Posted on 11/19/2018 6:24:22 AM PST by C19fan
“Wuli, not flying on the Sabbath is the accepted Orthodox interpretation of the Torah, based on the methods or exegesis prescribed in the Talmud— stock-and-trade Judaism 101.”
I did not make any different case.
“But the modern Orthodox Jews have found modern ways of stretching and shrinking the latitude of their own rules, rather conveniently it seems.”
They certainly do,like the eruv.
.
They planned to have their trip completed by the time Shabbat started, and failed through no fault of their own. A merciful forgiving Creator will not hold them to account for such an occurrence.
“There is some rationality...
For instance, Israeli firefighters work on the Sabbath. Don’t know if they are “at work” on the Sabbath, but they do fight actual fires on the Sabbath.
The IDF can not take part in Sabbath during hot wars.”
WRT the subject article...if these folks were so worried about violating the Sabbath, they shouldn’t have gotten on the plane in the first place. Acting as they did while on the plane, forcing the airline to divert the plane (which costs money, even if not theirs), and inconveniencing the other passengers is making everyone else who believes in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob look like a bunch of crazies. Once they got on the plane, they should have simply gone on with the trip. They weren’t flying it, they weren’t feeding fuel into the engines (which is a process that started before the Sabbath, even if they arrived after it started) and they wouldn’t be opening the doors of the aircraft (which might involve some use of electricity - otherwise simply opening a door is definitely not prohibited). This is how we’re a “light unto the nations?” Nope, not by my way of thinking.
These folks did what they could to arrive in Israel before the Sabbath - everything else was in the hands of the airline’s employees or God Himself. Don’t they think that God would understand what happened? From my POV, this was a test of those people...and they failed, miserably.
As long as you were not carrying any one of a wide variety of ordinary, everyday objects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruv
Regards,
APOLOGIES!!!!!!!!!
I skimmed the first sentence....racing to add my two cents with Ben Chafetz’s first-hand account of the flight.
I beg mechilah.
One of the stewardesses told us that if they take us back to the gate and we get off the plane we would lose our tickets and not be rebooked.
Did the stewardess also mention that - because of standard airline policies derived from terrorism concerns - your check-in luggage would also have to be removed from the plane's cargo hold, since it might contain a time-bomb?
How, exactly, does an airline remove an individual item of luggage from a cargo hold containing literally tons of baggage?
Regards,
Thanks for providing that first hand account. Being Jewish, and attending an Orthodox synogogue (even though I am very far from being fully Orthodox), I understood all of the unique vocabulary there. Regrettably, I don’t think that a lot of people reading it do.
What is clear, though, is that El Al has obviously returned to its original roots of being a largely anti-religious (and quite obnoxiously so) airline...which is rather sad since it is the ONLY so-called “Jewish” airline. You’d think that if any airline, anywhere, would be accommodating to Orthodox Jews, it would be El Al. Would it have been so hard for the pilot to not take off after saying that they were going to pull back to the gate and let people off who didn’t want to fly? Or, if it was beyond his control (and it probably was, to be fair to him), would it have been so hard to make an announcement about it, and to reassure passengers that there wouldn’t be any trouble making it to Tel Aviv before the Sabbath? That, plus a very little bit of effort (like having an El Al executive call some religious organization in Tel Aviv) could have given those people the assurance that there would be no problem WRT the Sabbath. This was ALL avoidable, and after reading this account, it is now pretty obvious that it was El Al’s fault for being a bunch of arrogant, lying jackholes.
I was not the author. And I would assume it’s a huge hassle to find individual bags. Not disagreeing.
I will reveal the real super duper Rrrrrest of the Story. That Chabad House in Athens had been trying for years to raise funds to build a mikva (ritual bath...for the inquisitive) and with an appeal to the travellers who enjoyed their hospitality, had the pledges in minutes (I heard $40K plus...) to serve the Jewish community of Athens.
So in Chabad circles anyway, it’s clear why the delay and Who runs the world.
(Horace Greeley paraphrased)
The problem is when you cross the International Date Line
“They MUST understand that God wouldn’t hold it against them if it was out of their power.”
I don’t think strict legalists actually understand that.
It's even better because right about at your posting time (didn't see it or this thread until now), I was in the middle of looking up the name of the Most High God, El Elyon:
אל עליון
That's because it had to do with dates and times and Divine orchestration (El Elyon = 197). So I was looking at the name (only occurs 5x - 4 in the context of Melchizedek, and 1 in Ps 78.), and noticed that it broke up into El Al + Greece (Yavan):
אל על יון
Of course that meant nothing, that is until I came over here due to your ping.
So about that passage:
Gen 14
18. And Melchizedek king of Shalem brought forth bread and wine; and he was the priest of the most high God:
19. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth:
20. And blessed be God the Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand; And he gave him a tenth of all:
21. And the king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods for yourself:
22. And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up my hand to the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth:
23. That I will not take from a thread to a sandal strap, and that I will not take any thing that is yours, lest you should say, I have made Abram rich:
24. Save only that which the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me, Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre; let them take their share:
***
Psa 78.35. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer:
I can't find a video that shows it, and the various news articles have different stock images.
Jerusalem? Tel Aviv? Galilee? Carmel perhaps?
This would be helpful.
Other side of the story (skim to at least 1/2 way thru before the good stuff).
Yeah. My wife read me the real story. Fake news is ubiquitous.
Seem like if the passengers were causing an actual problem before take-off, they would have been returned to the gate all right, to be promptly met by “authorities.”
The tip-off to revealed verses concealed Divine orchestration is in the multiple levels of weird.
Okay a weather delay, that’s not odd, but the crew arrives terribly late, then the pax are lured to their seats and instead of going to the gate, the plane heads to the runway. Then they only find out hours later that they are going to land in Athens.
Then it ends up being this most amazing Shabbos of Shabbosos (heh, however you pluralize that one)...
There you go, El Al, Greece... El Elyon in charge of delivering the bread and wine.
It was meant to be.
British Air did it when the counts did not match. There was one less person on the plane then had checked in.
So they pulled the container that had the unaccompanied luggage and let the plane go on.
Ubiquitous Johnson.
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