Why Is Pressing a Button Considered Work on Shabbat?

By Aron Moss

Question:

Rabbi, do you honestly believe that pressing a button to cross the road is considered doing work on the Sabbath? It doesn't seem so strenuous to me...

Answer:

It is not strenuous work that is forbidden on Shabbos, but rather creative work.

During the working week we strive to make the world a better, safer and more comfortable place. We use our human ingenuity to invent, build, develop and improve the world around us. But on the seventh day we step back into ourselves. We take a break from trying to change the world and we appreciate the innate beauty of the world that G-d created. Instead of altering our surroundings we enjoy them. Rather than utilize the amenities that technology has given us we enjoy the blessings that G-d has given us - love, family, friendship, meditation, and just being human.

Shabbos is a like a dream-world, and we enter this dream-world by leaving the mundane world behind. Even the smallest disturbance -- like pressing a button -- would bring us crashing back down to earth. And there's nothing worse than waking up from a dream before it's over.

21 Comments Posted

By Aron Moss More articles... |

Rabbi Aron Moss teaches Kabbalah, Talmud and practical Judaism in Sydney, Australia.

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Reader Comments
Latest Comments:

Posted: June 25, 2008

Your totally wrong answer for pressing a button

Incredible to read how OFF your answer is, for the person who wanted to know if pressing a button for the traffic light to change, is work on Shabbos. Obviously the questioner is not thinking about the CONSEQUENCE of pressing the button, and neither are you. Closing an electric circuit is what happens! Doesn't this "Rabbi" know this? You can press all the buttons you want on Shabbos, as long as they're not connected to anything at all. IT'S NOT THE PRESSING OF THE BUTTON THAT IS CONSIDERED WORK. It's the closing of an electric circuit, creating a tiny spark that may not be created on Shabbos.

Posted By Robert, Williams Island, FL

Posted: Dec 25, 2007

Reading?

First, I don't understand your question. Some reading involved where?
In building the mishkan? Actually, no.
Gd told Moshe how to do it and drew him a diagram.
However, it does not matter whether there was any reading involved there. We have the list of 39 activities. Here's where that list came from.
In addition to the written Torah, Gd gave Moses the Oral Torah, which was not written but memorized. It remained oral for over a thousand years. This was easy, as it was embodied in the national culture of the people. However, when the Romans destroyed the Temple and began killing the teachers, Yehuda ha Nasi and Akiva and others began writing it down to preserve it, and eventually it was recorded in the Mishna and the Talmud, and so has come down to us today. That is where we get the 39 types of behavior constituting "work"-- from Gd via Moses via Joshua via all the others who handed it down until it was written in the Talmud.

Posted By Chaim

Posted: Dec 23, 2007

reading

Sure but don't you think that there was some reading involved there then too?

Posted By Anonymous