Jerusalem – Self-Locking Door Handles The Latest Concern Among Ultra-Orthodox Jewry

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    Jerusalem – Ultra-Orthodox rabbis representing both the Chassidic and Lithuanian Jewish communities are sounding the alarm over self-locking door handles, and are urging public institutions not to install such handles in either entry doors or inner rooms to avoid violating yichud.

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    Israeli news site Yediot Ahronot reports (http://goo.gl/nJKfG) that Rabbi Shmuel Wosner and Rabbi Nissim Karelitz have ruled that doors with these handles are considered locked even if no action has been taken to lock them. In an ad published by the rabbinical body Halacha Watch, the rabbis wrote, “Recently-introduced door handles almost seem like regular handles from the outside, and the handles can be shifted from outside as well. But they have an automatic electrical locking that prevents the door from being opened from the outside. There is a yichud prohibition, and whoever is familiar with these handles could recognize them by paying attention.”

    The ad also notes that the late Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, “the generation’s great posek,” also expressed concern about self-locking door handles which can be found in many locations including workplaces and clinics.
    Halacha Watch recommends that “a proper solution” can be reached by keeping doors with self-locking handles ajar to prevent yichud.


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    13 Comments
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    nathaderweise
    nathaderweise
    11 years ago

    Whats new? We have had yale locks for 100 years that lock when the door is closed. Why is electronically operated different? Is someone coming up with a kosher self locking lock that costs a fortune and has a hashgoche?!!
    How about a glass panel in the door that everyone can peep into, would that elliminate the yichud? A front-door peep-hole for viewing from the outside only. This can be marketed as the eiyin tov yichud fix.

    enlightened-yid
    enlightened-yid
    11 years ago

    It looks like some of the rabbis have been reading news (on the internet they forbade) about General Patreus scandal, so they fear that self locking doors that have been around for many decades are now going to cause mass scandals in their communities. Maybe the rabbis should consider banning wood desks and force everyone to use see through acrylic desks and furniture. Yichud can be violated while hiding under desks like Gen Patreus did in his office.

    Wise-Guy
    Wise-Guy
    11 years ago

    I don’t understand why this is news.
    Of course any room with restricted access poses potential Yichud.
    Is this not a no-brainer?

    ChareidiMan
    ChareidiMan
    11 years ago

    Baruch Hashem that we are up to door handles, which confirms to me that every thing else has been solved and there are no more issues to deal with.

    Yechi
    Yechi
    11 years ago

    How about a comment from the SO Call gedolim reagarding our brothers and sisters under fire in the south. How about a yom teffilah , saying tehillim, giving tzadaka.

    Or are these guys so detached from ahavas yisroel (which requires doing not talking)

    Let them remember , our creator will not be impressed.

    berelw
    berelw
    11 years ago

    how about a call to increse in ahavas yisroel,tzedaka, limud hatorah ect…that you dont hear….

    Crazykanoiy
    Crazykanoiy
    11 years ago

    1-7 you totally miss the point. This is an issue of Halacha. It is forbidden according to halacha for a man and women to be alone in a locked room. This problem does not usually present itself because most offices do not lock their doors however if the door self locks then a real halachic problem exists. Why make light of or mock this point?

    MBYIsrael
    MBYIsrael
    11 years ago

    A problem here however is that people have no compunction in just walking into a doctor’s office to see if there’s a patient in there already. Sometimes they’ll stand there with the door open, trying to ask a question. Without locking the door, there is a possibility that tzinut will be violated by a non-professional seeing an uncovered patient. Sometimes we have no choice but to use a doctor of the opposite gender, often this occurs with specialists and not all of us have someone we can bring along to the appointment. I’d rather take a chance with the locked door than having some stranger see everything.