[ggop]

B&H Video is shut for a day every week but also disallows online checkout. I've always found that interesting, like the website is an extension of their beliefs.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/find/HelpCenter/StoreInfo.jsp

> Online Checkout Hours

> Open 24/6

> Online checkout will be closed while we observe Shabbat from 8:15pm ET Fri until 9:45pm ET Sat. Although online ordering is unavailable, you may still add items to your cart or wish list.

[cameron_b]

I did my degree in Photography and spent money I don't care to sum up at that store both online and in person the few times I was in the City.

I always found their stance to be one of integrity instead of self-righteousness. They are situated in a little enclave - see HN articles about the Eruv, etc. - and are quite genuine and not exclusive to their Jewishness, but simply have a community and a point of view.

The no-shabbat-order-processing feels less like "we don't make the machines make money for us" than it feels like "Look, you can shop online, but we're not gonna load it and ship it until we get back from our families."

Like how I interpret the intentions of that commandment, it forces Photographers to think ahead and plan for that service outage. I may or may not encourage Rest, but again, the commandments weren't for the Egyptians.

[masklinn]

> The no-shabbat-order-processing feels less like "we don't make the machines make money for us" than it feels like "Look, you can shop online, but we're not gonna load it and ship it until we get back from our families."

That interpretation doesn't make much sense to me. Unless there's a human actually validating each order individually right as you checkout, you could just have a note saying there won't be any shipping on saturday. Or even that orders only ship mon-fri. And nobody would find it surprising.

Other commenters' hypothesis (against doing business on shabbat) make a lot more sense, a checkout would in fact be "doing business" even if the business does that on its own it's still in your name and under your responsibility.

[AdamN]

As someone who works at a 24/7 retail company, I can say that if the orders stop flowing, somebody gets called to fix it (even if nobody's boxing it right then and there). B&H has it set up so that no outage will trigger a pager and I'm betting that if the site went down on Sabbath it would stay down.

[walrus01]

Wouldn't one solution to that be by hiring some shabbat goy sysadmins to operate the website infrastructure?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbos_goy

[sulam]

There are orthodox interpretations that essentially mean you not only won't do work on Shabbat, you won't cause work to be done on your behalf.

The tradition of the Shabbat goy is interesting here, and suffice to say there are lots of gray area room for interpretation.

There's a reason so many Jews go into law. :)

[cbm-vic-20]

"Look, you can shop online, but we're not gonna load it and ship it until we get back from our families."

Many (most?) of their warehouse workers are not Jews- B&H has been sued in the past for discrimination: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20170814

Which is too bad- their showroom in the city is like tech Disney. I definitely have mixed feelings about buying from them now.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I have shopped with them many times.

Kind of an awesome shop. Ever been there?

I have to believe that they have spent a great deal of time considering Talmudic law and all that (I am non-jewish, so I am not aware of the niceties).

It may have to do with the "making money" thing, during Shabbat.

[schwartzworld]

They are orthodox Jews and are forbidden from doing business on the Sabbath.

[avipars]

Yep, also on jewish holidays.

I respect them for that.