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Adapted from a Shiur by Rav Mordechai Lebhar
What can’t you say when someone’s always listening?
Amazon’s Echo and similar “smart speakers” are devices that provide information, take orders for goods, or activate any of an array of services in response to voice commands.
They operate by constantly recording ambient sound and listening for a “wake word,” which for the Echo is” Alexa.” Say the wake word and the device replies, cheerfully offering its assistance.
The question arises: Given that the Echo is recording all the time, may one speak in its presence on Shabbat?
The Maharal explains that the definition of “Melacha” – lit. “work” on Shabbat is: creative activity. Because Hashem rested from Creation on Shabbat, we similarly desist from exercising our own creative powers.
The Gemara (Bava Kama 60, and many places in Masechet Shabbat) teaches us that only “Melechet Mahshevet” – lit. “purposeful” work – violates Shabbat. This has several implications for what qualifies as Melacha, including that a Melacha must be done with thought; must be performed creatively, not destructively; and must not be done Kil’Ahar Yad, in an unusual manner.
There is a debate among the Tana’im in the case of a Davar She’Eino Mitkaven – an unintentional consequence, such as one who pulls a bench across the ground because he wants it somewhere else. Although the action may dig a groove in the ground—which constitutes Hofer – digging, a form of the Melacha of Horesh—plowing, that is not the bench-dragger’s intent.
The Halacha follows the view that this is permitted, because it isn’t Melechet Mahshevet: the perpetrator’s intent is to relocate a bench, not to dig a furrow. But this only holds true in a case where the groove would not inevitably result—a P’sik Reshe—from the dragging. If the unintended result is an inevitable consequence of the action, one cannot disassociate the result from the action. If dragging this bench will ineluctably produce a furrow, then the creation of the furrow is virtually intentional and meets the requirements of Melechet Mahshevet.
Tosafot in Ketubot (6a, s.v. Hai) cite the view of the Sefer He’Aruch that where the unintended but inevitable result is lo niha leh – something the perpetrator doesn’t specifically desire, the act remains permissible.
While the Poskim generally don’t follow the Aruch’s view on its own, the Mishna Berura (337) rules that in a case of P’sik Reshe involving a Shvut DiShvut—a D’Rabbanan atop another D’Rabbanan (i.e. telling a non-Jew to do something which is D’Rabbanan) we can additionally adduce the Aruch’s view to rule leniently. The Sephardic Poskim generally follow the ruling of the Terumat HaDeshen to apply the Aruch’s view even in the case of a single D’Rabbanan (see Or L’Tzion Vol. 2 3:10 and Yabia Omer 4:30.).
In the Echo’s case, it is debatable whether a Melacha is being performed by the speaker whose voice is being recorded.
Even according to the Hazon Ish’s view that completing an electrical circuit on Shabbat is forbidden Mid’Oraita, in this case one is only adding an insignificant load to an existing circuit by speaking. Although the Shevut Yitzhak cites stringent views, Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (Shulhan Shelomo 308) permits this.
Additionally, one who speaks on Shabbat in his Amazon Echo-equipped home is clearly not intending to record his voice. It may happen anyway, but it is obviously not niha leh (see Rav Nissim Karelitz’s Hut Shani, Vol. 1, Kuntres HaHashmal.)
Similarly, though there is Halachic debate about the permissibility of speaking on Shabbat to a person wearing a hearing aid, all agree that one may speak to a third party even if a hearing-aid wearer is listening in, because this result of one’s action is too disconnected from the actor.
Another example of this principle appears in the Havot Da’at (Y.D. 91:5), who says that an insubstantial result that doesn’t benefit the actor is excluded by Melechet Mahshevet. Rav Shmuel Wosner (Shevet HaLevy 3:45 and 7:42) permits, on this basis, pouring boiling water into a bowl containing small water droplets. The act is too insignificant to constitute Melacha.
Likewise, it would be permitted to walk on the street on Shabbat while video of the activity is being recorded by an orbiting satellite.
It would seem that being picked up by the Echo’s recorder would be comparable to these examples. The result of the speaker’s action, though inevitable, is insignificant, and therefore not prohibited as a P’sik Reshe.