Without a New Taboo, What Will a Rabbi Do?

Fewer taboos means less work for the rabbis. If more activities are permitted, there is less of a need to call in the expert for an opinion.

Here is a example of an intelligent blogger who gets caught up in the strong currents of rabbinic prohibition and swept away in imagining new taboos.

Now these are not even remotely possible scenarios that said blogger proposes. A writer we accused, nay praised, for self-awareness just the other day now seems oblivious to a certain obvious conflict of interest in the thought and logic a some rabbinic thinkers.

The underlying issue is do rabbis tend to extend taboos to new scenarios to protect Jews from sin, or to make sure there is more work for the rabbis?

The case in point is a futuristic discussion at Havolim ("A New Discussion about Computers and Shabbos") over whether one can violate the Sabbath by using (still mostly imaginary) controller mechanisms that are governed by a person's brain processes alone and do not result from any measurable physical actions by that person.

Now this is not a scenario that has kept us up at night. Yet the clever blog writer wants to argue that indeed one can violate the Sabbath by thinking a forbidden act into happening.

We send out some brain waves on this matter to wit, this is no slam dunk of the logical extending of Talmudic principles. We broadcast our thought electronically that if there is no physical act, there is no forbidden act. We emanate our electron ideas that there is no need to find more work for the rabbinic lawyers or to find new reasons to seek their questionable guidance on even more matters.

Apparently Havolim's brain waves signal that we ought to extend the taboos and keep the rabbis involved in our lives, and gainfully employed.

Yes, the philosophical debate, if there is one here, might be expressed between one side saying, "Without a new Taboo, less for a rabbi do" and the other saying, "Without a new taboo, a better life for every Jew."