Rabbinical ruling causes havoc on elevators

updated 3:22 p.m. ET Oct. 26, 2009

JERUSALEM - The Jewish day of rest has become a bit more labor-intensive for Yosef Ball.

The Orthodox Jew and his wife are no longer using elevators custom-built for the Jewish Sabbath, ever since a rabbinical ruling last month outlawed them. Instead, they have been hiking up seven flights of stairs to get home each Saturday, lugging with them their five young children and a double stroller.

"It's been very hard, but we're walking up the stairs slowly and with a lot of patience," said Ball, 29, while pushing a baby carriage with two toddlers in tow on a recent day.

Jewish law, or halacha, forbids the use of electrical items on the Sabbath. But for decades rabbis have allowed special elevators that automatically stop at every floor without the riders pushing any buttons, permitting Orthodox Jews to ride them and live in high-rise buildings.

Debate over elevators reignited
The ruling last month by one of Israel's leading rabbis, calling the elevators a no-go, has reignited a vigorous debate over the lifts, forcing Orthodox Jews living on top floors to decide if they're up for the steep hike home from synagogue on Saturdays.

The decision stretches far beyond Israel's borders. Buildings with Shabbat elevators are common in Orthodox communities around the world, and residents in places as far away as New York are now struggling with how to interpret the ruling.

Jacob Goldman, a real estate agent in an Orthodox neighborhood in Manhattan's Lower East Side, said residents are not rushing to change their routines. Landlords and building managers have to think about the decree's possible implications but aren't likely to take any drastic measures.

"A landlord can't take away people's Sabbath elevators just because one person said they can't be used," Goldman said, adding that to do so could leave some people housebound on the day of rest.

No single authority interprets religious law for Orthodox Jews. But Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the revered 99-year-old scholar who signed the elevator ruling, is one of the most influential voices in the Jewish world, widely considered to be one of his generation's greatest authorities on religious law.

Most members of the Reform and Conservative movements, the liberal streams of Judaism to which most American Jews belong, do not strictly observe the Sabbath and would not be affected by the ruling.

But even the Orthodox community has long been divided over the elevators. Opponents say that while the riders push no button, the weight of the passengers still increases the amount of electricity required to power the lift, thus violating Jewish law.

Many Orthodox Jews live in skyscrapers
Still, the elevators, in use for some four decades, have opened the door for large numbers of Orthodox Jews to dwell in modern skyscrapers.

"No young couple is going to move into a ninth or tenth floor building if it becomes a prison for them," said Jonathan Rosenblum, an ultra-Orthodox commentator in Jerusalem.

Lila Lowell, a Bronx native now living in Jerusalem, installed a Sabbath elevator to access her second-floor apartment and won't stop using it despite the decree.

"My elevator is kosher," she said. And she added: "My husband and I have difficulty with the stairs, so we need the elevator." Her young grandchildren also use the lift.

The ruling, decreed last month, is the latest in a series by Israeli rabbis on the minutiae of applying Jewish law to daily life. Top rabbis can count tens of thousands of followers who abide by their rulings.

Elyashiv has been behind other controversial decisions before. In September, he proclaimed Jews could not wear Crocs shoes on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, because they were deemed too comfortable for the somber fasting holiday.

In 2004, Elyashiv prohibited religious women from wearing Indian-made wigs because the hair may have been used in idol-worshipping ceremonies, which are forbidden under Jewish law. Religious women cover their heads with wigs or cloth as a sign of modesty.

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