Comic Strip Review: ShaBot 6000 by Ben Baruch

Ben Baruch's ShaBot 6000 comic strip is both humorous and educational. At times, the humor dances close to blasphemy, and is known to sometimes include a "dirty element." There are two characters in the cartoon, an Orthodox Jew and his kippah-wearing robot named ShaBot. The ShaBot 6000 website explains, "ShaBot 6000 is the continuing cartoon saga of a pious Jew who purchases a robot to work as Shabbos Goy for his household.

The inquisitive robot, ShaBot, decides that he is Jewish, and is therefore unable to fulfill his duties as servant. ShaBot spends his days asking questions about Judaism, trying to find logic in a religion that sometimes does not compute." Themes have covered the various branches of Judaism, halakhah (Jewish law), J-Date, and other various and sundry aspects of Jewish life, customs and culture.

One of the ways the humor of ShaBot 6000 comes through is in the way ShaBot practices Judaism. In one cartoon titled "Purge-a-Torah", the Jew tells ShaBot, "It is important to clear your mind before davening [praying]." ShaBot agrees and after a couple seconds reports, "Cache deleted!"

The cartoon can also be thought provoking. In the more recent "Know-it-all" comic, ShaBot declares he doesn't think G-d is all-knowing and requests that his Jewish friend not tell G-d. Normally when I think of G-d as being all-knowing, I tend to cringe. I cringe because I know He sees everything I've done; every little sin. It's the fear of his all-powerful nature and His justice that is the motivating factor behind my cringing. Moreover, there's no way I could ever run from punishment because He is all-present.

This cartoon seems to play off that fear. Yet, as I contemplated the cartoon, a new thought occurred to me: perhaps there is a more "positive" side to G-d's omniscience. I concluded that if G-d is all-knowing, all-powerful and all-present, He knows my problems, He can help me with said problems, and He can do so anywhere.