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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/37925/full/37925/sabbath-mode-and-the-environment/ <br /><br /> <b>Sabbath mode and the environment</b> <br /> Thursday, April 30, 2009 | by stacey palevsky <br /><br /><p>I just read my colleage Rachel's <a href="/blog/full/37922/is-your-refrigerator-kosher/">post</a> about the Shabbos Mode that some appliances are equipped with so that people who strictly observe Shabbat won't inadvertantly work on the holiday.</p> <p>She questions the logic of such a feature, and asks: Is it just another loophole?</p> <p>But I think the more important question is: Is it friendly for the earth? As Jews, we're commanded to keep the Sabbath holy, but we are also commanded to care for our Earth because, as God told Adam, "<em>if you damage it, there is no one to repair it after you."</em></p> <p>These competing values clash on Shabbat. If you keep the light on all night, yes, you're keeping the mitzvah of not working on the Sabbath (as opposed to the horror of switching on the light to pee in the middle of the night), but you're also wasting a tremendous amont of energy if that's what you do each week. Just think: One lightbulb that stays on for 24 hours once a week for a year burns 714 pounds of coal, 5 pounds of sulfur dioxide, 5.1 pounds of nitrogen oxide, 1,852 pounds of carbon dioxide PER YEAR(<a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/question481.htm">statistics' source here</a>). And that's only ONE LIGHTBULB. Now multiply those numbers by the number of households who keep even one lightbulb on every Shabbat all around the globe.</p> <p>That's a lot of wasted electricity.</p> <p>So what's more important? A religious person's need to keep the fridge and bathroom lights on or the oven warmed, or our community's need to collectively reduce our energy consumption for the betterment of our planet?</p> <p>I think we seriously need to reconsider the kosher-ness of Shabbos mode.</p> <p>What do you think?</p>

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