Paris, Paris, Paris - a shabbathon with friends

The Marom Europe network has started the secular year with an inspiring meeting in Paris between 4-6^th February.  Participants came from Stockholm, Budapest, Valencia and London to meet with local Marom Paris members and leaders, as well as to plan the year ahead. The discussions centered around the Marom Europe website, the next Marom Europe seminar in Spain (26-29^th May 2011), the Marom Europe conference in the summer in Hungary within the frames of the Bánkitó festival www.bankisnotdead.org  (1-7^th August – save the date!), as well as about the challenges, plans of the individual Maroms groups. The discussions were lively, with the active participation of everyone, and the results will be visible for everyone in the next months! Stay tuned!

Beyond the planning and common thinking we also had time for entertainment, spiritual inspiration and resting. We participated in the bat mitzvah of a member and one of us had her first aliyah to the Torah in her life! We have spent shabbath together with the Adath Shalom community, and most prominently members of the Masorti Europe board, representatives of the Masorti communities from all around Europe. Sivan Navon-Shoval, the new Marom Olami coordinator, an alumni of the Hartman Institute, has facilitated a great session about “Michtav harabbanim”, with special illumination about the responsibility of the Masorti / Conservative movement in standing up against such cases in the Jewish world.

At motsei shabbath we had a joint event with Marom Paris at rabbi Yeshaiah Dalsace’s house which was a very interesting Marom experience. We watched a documentary about Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Jewish philosopher. The film showed the controversial, striking personality of Leibowitz through his criticism of Israeli politics. The harsh criticism of the state of Israel was articulated by a man who himself lived in Israel, spoke Hebrew and clearly believed in the existence of the Jewish state, nevertheless he was passionate about his ideal how this State should look like. The evening was memorable as we met with local Marom members and we saw the house of Yeshaiah Dalsace, an apartment in Paris where he lives with his wife and five children and where he has events every day!! It was like an “adult Moishe house”, or rather it evoked the atmosphere and the concept of the rabbis of old times, who lived in shtetls, and whose door was always open to their disciplines, visitors or members of the community.

We left Paris with a lot of ideas, inspirations and a long to-do-list. Thank you Marom Paris, thank you Adath shalom! Au revoir!

Is running on rollerblades permitted on Shabbat?

Introduction

At Marom Paris, we like to spend shabbat together. One way is to gather at one's place, sitting on the couch, and chat for hours in front of a glass of wine and a cheeseboard. Last September however, one of our motived members had a brilliant idea: what if we would take a small rollerblade tour in the streets of Paris. What could be more fun on shabbat, than sliding gracefully in front of our beautiful monuments and busy tourists. Immediately, a question arose… It took us several Rabbis to be able to plan our event with a clear mind.

Question: is running on rollerblades permitted on Shabbat (in Paris)?

1. The Mishna lists 39 categories of shabbat work that are prohibited, based on the activities of the Tabernacle carried across the desert by the Israelites, as described in the Torah. (By the way, a different list of activities was found in the library of Qumran, which is older than the Mishna). As a consequence, in order to decide whether an activity is allowed or not on shabbat, Rabbis must relate this activity with one of those 39 categories, and it is not possible to add different activities. For example, it is forbidden to drive a car during shabbat, based on the prohibited category of 'burning', since driving a car involves burning gasoline.

The first observation is that rollerblading, which involves movements of the legs and rolling, doesn't relate to any of the 39 categories of prohibited work.

2. It is prohibited to carry from an Eruv during shabbat. So our question is whether doing rollerblade in the streets of Paris is connected to carrying. Some consider that the "périphérique" (highway belt surrounding the city) makes a separation that can be considered as an Eruv, but they are a minority. Let's assume it's not the case, and that Paris has no Eruv.

Rollerblades are considered as a piece of clothing, if the wheels are attached. As a consequence, doing rollerblade isn't an act of carrying. The problem may occur when you remove them in order to carry them. If this is made inside the house, like when you would put them on and off at home there is no problem with carrying.

On this aspect of the question, various orthodox or massorti Rabbis agree: rav Kahn from cheela.org, or a Rabbin from aish.com.

3. Should rollerblading be prohibited "for fear of" bringing about a risk of breaking a law of shabbat like repairing or carrying?

- for Yeshaya Dalsace (Massorti Rabbi in Paris) and Rav Kahn from cheela.org, the chances of having to repair the rollerblades are too low.

- However, the Talmud mentions that one is not allowed to go out on shabbat with an object that you might want to take off, like shoes that would be too large, or jewels. But according to Rabbi Scheinberg (ohr Somayach) this rule doesn't extend beyond the objects explicitly mentioned in the Talmud, and it is not allowed to include new objects today. Therefore rollerblades are not concerned.

4. Is running on rollerblades compatible with the spirit of shabbat ?

For most of massorti Rabbis to whom we've asked this question, Yeshaya Dalsace and Rivon Krygier from Paris Chaim Weiner from London, David Lazar from Stockholm, the answer is yes. Moving your body is made easier and it can be pleasant. As long as you're not running a marathon.

Here there is a divergence with some orthodox Rabbis, like Rav Kahn from Cheela.org who consider that it is not compatible, or Rabbi Scheinberg for whom rollerblading doesn't honour shabbat (zilzul), even if it's in order to go to the synagogue. Another rav from thehalacha.com considers it as a disgrace to shabbat.

5. Is it a problem to get some exercise by rollerblading on shabbat?

Some orthodox Rabbis (thejewishpress.com) refer to the Mishna and Maimonides in order to support the idea that getting exercise results in the healing of the body, and as such should be forbidden on shabbat. What do we mean by "exercise"? Maimonides answers: from the point where one sweats.

The massorti position is usually more flexible and allows limited exercise to be performed on shabbat.

Epilogue

On the day of the event, Oct 23, it started to rain… We postponed the shabbat-rollerblade event to later. But that was minor ;-)

Pierre Stanislawski – October 2010