Another Landlord Worry: Is the Elevator Kosher?

volatile said:
So... pizza delivery is kosher? Is that right?
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Hmm, I have never seen a kosher pizza shop, even in NYC.

Hmm, looking online it seems that there are a few.

Of course do any of them deliver on the sabbath?

Still pizza with out pepperoni is wrong.

I found a whole section about kosher pizza places

Kosher Pizza
 
Using a model of religion derived from Christianity to understand other religions tends to produce misunderstandings. This seems to me to be going on in a lot of posts in this thread. Notable exceptions are the well-informed posts of Drkitten and of Meadmaker.

seayakin said:
With all do respect to Judaism, isn't this one of those really absurd beliefs right up there with burying a saint's statue in your yard for good luck?
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What belief are you referring to by the word "this"? You simply assume that the discussion concerns a matter of belief. It doesn't: it concerns the interpretation of religious law. You may reply that there has to be a belief about the status or significance or origin of the law involved. That may be so; but no such belief is at issue, and different Jews can and do hold divergent beliefs about the origin and status of the law without diverging in their understanding of its content.

To the extent that one can attribute Orthodox Jewish observance to an underlying common belief, that belief would be the belief that God gave the Jews the Torah, whose implications have been set forth in the Talmud and other rabbinic literature over the past 2,000 years or so. There is not a specific belief for each detail of the law.

By the way, the phrase is "due respect," not "do respect." ("Due" = "owed.")

zooterkin said:
On a slightly more serious note, what is the supposed penalty if one doesn't follow these rules about not using lifts, etc?
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I don't know if there is any answer to that question. I am pretty sure that no belief in penalties for disobedience of religious law is widely held among Orthodox Jews.

Hux said:
These are all man made superstitions, justified by years of repetition for no good reason. Someone might as well say, do not walk under a ladder or it will damn you to eternal torment. Using a lift on the 'Sabbath' is superstition running riot.
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Orthodox Jewish observance is not based on fear of punishment for disobedience but on acceptance of the divine origin of the Torah.

Sledge said:
It's this kind of stuff that convinced the young Sledge many years ago that religion is rubbish. God created the whole universe and everything in it, but will be angry if you operate a light switch on a certain day? Bulldust. How egotistical would you have to be to honestly believe a supereme being would care about you turning a light on?
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These are straw-man attacks and are irrelevant to Jewish religious practice.

A brief account of the basis of Jewish religious observance may be found in this article (which I just found by Googling): "The Basis and Rationale For Jewish Living Among the Orthodox" by Jacob Lumbroso.
 
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drkitten said:
Keeping a fire going all night and all day on the off chance you want hot water tomorrow afternoon takes a lot of firewood and is therefore expensive.
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Not if you dump a load of soil on it. Lighting fires tricky to the point where historicaly most non-normads would keep a fire going 24/7.
 
volatile said:
So... pizza delivery is kosher? Is that right?
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So long as no ham or bacon, or improper ingredients are on it, I think it might fit.

Funny, I had never thought of how a kosher pizza might be prepared, but I'll bet an enterprising person has done so. Should I look on the net to find out? :cool:

ETA: Well I'll be darned, there are numerous such pizzerias!

A link to one: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&s...anhattan&view=text&latlng=9230320290544624508


Google Kosher Pizza and you can find many emporiums offering that dish. Learn something new each day. Thanks, volatile. :)
DR
 
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ponderingturtle said:
This makes sense, the problem is when they try to get around the difficulties imposed by their own rules by looking for legalistic shortcuts that I find it strange.

Either accept that you are doing something to make your life difficult or don't do it. Trying to work around the difficulty is what I just do not understand.
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Well at this point rule lawyering is basicaly part of judaism to the point where not doing it would be rather unusal (for an extreme example see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruv ).

There is also a tradition of jewish jokes that play with such rule lawyering:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_jokes#Wits

The justification as I understand it is that by doing the activities to get around the rules you are thinking about and showing respect for the rules.
 
ponderingturtle said:
This makes sense, the problem is when they try to get around the difficulties imposed by their own rules by looking for legalistic shortcuts that I find it strange.

Either accept that you are doing something to make your life difficult or don't do it. Trying to work around the difficulty is what I just do not understand.
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Let's take religion out of it for a moment, and turn to law in the real world. Suppose you go to a lawyer and tell him you want to do something, but you think it might be illegal and he tells you, "Yep. It's illegal." Then, you go to another lawyer and he tells you, "If you do it like this, it's perfectly legal."

(Say, for example, you want to transfer large sums of money to a family member without paying tax. The first guy says there's a maximum you can pass on to your family, and beyond that, you have to pay tax. The second guy describes some form of trust that will allow a gradual transfer that is tax free.)

Which lawyer would you say knows the law better? The guy who looks at the straightforward answer and declares it is illegal, or the guy who finds the loophole that makes it legal? I think the loophole finder would be the better lawyer, right? Assuming that it is a true, legitimate, loophole, not some sort of wishful thinking or "you won't get caught" sort of loophole, but more like the "using clause 218b of the tax reform act of 1975, ....." sort of loophole.

Judaism is not very much like Christianity. The purpose of the mitzvot (laws) is not to describe what God likes and does not like, so that you can get into heaven by doing what God likes. The Law is a gift from God. Your task is to study it, understand it, learn it, and live it. Now, who knows the law better, the Jew who reads one passage and says, "I can't do this" or the Jew who studies as much of the law as possible, and finds that he can't do it most of the time, but there is a loophole that allows him to do it if he does that?

All this "working around the difficulty" is part of knowing and understanding the law. It demonstrates your understanding of Torah, and proves you are a good Jew.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Of course do any of them deliver on the sabbath?
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I'll take bets they do not. For one thing, none of the Jews who work in the place would be allowed to work on the sabbath, which makes it highly unlikely that all of the rules of kashrut will be followed in the preparation of the food. (I think that the proper blessings have to be made, which basically makes it impossible for a non-Jew to prepare kosher food, but I could be wrong about that.)

Second, you would have to place your order before the sabbath, because you can't use your phone, and you can't order someone, even a non-Jew, to break the sabbath, on the sabbath. Of course, a non-Jew would have to drive the car that delivers it to you.

All things considered, even if you could find the proper loopholes, the amount of business would be so small that no kosher pizza place would do it. I know that we occasionally order from the kosher pizza place for my son's parties, and it isn't open on the sabbath. More often, though, we just order non-kosher, but meatless, pizza. All the more or less observant kids eat it, and the more strictly observant kids probably wouldn't come to our parties anyway.

If I get a chance, I'll ask about the general topic. Is it kosher to have kosher food delivered to your home on the sabbath, if you place the order before the sabbath?
 
Meadmaker said:
I think that the proper blessings have to be made, which basically makes it impossible for a non-Jew to prepare kosher food, but I could be wrong about that.
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Not aware of that being a requirment and the amount of stuff marked kosher in the average supermarket would require rather a large percentage of the jewish population to be working in the food preperation industry if that was the case.
 
geni said:
Not aware of that being a requirment and the amount of stuff marked kosher in the average supermarket would require rather a large percentage of the jewish population to be working in the food preperation industry if that was the case.
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I looked this part up. I was wrong about the blessing. No blessings required.

(I knew that non-Jews could prepare kosher food, but I had thought that at least one blessing was required at some point in the process, in which case there would ahve to be at least one Jew involved. I know I have been told that blessings are required in order for meat to be Hallal, although once again, I can't say that that's correct, only that I have been told such.)

Based on that, I think it is at least theoretically possible to deliver kosher pizza on Shabbat, as long as you place the order before Shabbat, and you can't pay the delivery person, either. Still, in practice I'll bet it's impossible to get a certified kosher pizza delivered on Shabbat.
 
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Meadmaker said:
Generally, observant Jews are forbidden from creating new things, or transforming an existing thing into its final form, on the sabbath.
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So one could knit on an already-in-progress sock, but could not cast on a new sock or bind off a finished one? [/knitter]

Meadmaker said:
Saving life supercedes all the sabbath rules, so presumably they had a different line for emergencies.
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There's a scene in one of Chaim Potok's novels where the non-observant hero, a psychologist, is visiting his extremely Orthodox father over the Sabbath. During the visit he gets a message that one of his patients needs immediate attention (he may have attempted suicide). The hero's father is strictly forbidden from using the telephone or handling money on the Sabbath -- but as soon as he hears about this patient, he at once telephones for a taxi and gives his son money to pay for it.

drkitten said:
A very good example. It may not be mandatory, but it's still "culturally enforced" (at least around here) -- every restaurant within a hundred miles of here seems to do clam chowder as the Friday soup-of-the-day and the special is always a fish sandwich or something. You can't walk in to a restaurant without being forcibly reminded that God really wants you to eat fish today.
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That's why McDonald's has the Filet-o-Fish sandwich: back when the menu was limited to burgers, fries, shakes, soft drinks and coffee, sales in heavily Catholic communities were dropping off drastically on Fridays. (This is the incident that also demonstrates that Ray Kroc was a decent marketer but an idiot when it came to food: instead of "smelly" fish, he wanted to extend the menu to include a meatfree, Friday-safe "Hula Burger" -- a ring of canned pineapple, grilled, topped with cheese, and served on a bun. It was not a rip-roaring success.)
 
Kritikos said:
Using a model of religion derived from Christianity to understand other religions tends to produce misunderstandings.
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Unlike religion per se!

Kritikos said:
By the way, the phrase is "due respect," not "do respect." ("Due" = "owed.")
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Correct. Please do respect due respect!

geni said:
The justification as I understand it is that by doing the activities to get around the rules you are thinking about and showing respect for the rules.
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Yes - that makes sense! :boggled:

Meadmaker said:
Which lawyer would you say knows the law better? The guy who looks at the straightforward answer and declares it is illegal, or the guy who finds the loophole that makes it legal? I think the loophole finder would be the better lawyer, right? Assuming that it is a true, legitimate, loophole, not some sort of wishful thinking or "you won't get caught" sort of loophole, but more like the "using clause 218b of the tax reform act of 1975, ....." sort of loophole.

All this "working around the difficulty" is part of knowing and understanding the law. It demonstrates your understanding of Torah, and proves you are a good Jew.
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Yes - find the loopholes in the law (but only the "true, legitimate" loopholes, not those hypocritical other types, mind) - that's the spirit - there's a good Jew! :rolleyes:

Meadmaker said:
If you do something every normal day, either don't do it on the sabbath, or do it differently.
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So this is why the Kama Sutra was written, and which, no doubt, translates across all religions!

Meadmaker said:
The other prohibition against "work" is based on the fact that God took 6 days to create the universe, but rested on the seventh. Now, the most misunderstood element of the sabbath prohibitions, as practiced in Judaism, is the idea that one ought to refrain from "work", in honor of God's day of rest. That's a misunderstanding, and maybe a mistranslation. The prohibited actions are not "work", but rather "creation". God spent six days creating and shaping and forming the world, but on the seventh day did no creation.
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When did the grass start growing?!

Meadmaker said:
When one lights a match, one creates a fire. Creating a fire is something that is forbidden on the sabbath, because of the "creating" part. When electricity came along, they decided that completing an electric circuit was a lot like creating a fire, and so it was forbidden.
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Yes - I can see the sense in that. Turning on an automatic washing machine (as opposed to doing the laundry by hand!) and sitting round a camp fire are pretty analogous!

Meadmaker said:
And this was inconvenient, but workable, so long as electrical devices were the sorts of things that were either "on" or "off" and had a switch that a person activated to make them do something. Here in the modern world, we have more and more things that activate automatically. They have some sensor that is always working, but when it detects something, it does some work, all without human intervention. Once again, the rabbits have to figure out what to do.
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There's the rub. I don't see what all the fuss is about. Automate everything - how lazy can one get?!

Cactus Wren said:
So one could knit on an already-in-progress sock, but could not cast on a new sock or bind off a finished one? [/knitter]
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I can think of a much better example, but I wouldn't wish to degrade the thread. Suffice to say it would require much staying power!

Cactus Wren said:
(This is the incident that also demonstrates that Ray Kroc was a decent marketer but an idiot when it came to food: instead of "smelly" fish, he wanted to extend the menu to include a meatfree, Friday-safe "Hula Burger" -- a ring of canned pineapple, grilled, topped with cheese, and served on a bun. It was not a rip-roaring success.)
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Unlike the MacArabia here in the Middle East. A resounding winner - even with me!
 
Meadmaker said:
...snip...
All this "working around the difficulty" is part of knowing and understanding the law. It demonstrates your understanding of Torah, and proves you are a good Jew.
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Or you can sum it up as I did in my first post: If God isn't a lawyer the Jews will be in serious trouble!
 
Cactus Wren said:
So one could knit on an already-in-progress sock, but could not cast on a new sock or bind off a finished one? [/knitter]
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Hmm....tough question. Get two Jews to discuss it and you would have to choose which of the three opinions they came up with was the right one.

Definitely starting a new sock or finishing one would be totally out. Also, if knitting was in any way related to your job, it would be forbidden.

I think it would come down to why you liked to knit. Is it that you liked knitted goods? If so, then you would be creating something. Your purpose would be to transform the yarn into a different, useful, form, and that is forbidden work. On the other hand, you may simply enjoy the process of knitting, the actual motion of the needles and movement of the yarn. In that case, knitting would be more like playing a game, or relaxing to a favorite, special, pastime, which would be fine sabbath activities.

I think, though, it would be a tough sell. The yarn is definitely transformed from one form to another, even if the final product is not complete. I think most rabbis would say no.
 
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