36 Connectivity on Shabbat

this time period; turn to a consideration of what might be new or different about the issue of connectivity, and conclude with reflections as to how we might approach the internet and halakhah on Shabbat , with a focus on personal Shabbat observance.

[n 1952, Rabbi Israel Bettan wrote a responsum which addressed a number of Shabbat-related questions together.” He opened this responsum, titled“Sabbath Observance,” with the following observation:“For some time now, many of the questions directed to the Committee on Responsa have had to do with situations in which traditional observance of the Shabbat is involved.” Those questions included whether dances could be permitted in the Temple on a Friday night, or whether a synagogue could sponsor a teenage baseball team’s practice on a Saturday afternoon, despite Orthodox objection.

Bettan offers a summary of rabbinic law on these topics, focusing on leniencies, as well as observing that in the absence of a widespread five day work week, the major issue for many Jews is the requirement that they work on Shabbat . He then makes the following argument: Yet, however wide an area of freedom we may still discover within the narrow limits of traditional law, no one who is acquainted with the vast bulk of restrictive measures designed to keep the Sabbath inviolate will question the accuracy of the Mishnaic observation, that the Sabbath laws represent"mountains suspended from a hair" (Chagiga 10a). But, unfortunately, we have chosen to avert our gaze from these mountains. We prefer to ignore their presence. In doing so, however, we have willfully turned away from the opportunity that was ours to bring the institution of the Sabbath under the searching light of liberal thought...