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 Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 9:42 am
http://www.switched.com/2007/11/07/the-kosher-phone-for-orthodox-jews/
lawl
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Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 3:10 pm
xp Weird. I'm most likely completely incorrect, but can things that aren't food be kosher? (In general, not just the cell phone thing)
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darkphoenix1247 Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 3:55 pm
darkphoenix1247 xp Weird. I'm most likely completely incorrect, but can things that aren't food be kosher? (In general, not just the cell phone thing) Well, I'm pretty sure kosher is just being used liberally as a description.
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Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 7:09 pm
"Kosher" does not refer only to food. The word literally means "fit, proper, legal." You can have kosher food, sure. You can also have a kosher contract, a kosher driver's license, a kosher marriage, a kosher relationship, a kosher business deal, a kosher income tax form, kosher clothing (modest, and without any combinations of wool with linen) -- anything that is fit, proper, or legal (whether by secular law or Jewish law) can be described as kosher.
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:51 pm
Yeah what she said...
Remember, there are more laws regarding how kosher money is, than how kosher food is.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 7:09 pm
My friend posted this on my facebook wall. biggrin I thought it was a really interesting idea, though definitely not for me. I'll admit, I talk on my phone way to much on Shabbat. sweatdrop
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:33 am
I don't object to anything being marketed to the Orthodox/kosher-living market. However, I do object to the implied insult of this phone.
"What insult?" I hear you cry. Well, I'll tell you.
I'm not carrying a cellphone on Shabbat or holidays. It's not that I'll carry it around, but not use it. it's that I'm not carrying it. If I have an emergency and need to use a phone, I will bang on doors or make a call from a pay phone, because a 911 call is always free. So I don't need someone else charging me $2.44 a minute to make a call, as an incentive not to make a call.
I choose my ringtones. No one has to tell me "That ringtone is too sexy, and inappropriate for an Orthodox woman." I listen to available ringtones, and I pick one that sounds pleasant. Any ringtone that I feel would misrepresent me, I simply don't choose. I don't need my phone to block my choices; I block, for myself, the ones I don't want.
I don't need my phone to block phone-sex numbers for me. First of all, I hear they're more expensive than using the kosher-cell on Shabbat, and I don't need that kind of bill to pay. Secondly, why would I call a phone sex line? And if I were going to call one, why would I want to be stopped from calling it? I make the choice to call a phone-sex line or not.
I'm not going to be whipping out my cellphone in a club to impress "the ladies," or "the gentlemen," or anyone else. A cellphone isn't going to impress anyone, because everyone's got one. Also, what would I be doing in a club anyway? However, if I were going to a club, that would be a choice I made. I don't need my cellphone giving me built-in turn-off vibes by flashing a rabbinate's logo. Actually, come to think of it, if I were going to a club, no one there would be likely to recognize the logo in the first place, so that logo wouldn't do much in the way of turning people off.
The insult is in assuming that I need this kind of "subtle" reminder every so often, that I can't be trusted to make Judaically responsible decisions without some electronic babysitter to chastise me.
In short, I think that phones like this, as well as internet programs that censor the users' needs and lives, are okay for children, but tha'ts about it. I'm an adult. I'll make my own choices, thanks, and I'm prepared for the consequences of my actions. After all, if I wanted someone else to make my decisions for me, I'd be just as happy living in prison, or my parents' basement.
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 10:26 am
Excellent point, and it made me giggle.
Perhaps some people just aren't as strong willed as they'd like to be and it's a way to help them out a bit. Or, for the newly religious, a strict way to get them into habit?
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 4:09 pm
It's good that you can believe they have the best of intentions. To me, it sounds like they're trying to be everybody else's policemen/parent, but you're a good person who sees the best in people.
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 4:23 pm
I suppose, that if there's a will, there's a way. I never thought about it, but there is a decent market for items like these. And I must agree with Divash, it irks me quite a bit to see them charging extra on Shabbat and holydays, the people who purchase these gadgets most likely will not touch them on these days, they don't need a phone company dictating choices they've made for themselves.
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 8:33 pm
Yeah, but I mean people who don't want their lives dictated won't buy it. You're right though, they are being a little police-y. It's like they're saying you're a bad Jew if you do the things the phone prohibits, which I can understand in a way, but we are given free will for a reason.
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Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 8:09 am
Agreed, Lady Pocky: The people who would purchase these phones won't be using them for a frivolous reason on Shabbat. The only reason one would carry a cellphone on Shabbat would be if one expects an emergency to occur -- such as one's grandmother, who's gone blind, broken her hip, and injured her wrist, is in the hospital again and needs transfusions, and you're the only person in the nearby area whose blood is AB- with a D-antigen (the rarest blood type and subtype in the world), and you want to be available to donate. Not that I speak from personal experience, or anything.
And the only reason for making a call on Shabbat or Yom Tov is if one spots or experiences an emergency. Car crash that you see on the street, a mugging taking place, man collapses in synagogue, woman goes into labor, child has nosebleed that doesn't stop for four hours (again, no personal experience here, no, of course not). Frankly, I don't want to get charged $2.44 a minute for making an EMERGENCY call.
I think it's not only insulting to imply that an observant Jew needs to be policed by her or his cellphone company, but it's also jolly well dangerous to make a person think twice about making an emergency call that could save a life.
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 8:38 am
Did anyone else consider the fact that by charging an extortionate price on Shabbat, the company providing them cellphone service can keep their regular rates much lower? It's budget justification.
And this is not just a matter for 'Orthodoxists'. The people who are concerned with not even hearing a sexy ringtone are quite obviously the Ultra-Orthodox. They should be just as entitled to the lifestyle that they wish to lead as anyone else. As said in the article, this phone is not being marketted to a wide audience, but to a very specific niche group with very precise requirements. In short, they aren't marketing the phone to you, they're marketing it to people who would never even be on the internet in the first place.
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Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 4:50 pm
No one's saying that the internet-eschewing sorts don't deserve to live their lives as they choose. What I'm suggesting is that they don't need special technology in order to do it. If they don't want to use a cellphone on Shabbat, then they won't use the cellphone on Shabbat. It's penalizing people for emergency situations, not simply an arrangement to lower the everyday rates.
Maybe I'm spoiled by my "unlimited anytime minutes," but it seems to me that a person makes a choice of whether or not to carry and use a cellphone on certain days. That choice is based on personal ideology and personal adherence to that ideology. It's a matter of individual choice and integrity, not a cellphone company playing Stern Father, that dictates (or, that should dictate) when those calls are made.
Also, if a person travels outside their local area, the latitude and longitude of the new location alter the time that Shabbat begins and ends. Does the phone understand that one is in a new place, and that different times apply? Or instead, does a person make a phone call at a time that the local Shabbat hasn't begun, talking for twenty minutes of leisurely conversation, only to find that he's now got a $48.80 phone bill for that one conversation because the phone still thought he was at home? It sounds like a very aggressive, extortionate (your word) way to lower the regular daily rate at the expense of the traveller. Nasty surprise indeed.
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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