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Comment by davemel37 | Hacker News Reader

You would be violating Sabbath law if you press any buttons on the oven especially Bake, even with a timer...unless you set the timer before sabbath starts. Sabbath mode just turns off automated features when you open or close the oven or fridge door.

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In fairness, that does put a rather different complexion on it, as OP didn't mention it needing to be done the preceding day. "After a random delay of up to a minute, the oven turns on." As described it merely gets you a few random seconds pause after pushing the button and setting temp, thus screams of "cheat mode", which seems at odds with your description. Setting a timer to come on tomorrow at roughly 3pm doesn't feel like it's quite so blatantly breaking the spirit of a rule for the day, as press then maybe you wait 1s, maybe 59s. Whether a next day timer is also bending the rule is a much finer judgement...

So now I'm not sure how to interpret.

The OP is mistaken (in my view) about Sabbath mode and its function. The common scenarios are a fridge or oven light that turns on when you open the door. In those cases, opening the door would be no different than flipping the switch to complete a circuit that turns on a light. So, sabbath mode disables that feature and allows you to open the door without turning on a light. Unscrewing the lightbulb or using tape to hold down the switch on the doorframe is the other way to do this. Setting a timer during sabbath, for another time on sabbath would be the same thing as just turning it on directly.

As difficult as it may seem to many people, the "hacks" are grounded in sound but nuanced reasoning...the cases that make no sense logically are typically mistaken application...the talmud is literally rabbis disproving these ideas based on logic all the time.

Which was pretty much my starting point from OP's description. It makes sense relating to the sabbath rule as you describe here.

The OP is actually correct on function and its name "Sabbath Mode".

The name is a misnomer because the baking function can only be used on Jewish holidays (Passover, Sukkot) when baking/cooking is permitted (okhel nefesh) whereas on Sabbath cooking is forbidden.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_mode

This says exactly what I wrote just discusses other features...in essence it turns off automatic features.

As rabbis say, that's your opinion.

Not really. Some debates are based on different ways to interpret modern activities with ancient frameworks...but it still has to follow rational and defensible reasoning or sources... you may find a rabbi who says its ok to push a button on an electical oven on sabbath but you wont find one wh says you cannot do that, but you can set a timer on sabbath as long as it doesn't show on the display...

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