Fark links to this BBC article about Bank Leumi developing a credit card which will not work on Shabbat.
First, I’m curious how would this apply to people traveling overseas or for Internet purchases? Does it go by Shabbat in Israel or where the purchase was made?
On a more serious note, I have no idea what the point of this is. The Orthodox don’t shop on Shabbat – or at least shouldn’t.1 Secular Jews (or clever Orthodox) will either use a different card – either from Bank Leumi or someplace else or just use cash or cheque. Certainly if the bank forces all clients to use the restrictive card, they would only increase the animosity towards the Orthodox.
Provided that the bank doesn’t force people to use the cards, this plan seems fairly innocuous. If it makes you happy, go for it – certainly no issurim are being violated by having it. However, I’m troubled by this quote: “Reports also say it may not work on any day in shops which do not honour the Sabbath.”
I have no idea how they would manage to do this from a technical perspective. The only thing I can think of is that “certain authorities” would create a blacklist and send that in to Bank Leumi. I can’t even begin to enumerate the problems with such a system (think corruption, fights over authority, payoffs, blackmailing, etc.)
1. Perhaps it’s like the content cell phones and the Orthodox can’t be trusted to be shomer Shabbat on their own such that they need external techinical restrictions to keep them on the proper path.
(כִּי לֹא מַחְשְׁבוֹתַי מַחְשְׁבוֹתֵיכֶם וְלֹא דַרְכֵיכֶם דְּרָכָי (ישעיהו נה:ח
Ain’t Gonna Shop On Saturday
December 4, 2004 Economics, Jewish Law / Halakha
“The new card will not useable on the Sabbath, and will only be honored in businesses that themselves are observant of the Jewish Sabbath.”
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/509009.html
From what I gather then, the draw of the card is that Haredim can only use it at other shomer shabbat businesses. The simple answer for your question is: no, it will not work in the US. The purpose of the card (so says Haaretz) is that the Hardei community, which deals mostly in cash, is an untapped market. Bank Leumi wants to break into the niche. Thus they are not looking to have this card replace your normal credit card, and only for those who want a “kosher card”. I assume the card will have a low interest (or else the Rabbis won’t give a haskama) so in order to make sure undesirables (ie Chilonim) do not exploit the card, the fact it does not work on shabbat provides a disinsentive. I don’t really know, however.
Is this really such a good thing for the hareidi community? Basically you’re giving one of the lowest earning populations a chance to get into debt even quicker. Would the Rabbis really go for it?
What does that mean that it doesn’t work on Shabbat? Even if it doesn’t allow the transaction to go through, I assume the card will still cause electric circuits to be opened and closed when scanned, thus still performing melacha. Or is the point of it not working on shabbat not being to prevent Jews from sinning, but rather to discourage Chilonim from using the card as it would be inconvenient despite the low interest rate? In that case, it hardly seems fair that Hareidim get lower interest rates, just because.
What about Yom Tov? How are they going to deal with that?
Eric
There’s something even better. Whenever you use this credit card, Hashem knows exactly when and where you used it. For a small fee, I’ll put you in touch with the bank that issues them.