The paragraph below was included in an Associated Press story about a controversial rabbinical ruling that bars the use of so-called Shabbat elevators — elevators pre-programmed to automatically stop on every floor on the Sabbath, so that Sabbath-observing Jews can use them without doing the “work” of pushing elevator buttons on the holiest day of the week:

“A debate a decade ago by another leading rabbi concluded that nose-picking was allowed on the Sabbath. It was under discussion because nose hairs may be plucked out in the process, and cutting hair on the Sabbath is outlawed.”

Maybe it’s fact. Maybe it’s fiction. I don’t know. But there are a few things about the paragraph that set off my BS detector.

1.) It’s a really, really preposterous idea. Sometimes religious leaders have really, really preposterous ideas, so the sheer weirdness of the paragraph doesn’t make it unbelievable. But it should raise red flags.

2.) The time-frame is vague. A decade ago. Not July 7, 1999. Or July 1999. Or even 1999. A decade, which can mean ten years or ten-nish years…

3.) The place is vague. Was it in Israel? Jerusalem? Brooklyn? Brookline?

4.) The rabbi is unnamed.

5.) I’m not finding a lot about this topic by Googling it.

AGAIN, the report may be completely accurate. It may be 100 percent fact and 0 percent fiction. But the vagueness, combined with the outrageousness of the paragraph, set off my BS detector — and that’s not a bad thing. Anybody reading anything, including blogs, newspapers and wire services, should read with a healthy dose of skepticism…

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 1:44 pm and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.