 08/28/2011

I do know the basis and it is just as ridiculous as the basis for any religious prosription that requires people to not follow logical action. I'll mock anything that makes no sense. To think that people must ask permission to get information that would save their lives is totally worthy of being mocked.

[Benignuman]

12:22 AM on 08/28/2011

Do you realize that you know very little about the subject matter of Jewish law. God gave you a brain to think, but if you don't have the knowledge base, thinking alone is insufficient. You can be a great thinker, but you can't be a theoretical physicist without a base knowledge of physics.

[jerryny]

02:06 AM on 08/29/2011

What pretentious nonsense.

[MIKEinNYC]

08:09 PM on 08/27/2011

If 80% of the real estate and people get washed away you just know that people will run around thanking god for saving the surviving 20%. So who gets the blame for the bad stuff?

Could it mean that someone changed radio stations?

[rriverstone]

10:30 PM on 08/27/2011

Homosexuals, silly. Ask the "Rabbi:" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxDHjiw2uoc&feature=player_embedded

[Ami Toben]

07:23 PM on 08/27/2011

Anyone who actually needs to be told they can turn on a radio on Saturday, and by a Rabbi at that, has bigger problems than hurricanes.

[Benignuman]

12:23 AM on 08/28/2011

You are commenting out of your sphere of knowledge.

[Ami Toben]

03:01 AM on 08/28/2011

No, i am not.
Which indicates that you are.

[Ken Scherer]

08:34 AM on 08/28/2011

I agree. Still, I'm glad the article wasn't about the group's leaders forbidding them to break the normal rules during emergencies.

[Ami Toben]

10:35 AM on 08/28/2011

Indeed.
One way or another, the problem is with people claiming to be able to interpret the will of a man made iron aged tribal middle eastern deity. "Yahweh wants you to keep the Sabbath but Yahweh also wants you to make exceptions when hurricanes come".

[bessielil]

06:35 PM on 08/27/2011

Stay home and be safe is about all anyone can say regarding safety. I'll take an edict from NOAA instead of Noah any day.

Right now, almost all local religious services are cancelled, no matter what belief system. (Western MA) Sense and Sensibility.

[ChicagoKev]

11:25 AM on 08/28/2011

I missed the edict from Noah. What did it say?

[Semprini]

05:22 PM on 08/28/2011

It said, "don't take take offense at every harmless joke that is made."

Good words to live by.

[genrel1248]

06:18 PM on 08/27/2011

Wow, I'm glad I got gawd's permission to not die in the storm. Thanks alot rabbi.

[LightShadow62]

05:08 PM on 08/27/2011

Typical. Adjust the rules to fit the situation.

[Benignuman]

12:23 AM on 08/28/2011

No one is adjusting the rules. The exception of various laws in cases of danger are built into the system from the get go.

[LightShadow62]

10:20 AM on 08/28/2011

Either "God's Laws" are absolute, with no exceptions OR they are not god's laws but
those of man.

Of course reality dictates that the latter is true.

[ChicagoKev]

11:26 AM on 08/28/2011

The rules have built-in adjustments. The Rabbis were only making certain people understood that and did not take unnecessary risks.

[BRG Racing]

03:00 PM on 08/28/2011

How conveeeeenient!!

[Tulipss]

11:14 AM on 08/29/2011

How is it a built in adjustment if Jews cannot change the station on the radio. Did god know that humans will invent electricity so he made rules in advance? Someone obviously made up these rules.

[Bob Wood]

02:34 PM on 08/27/2011

Religion is a mythtake...(sigh)

[ChicagoKev]

11:31 AM on 08/28/2011

And you can prove this how?

[Bob Wood]

11:44 AM on 08/28/2011

It isn't the non-religious that fly airplanes into buildings...or strap bombs to themselves and blow up buses and market places...so that they can go to some mythological place and be served by mythological virgins. Proof enough for me...(sigh)

[Ami Toben]

12:09 PM on 08/28/2011

You have it backwards - the burden of proof is on the person making an extraordinary claim, not on the person doubting it. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as proving a negative. Just like you do not have to prove that Greek mythology is just mythology, we do not have to prove that Jewish mythology is just mythology. It is up to the person who thinks the stories are true to prove their truth.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.