Shalom Rabbi,
I read your article about electricity on Shabbat. I completely agree with you and I’ve been holding that position for many years, but I have a question:
It is obvious that electricity is not forbidden unless you use it to perform an actual Melacha, but, what about turning on a heater during winter months or using an electric oven to reheat your food for Shabbat?
Maybe this is a bad of understanding of the law, but, for example, if I set the oven before Shabbat to a temperature that will just warm up the food, is this an issue? And we can add that usually electric ovens take quite a time to reach the proper temperature so it seems to me that it’s more in the side of Gramma. The same for the electric heater.
What are your thoughts on this?
Shalom Rabbi,
I have a question related to this same topic.
We have at home a tankless water heater with electronic ignition. Can it be used on Shabbat to have a shower? As you know when you open the faucet the pressure of the water is the one that triggers the electronic ignition that creates the fire. Since the pressure may vary and sometimes it doesn’t work or takes quite a while to actually start the ignition, may this be considered grama?
If you can ascertain that there is usually a delay before the fire goes on, it would be allowed on Shabbat.
If you turn on the heat in your home on Shabbat, and it causes a fire to start immediately, that would not be an electrical question, that would be starting a fire. If you put on an electric stove or oven and cook something, that would be a separate question of bishul (cooking). If you give me more details of the circumstances, I can respond to that. Just remember that there are 39 melachot, and any action that triggers any of those melachot needs to be reviewed or analyzed.