{"id":39679,"date":"2015-05-14T11:14:57","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T16:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=39679"},"modified":"2015-05-15T06:37:36","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T11:37:36","slug":"orthodox-jewish-commencement-speaker-finds-shabbat-workaround","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/orthodox-jewish-commencement-speaker-finds-shabbat-workaround\/","title":{"rendered":"Orthodox Jewish Commencement Speaker Finds Shabbat Workaround"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Senior Don Greenberg was looking forward to addressing his fellow students as a commencement speaker at Binghamton University\u2019s engineering school when his girlfriend broke the bad news: May 16, graduation day, falls on a Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGreat!\u201d he remembers telling her, in the most sarcastic of tones.<\/p>\n<p>A triple major from Teaneck, N.J., with a 3.93 GPA, Greenberg is an Orthodox Jew who observes the Jewish Sabbath, which begins at sunset Friday and ends at sunset on Saturday. Observant Jews cannot use electricity on Shabbat, a day of rest, because of an age-old prohibition related to kindling a fire. Speaking into the microphone on the podium, his voice causing lights to illuminate on a sound board, would not be considered kosher. Greenberg knew this and his rabbi confirmed it.<\/p>\n<p>But when 2,500 students and their families gather on the upstate New York campus for the Watson School of Engineering graduation on Saturday, Greenberg will still take his place at the podium. And on jumbo screens on either side of the stage, he will watch himself deliver the graduation address he taped in the university\u2019s video studio three days earlier.<\/p>\n<p>Continue reading at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.religionnews.com\/2015\/05\/13\/orthodox-jewish-commencement-speaker-finds-shabbat-workaround\/\">Religion News Service<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Watch a segment of the commencement speech:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gcs5352uZv4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senior Don Greenberg was looking forward to addressing his fellow students as a commencement speaker at Binghamton University\u2019s engineering school when his girlfriend broke the bad news: May 16, graduation day, falls on a Saturday. \u201cGreat!\u201d he remembers telling her, in the most sarcastic of tones. A triple major from Teaneck, N.J., with a 3.93<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":730,"featured_media":39681,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Orthodox Jewish Commencement Speaker Finds Shabbat Workaround - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/orthodox-jewish-commencement-speaker-finds-shabbat-workaround\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Orthodox Jewish Commencement Speaker Finds Shabbat Workaround - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Senior Don Greenberg was looking forward to addressing his fellow students as a commencement speaker at Binghamton University\u2019s engineering school when his girlfriend broke the bad news: May 16, graduation day, falls on a Saturday. \u201cGreat!\u201d he remembers telling her, in the most sarcastic of tones. A triple major from Teaneck, N.J., with a 3.93\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/orthodox-jewish-commencement-speaker-finds-shabbat-workaround\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-05-14T16:14:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-05-15T11:37:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/dGreenberg.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"533\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"OU Staff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"OU Staff\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/orthodox-jewish-commencement-speaker-finds-shabbat-workaround\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/orthodox-jewish-commencement-speaker-finds-shabbat-workaround\/\",\"name\":\"Orthodox Jewish Commencement Speaker Finds Shabbat Workaround - OU Life\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/orthodox-jewish-commencement-speaker-finds-shabbat-workaround\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/orthodox-jewish-commencement-speaker-finds-shabbat-workaround\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/dGreenberg.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-14T16:14:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-05-15T11:37:36+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/9c39ad0f9b2550fe954412311bba3b65\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/orthodox-jewish-commencement-speaker-finds-shabbat-workaround\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/orthodox-jewish-commencement-speaker-finds-shabbat-workaround\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/dGreenberg.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/dGreenberg.jpg\",\"width\":800,\"height\":533,\"caption\":\"(RNS1-may13) Don Greenberg, student speaker for Watson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences commencement and an Orthodox Jew, pre-records his commencement speech with help from video producer Andrew Hatling. 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