(no subject)

[rhu]

So of course there's been all this discussion about how a shomer-Shabbat Jew can obtain HP7 at midnight tomorrow. (Of course, if Michiko Kakutani could find a copy, so could you :-)

Here's my solution (not that it's practical at this point, and I'm not a rabbi so maybe I missed something). Go to a Jewish bookseller who's closed on Shabbat; you pre-order and do a formal kinyan so that halachically the book is yours; you then lend the book to the nice fellow who happens to be a bookseller. Before Shabbat begins the person to whom you've loaned the book brings the sealed carton of books to the local shul, so there'll be no marit ayin, unseals the carton (which may technically violate the Scholastic rules, I'll admit) but places the unsealed carton in a locked box (so the spirit of the Scholastic rules is maintained). The shul has an oneg. Shortly after midnight, the person who has borrowed all these books unlocks the box in which they've been stored and returns them to their rightful owners.

(Edited to Add: And, of course, there are authorities who have no problem with receiving and opening non-business mail that arrives on Shabbat, so an Amazon pre-order would work out fine as long as the box is opened carefully enough to avoid ripping through text but carelessly enough that the box can't be reused.)

Now, having solved the problem (I believe) from the standpoint of the halachic technicalities, I have come to the conclusion that, if your rabbi rules that there's no way to do it, this craving to read the book at 12:01 is not really that different than the craving to eat Chicken Cordon Bleu or the desire to someday compete at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. It's one of those desires that one realizes must go unfulfilled when one accepts the ol hamitzvot.

Comments

[cazique.livejournal.com]

heh. not being one who follows the rules or anything, it seems to me that if you're violating the Scholastic rules that you're pretty much trading one infraction for another. but in general i support any scheme that gets someone his HP when he wants it :)

oh, and if you ever decide to break that other rule, make it a bacon cheeseburger.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

it seems to me that if you're violating the Scholastic rules...

Yes, that's the rub. But clearly Scholastic has special arrangements for certain booksellers --- Amazon, for example, was allowed to unseal their cartons early so that they could ship the books. So it would depend on the wording of the Scholastic contract; if the bookseller is allowed to unseal the cartons as long as the books themselves remain unavailable to the purchaser until 12:01, then my solution would work.

make it a bacon cheeseburger

Really? I can't stand the smell of bacon, but that may be conditioning. I didn't always keep kosher, and I'll tell you what I miss the most: having a buttery popover and a potato with sour cream alongside my nice juicy steak.

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

That's how you tell the BTs from the converts. *We* all miss the clams: chowder, breaded and fried (mmmmm! on a bed of fries, with a bit of fried fish and some scallops! HoJo's had this great "clam fry" dinner they offered. Followed up with peppermint stick ice cream...I should just go eat something, shouldn't I?).