Quote:
Originally Posted by thrawn_aj
First thing that came to my mind was that having orthodox Jewish texts on an ereader seems like the most useless thing ever because they would be unusable when most needed  (presumably on the Sabbath  ). Apropos of nothing, just noticed yesterday that my parents' oven (which we were trying to fix) had a "Sabbath mode" listed in its manual  (yes, that's what they called it  - I assumed it made all the electric features turn off). |
Actually, a Sabbath mode would probably keep it in a constant temperature regardless of whether you open the door or not (most ovens are controlled by a thermostat which would turn on the oven's heating elements when the door is opened since it detects that the inner temperature is dropped.).
Orthodox Jews will use an oven (well, some will -- this is hardly the place to get into a discussion of Orthodox Jewish law. I was raised Orthodox but gave it up so I know a great deal about it and it's more complicated than I'm explaining here, but again, not the right forum for a long discussion on this) on the Sabbath, but only if it has a Sabbath mode since it's forbidden for them to change the operating temperature in the oven on the Sabbath.
Similarly, in theory, an ereader might be permissible for them on the Sabbath if there was a mode where it changed pages automatically for you (though some stricter Orthodox Jews wouldn't use it because it provides a "perception" of doing something forbidden and because it involves handling something ordinarily forbidden on the sabbath -- again, not the place for a detailed discussion of Judaism and its intricacies).
And if this discussion is going to devolve into discussing religion rather than ebooks, it should probably get moved to the religion and politics forum. That was certainly not my intention when I started the thread though.