Idealogian

Ain't Gonna Surf on Saturday

Ruling Guides Orthodox Sites' Sabbath Sales

With the dilemma over Web-based businesses before him, Rabbi [Moshe] Heinemann [of Star-K Kosher Certification] recalled a 45-year-old related ruling by another renowned arbiter of Jewish law. The late Rabbi Yitzchok Weiss had said Orthodox-owned vending machines must be closed, because even though the owner isn't present to make the exchange, he still collects the money. The parallel precedent seemed clear, so Rabbi Heinemann's answer was that Web sites, too, must be unplugged, even though the owner isn't technically doing anything.

A Web site operated by an Orthodox Jew could remain open only "if the shopping cart on the Web site is shut down," ensuring that no actual transactions took place, Rabbi Heinemann ruled in his group's small but influential newsletter Kashrus Kurrents.

. . .

[Paul] Mendlowitz, [senior vice president of DiamondCard Processing Corp., a credit-card processing company,] who is Orthodox, and others countered that since most Web sites don't process transactions on Saturdays, no money changes hands, so the sites should be able to remain open. Israel Sendrovic, a retired executive vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, weighed in with the protestors, confirming that credit-card transactions over the Internet aren't generally processed Saturdays.

. . .

The rabbi heard from an array of people who disagreed with him on the Web site issue. He was inundated with phone calls both at work and his home, and after mulling over the decision, he handed down a rare reversal in the newsletter's latest issue in May.

"Technically speaking," he wrote, "the vendor's monetary acquisition, the kinyan kesef, happens on a weekday so there is no issue, prohibition of mekach umemkar, business sale transactions, on Shabbos."

Update: I found the original response and two clarifications on the Star-K website. They clarify that:

• "The time Shabbos and Yom Tov begins is determined by the entrepreneur's geographic location."

  (Jessica posed this question in the comments before I posted this update.)

• "There could be a potential problem when Yom Tov falls on a weekday because the authorization and the processing of the sale can take place on the same day... Therefore, one may be forbidden to keep the website open on Yom Tov, unless there is a pre-Yom Tov agreement with the processor, that batch reporting would take place after Yom Tov."

  (Good call, Dad! We always knew you had a gemara kup!)

Worth reading in full, especially if you run a web-based business.

Thanks for the link, Dad!