On uncertain ground after elevator ruling

JERUSALEM - The Jewish day of rest has become a bit more labor-intensive for Yosef Ball.

Ball, an Orthodox Jew, and his wife are no longer using elevators custom-built for the Jewish Sabbath, ever since a rabbinical ruling last month outlawed them. Instead, they have been hiking up seven flights of stairs to get home each Saturday, lugging their five young children and a double stroller.

"It's been very hard, but we're walking up the stairs slowly and with a lot of patience," said Ball, 29, while pushing a baby carriage with two toddlers in tow on a recent day.

Jewish law, or halacha, forbids the use of electrical items on the Sabbath. But for decades, rabbis have allowed special elevators that automatically stop at every floor without the riders pushing any buttons, permitting Orthodox Jews to ride them and live in high-rise buildings.

The ruling last month by one of Israel's leading rabbis, calling the elevators a no-go, has reignited a vigorous debate over the lifts, forcing Orthodox Jews living on top floors to decide if they are up for the steep hike home from synagogue on Saturdays.

Buildings with Shabbat elevators are common in Orthodox communities around the world, and residents in places as far away as New York are struggling with how to interpret the ruling.

Jacob Goldman, a real estate agent in an Orthodox neighborhood in Manhattan's Lower East Side, said residents were not rushing to change their routines. Landlords and building managers have to think about the decree's possible implications.

"A landlord can't take away people's Sabbath elevators just because one person said they can't be used," Goldman said, and to do so could leave some people housebound on the day of rest.

No single authority interprets religious law for Orthodox Jews. But Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the revered 99-year-old scholar who signed the elevator ruling, is one of the most influential voices in the Jewish world, widely considered to be one of his generation's greatest authorities on religious law.

Most members of the Reform and Conservative movements, the liberal streams of Judaism to which most American Jews belong, do not strictly observe the Sabbath and would not be affected by the ruling.

But even the Orthodox community has long been divided over the elevators. Opponents say that while the riders push no button, the weight of the passengers still increases the amount of electricity required to power the lift, thus violating Jewish law.

Still, the elevators, in use for about four decades, have opened the door for large numbers of Orthodox Jews to dwell in modern skyscrapers.

"No young couple is going to move into a ninth- or 10th-floor building if it becomes a prison for them," said Jonathan Rosenblum, an ultra-Orthodox commentator in Jerusalem.

The ruling is the latest in a series by Israeli rabbis on the minutiae of applying Jewish law to daily life. Top rabbis can count tens of thousands of followers who abide by their rulings.

Elyashiv has been behind other controversial decisions. In September, he proclaimed that Jews could not wear Crocs shoes on Yom Kippur because they were deemed too comfortable for the somber fasting holiday.

In 2004, Elyashiv barred religious women from wearing Indian-made wigs because the hair may have been used in idol-worshipping ceremonies, forbidden under Jewish law. Religious women cover their heads with wigs or cloth as a sign of modesty.

Hospitals and hotels catering to Orthodox Jews have also had to weigh how to address the elevator decree. The plush David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem said it would leave it up to visitors to decide whether to use one of the four Sabbath elevators but said it expected religious guests to request rooms on the lower of its 10 floors.