An Explanation of What I Found on My Brand New Fridge: Sabbath Mode

Last updated on: November 30, 2015 at 12:07 am by Nancy French

An Explanation of What I Found on My Brand New Fridge: Sabbath Mode 2015-11-30T00:07:23-05:00 Nancy French

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This week, when I went to get ice from our new KitchenAid refrigerator, I noticed a barely noticeable optional mode called “Sabbath.” What was that all about? My interest piqued, I went to Wired Magazine which has the scoop about this mysterious feature:

From sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, Orthodox Jews are forbidden to work, write, and drive. In all, 39 activities are off-limits to those complying with the Torah’s fourth commandment, to keep the Sabbath holy. In the home, that means no cooking or fire lighting – or its modern analog, moving electricity through a circuit.

For decades, observant Jews have found ways to work around Sabbath restrictions in the kitchen. They taped down the button on the refrigerator door frame to keep the light from turning on. Or someone unscrewed the bulb before Friday sunset. They turned on an oven in advance – that way, they could warm food on the Sabbath without altering temperature settings. In recent years, however, well-intentioned appliance makers have been installing safety features that automatically shut off ovens after 12 hours. That meant a unit turned on at dusk Friday would be cold before lunch on Saturday. When companies learned this was complicating dinner preparation for some Jews, they supplied an optional override. Thus, a rudimentary “Sabbath mode” was born.

But as appliances got more high tech – gel-pad touch controls; LED screens with temperature and burner settings; digital humidity gauges – creating a Sabbath mode became more difficult. Mayer Preger, a salesman at the Manhattan Center for Kitchen and Bath, noticed a problem when fridges started using sensors instead of simple light switches. “You can’t hack the new refrigerators like you used to,” he complains. “There’s all these computer chips in them.”

Apparently, a retired helicopter engineer named Jonah Ottensoser (who is Orthodox) worked with manufacturers to create a mode that observant Jews that use to prevent having to hack into their appliances. He works for Star-K, which certifies kosher food products, now certifies technology… such as my refrigerator here in Columbia, Tennessee.

So why would a refrigerator cause a Jew to “work” and therefore break the laws of the Sabbath?

He explains it to engineers with the following example: Opening a fridge seems like a harmless action without consequence. But every time you open that door, you let warm air in and cold air out, changing the temperature inside. So the compressor switches on to compensate, and you’ve effectively turned on the appliance and engaged in work. Mechalel shabbos – you’ve desecrated the Sabbath. For a while, observant Jews tried a mechanical solution, putting their fridges on a timer. “But it killed the refrigerators,” says Ottensoser.

With Ottensoser’s help, a few manufacturers have created appliances that help the 900,000 Orthodox Jewish households use their kitchens without worry:

When the feature is enabled, lights stay off and displays are blank; tones are silenced, fans stilled, compressors slowed. In a kosher fridge, there’s no light, no automatic icemaker, no cold-water dispenser, no warning alarm for spoiled food, no temperature readout. Basically, Ottensoser converts your fancy – and expensive – appliance into the one your grandma bought after World War II.

Who knew?

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