Re: because of mixed dancing

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

I was, by a curious coincidence (as Sherlock Holmes used to say), just 
watching the Triangle Fire episode of Rick Burns's NYC (PBS) documentary 
last night (*after* Shabbes!).  *Hankus, do you know in what source(s) one 
can find rabbinic, etc., discussion of the implications of their working on 
Shabbes?*

I actually was very aware, watching the documentary, that it all 
happened--and, therefore, they were working--on Shabbes.  But I attributed 
that aveira--that violation of Torah--not to the workers (who, of course, 
didn't have the freedom to talk to another worker or go to the bathroom, let 
alone choose not to work on Shabbes--they'd be instantly fired) but to the 
owners, who were violating Shabbes in this profound way along with one 
disgusting ethical violation on top of another.

Those violations of the rights of workers were, of course, every bit as much 
violations of Torah and of Jewish law.  (Indeed, I wonder how a Jewish court 
would have dealt with their having all the doors in their sweatshop locked, 
thus making possible their workers' incineration.  In an American court, 
they got off free.)

--Robert Cohen




>This sort of rabbinical discussion of disasters is certainly not unique in
>Jewish history.  One of the most famous examples was the lively debate over
>the religious implications of the Triangle fire of 1911, which occured on
>shabes. -Hankus
>
>




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