Even my freezer is “Woke”

New fridge freezer has arrived and thought I’d look how to turn it on.

In the instructions I came across Sabbath Mode.

Excuse my ignorance but  is using your freezer against religious law? I’ve worked with church goers and Jehovah’s Witnesses and never heard of this.

Anyone have any idea what it’s about?

Remarkable, never heard of that!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_mode

Been a “thing” for at least 25 years. I had appliances in Germany in around 2000 with this feature.

Sabbath mode, not as metal as I was hoping 🙁

I want one with a black sabbath mode so every time I open the door it plays war pigs

Is it for if you want to fit a full War Pig into it?

“I don’t freeze on Shabbos, dude”

Genuine question here.

So why does a fridge need these features to comply with the Sabbath?

Not trolling, genuinely interested.

It’s another pathetic interpretation of some religious mumbo jumbo about not working on an arbitrary day.
Utterly bonkers.

Surely that “Sabbath” mode is the opposite of woke?

Is that “Woke” seem the opposite to me, what you’ve got there is a secular freezer, keep an eye out in case it joins any marches or starts talking to you about abortion.

Ours has a “holiday mode” which obviously assumes we’re on the side of the wealth divide where going on holidays is an option…

You were reading the instructions?

Of all of the home appliances, surely the freezer is the most passive and has the least requirements for instructions.

Plug it it, freeze stuff, take stuff out of freezer. It doesn’t need to try to do anything else.

On our new appliances there was both Party mode and Sabbath mode on fridge and freezer. I guess they attempted to create balance there.

It doesn’t need to try to do anything else.

That doesn’t stop manufacturers from trying to equip it with wifi and bluetooth and be “smart”.

Many years ago a neighbour bought a new VCR (in the days when these were quite expensive things). When you turned it on, a message would scroll across the LCD display (in that weird offset way that old LCD displays that only had the figure 8 could manage) saying “good morning” or “good afternoon”.

The instructions helpfully said that this enabled you to interact more positively with your VCR.

Every day’s a school day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat_elevator

dove1Full Member
It’s another pathetic interpretation of some religious mumbo jumbo about not working on an arbitrary day.
Utterly bonkers.

Or just marketing to try and help them sell more freezers

The Instagram algorithm sometimes feeds me stuff from an orthodox Jewish woman describing things like this. Some of it seems totally bizarre, as the hacks to get around not doing any work on the Sabbath are just as much effort as doing the thing in the first place, eg.;

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A post shared by Miriam Malnik-Ezagui (@miriam.ezagui)

Excuse my ignorance but  is using your freezer against religious law? I’ve worked with church goers and Jehovah’s Witnesses and never heard of this.

I believe jesus once said, “blessed are the tinned goods and pickles in jars, and a pox on refrigeration”. This is why it is traditional to gift an unwanted can of unnamed meat from the back of the cupboard for harvest festival.

So why does a fridge need these features to comply with the Sabbath?

There is a Jewish law which says you cant do work on the Sabbath.

Some sects interpret this as pretty much everything including pressing (or in the case of a refrigerator triggering by opening the door) a switch.

So Sabbath mode disables that switch (think for most its just the interior light) so you can open the door without “working”.

Not sure if this is the same thing but we are currently building a new care home for Jewish care and they have some frankly strange issues around having technology operating during certain times (most likely Sabbath) which has meant us removing all PIR detection on lights around the building

It’s another pathetic interpretation of some religious mumbo jumbo about not working on an arbitrary day.

Utterly bonkers

Just so you know, it’s perfectly fine to be an atheist and not be a dick about it.

And yet they’re still called “white goods”.

Makes you think, eh?

That’s nuts.

I wonder whether the initial intent of “do no work” was to give followers a day off, then over time it’s just got mangled so now it’s actually creating more work. I’m reasonably confident that Judaism predates domestic electricity.

I’m (re)reading Jasper Fforde’s “Shades of Grey” at the moment (which is excellent, BTW). In it the society follows The Rules. One of the Rules is that “children should be given a glass of milk and a smack before bed.” Parents were giving their kids a clip round the ear every night for years until someone suggested that maybe it was a typo and should have read “snack.”

Ours has a “holiday mode” which obviously assumes we’re on the side of the wealth divide where going on holidays is an option…

Actually it’s the opposite of what you’re thinking there – it’s the freezer that goes on holiday. As appliances have gotten ‘smarter’ they’ve also started to unionise.

they’ve also started to unionise.

I didn’t know they were ionised to start with. Does that keep food fresher?

I guess there is another perspective on this. If the freezer manufacturers are building in software to manage the device, and they can easily add a program that is useful for even a small number of people then why not? I won’t use it, I might think it is a bit silly but it doesn’t really impact me at all so so its not for me to get animated about it.

I wonder whether the initial intent of “do no work” was to give followers a day off, then over time it’s just got mangled so now it’s actually creating more work. I’m reasonably confident that Judaism predates domestic electricity.

One of the rules IIRC is about not lighting fires on the Sabbath. When incandescent bulbs came along they were deemed to be ‘fire’ (which I suppose they are, kinda), so I guess now any electric light = fire = not allowed.

Is not firing a weapon making fire?

Atheist or not, can we for a moment assume that just because you don’t know about something, that doesn’t automatically mean it’s nonsense?

I don’t mean the question of whether religion itself is nonsense, that’s not what I’m talking about here.

For example those who’ve heard “work” is forbidden on the Jewish sabbath and therefore ridicule things like this without stopping to think what “work” might actually mean in context, beyond a simple literal interpretation of the bible verse (which, simplistically speaking, is actually forbidden in Judaism).

Genuine question here.

So why does a fridge need these features to comply with the Sabbath?

Not trolling, genuinely interested.

Religious Jews don’t directly (eg, flicking a switch) use electricity on the sabbath (because complicated) so this feature disables things like the light or fan coming on when you open the door. Very useful, especially in modern fridges with LED lights because the old solution to just remove the bulb is no longer possible.

One of the rules IIRC is about not lighting fires on the Sabbath. When incandescent bulbs came along they were deemed to be ‘fire’ (which I suppose they are, kinda), so I guess now any electric light = fire = not allowed.

Along these lines, partly. And down the rabbit hole we go 🙂

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_on_Shabbat

An old workmate used to be paid by a couple of Jewish families to turn the lights on and light a fire on the Sabbath when he was a  boy back in the the day (probably late1940s or 50s).  He said it paid pretty well for the amount of effort.

I went down this rabbit hole and had my mind blown some years back when I had a Jewish flatmate.

With loopholes like getting other people to turn on lights, it always felt to me like he was trying to “trick god”. *

But his opinion was along the lines of: god wrote the rules perfectly, therefore god left the loopholes intentionally, therefore using the loopholes is explicitly allowed.

* there’s another good trick which i can’t remember exactly for making hot drinks.  Something about moving the hot water from one type of container to another to another in order to bypass the rule about not cooking things.

edit- think this is the hot drink trick https://www.yeshiva.co/ask/58221

Thanks for the link @ossify. I was wondering how that would apply to LED bulbs. Every day’s a schule day

Actually it’s the opposite of what you’re thinking there – it’s the freezer that goes on holiday.

My fridge freezer has a holiday mode but if I recall it just turns ofethe freezer compartment and leaves the fridge compartment running… Or maybe it’s vivea versa I can’t remember.

So totally pointless… If I ever go away long enough I’ll have to turn the whole thing off anyway…

used to be paid by a couple of Jewish families to turn the lights on and light a fire on the Sabbath

Is management and delegation not work then? My pay slip and job  description disagrees lol!

The best Shabbat mode is my oven…Made by Siemens…Oh the ironing etc etc

Shabbat mode for ovens is making sure they can cook your dinner in a way that enables you to not have to turn on the heat on for a  few days before hand and perhaps gas yourself if the pilot goes out (insert your own oven joke here) mine will do a 72 hour countdown  and turns the lights off on the controllers on the front and when you open the door, for fridges I think it just turns the lights out inside, and turns off any displays.

Frummers can get weird about this shit.

Is not firing a weapon making fire?

Until this year, orthodox Haredi Jews could get exemption from military service (which many secular Jews were unhappy about).

Anyone who has enjoyed a Sunday in Stornoway will know that Sabbath observance is not just an orthodox Jewish custom. Forget about fridge lights:

The Reverend Alasdair Smith, who is now in his 80s, and his wife Chrissie remember the days when people would be “horrified” by someone riding a bicycle on the Sabbath – even if they were cycling to church.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-29708202

Strict Sabbath observance in Lewis is much less of a thing these days, of course. I see Tesco is going to start opening on Sunday this year!

Frummers can get weird about this shit.

Having just watched all of Nobody Wants This I am now an expert.

I can fully respect the approach on a level: start with a set of arbitrary precepts and apply them with remorseless logic far past the point of ridiculousness and just keep going…

I say that. I can’t really. I remember as a kid having a couple of rather linear school friends. (I lie. They were my sister’s really.) Who were a lot more observent than their parents, apparently, about not turning on lights etc. That must’ve been annoying. Anyway, well done the fridge makers

Is that “Woke” seem the opposite to me, what you’ve got there is a secular freezer

I’d say that’s woke, in that it’s inclusively catering for religions other than 1950s British White Jesus Christianity.

Sabbath Mode.

orthodox-compatible. Neat.