The Shabbos Elevator Controversy 12 09 2024

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Yoel Plutchok’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

Okay. Um Okay, we're going to talk about Shabbos elevators. Let me just uh let's let's start like this. Recently in Bnei Brak, on the outskirts of Bnei Brak, there was a development that uh began building buildings that were between 10 and 12 stories high. Now, everyone's been in Bnei Brak. In Bnei Brak, it's a it's a low-rise city. There's very very few buildings that are over five, six stories. The reason for that being that it's a a highly Shabbos observant community, a highly Shabbos observant community, and it's hard to live on the sixth floor if uh if you plan on keeping Shabbos properly. Now, recently there was this new development on the outskirts of Bnei Brak that started building buildings that were much taller. Now, what were they thinking? So, they had spoken to to uh institute that's responsible for giving a heter on Shabbos elevators, and they had come to an agreement that with certain additional, you know, tikunim and and enhancements of the Shabbos elevator protocol, that they were going to present the Shabbos elevator that would be suitable for all Jews to use on would be suitable for all Jews to use on Shabbos, and therefore they were being sameach that more than sameach, they had gotten a hashgacha or a promise of a hashgacha from from greater rabbonim, and they they were pretty sure they were going to have an elevator that would be suitable for all, and therefore they'd be able to sell apartments that were on the 10th and 11th and 12th floors without a problem because people would be able to use the elevator. Now, when the when others got wind of this, they started making some sort of pushback that Shabbos elevators are problematic and you can't have Shabbos elevators to the point where the

Jump to a moment

1. 0:00Okay. Um Okay, we're going to talk about Shabbos elevators. Let me just uh let's let's…
2. 2:32legedolei v'ziknei hador. It's given over to the gedolim and the zikneim of the dor." Meaning,…
3. 5:36when electricity began to become popular in the early 1900s, some of the earliest poskim you…
4. 8:40surprised. They're poshut shocked that a man his age could understand a topic this this sophisticated…
5. 11:44the parameters of your position. That's all I'm asking." To which the Hazon Ish sends him…
6. 14:46that actually brings a lot of mission and they say hello about a litany of examples.…
7. 17:48that's assur. And based on that will be all the shailos with dishwashers and dryers and…
8. 20:51uh Lubavitcher Chassid, who was born in Yerushalayim, uh Yeled Yerushalayim, a big genius, a great…
9. 23:56about this. Nachman Schiffer sent me a picture of the elevator in the building he's staying…
10. 27:00leads with that right away. For many years, even when you told us that it was…

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