Talk:Sabbath breaking

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The Judaism material should be merged with Shabbat. The isolated mention of Sabbath Elevators is laughable. Please expand or remove. JFW | T@lk 12:54, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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The elevator material is straight from Elevator. As for the Shabbat material, I take no stance. If anyone wishes to merge it, fine with me.

dino 20:25, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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Dear Jayjg!

Such big mind you are! I dislike your censorsip methods, hidden behind weird arguments. You sure want to scare off any wikipedia contributors! Anyhow, here is a 2000 steps limit description for you and thus I have added my content back.

http://www.kolumbus.fi/hjussila/rsla/Nt/NT15.html "All the villages in nearest proximity to Jerusalem have been combined into one common Sabbath area inside which there is no need to measure the 2000 cubits or 880 metres of the Sabbath journey. In practice the Jew take care not to walk more than 2000 steps of average length outside either his home or the Sabbath area."

[edit] 1924 Summer Olympics

Added mention of the famous Chariots of Fire movie. That film mainly revolves around Sabbath-breaking, e.g. if a christian athlete is morally allowed to compete (do an athlete's work) on Sunday. That was a great piece of celluloid, similar is not often made nowadays! Regards: Tamas Feher <etomcat@freemail.hu>

It's a good film but that doesn't make it a documentary. See Eric Liddell for the true story of the athlete. --JBellis 17:01, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Practical impossibility

To Savant1984 - what do you mean when you write that only "many authorities hold" that batei din cannot rule on criminal cases? It is inconceivable that any authority would allow for the formation of the "real" semicha-invested beit din that is necessary for criminal cases, let alone cases of life and death (dinei nefashot). If you are referring to the new Sanhedrin that has been formed recently, it is hardly a significant development and does not merit such consideration in the wording here. I am reverting that part.

As for the other part of your edit, regarding the extensive legal protection of the defendant, I'm not so sure that this rendered the death penalty a "practical impossibility," but more likely just an unlikely possibility. If you have documented evidence of the rarity of the application of the death penalty in Jewish history that would be helpful. I'll leave the line as it stands for now. DLand 00:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The question of whether a bet din could be halachically competent to try a criminal case is, of course, currently moot since no bet din has political authority to do so. As a theoretical matter, however, I don't think that the matter is closed. This is naturally bound up with the general scope of the authority of modern smicha in general, and the restrictive view thereof is challenged not only by Orthodox groups attempting to reestablish the Sanhedrin, but also by the very nature of the Masorti and Progressive rabbinates. Of course, (and this leads into your second area of concern) neither Masorti nor Progressive rabbis would want a bet din trying criminal cases, and certainly not imposing death sentences. The reading of the evidentiary and procedural bars to a capital sentence as de facto abolition of capital punishment is well established, and forms part of the basis for the official condemnation of capital punishment by both the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Rabbinnical Assembly, whose resolutions on the matter are easily citable. As for historical rarity, one can hardly prove a negative, but I am aware of no historically reliable documentation of an execution ever being carried out under the provisions of tractate Sanhedrin. --Savant1984 02:19, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I wrote in a (tentative?) compromise along denominational lines. It may still need some tinkering. DLand 05:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I tinkered some. Seem good to you? --Savant1984 17:57, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that works. DLand 22:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)