I find the idea of cleverly and conveniently outsmarting God with Shabbat elevators and ovens difficult to reconcile with taking one's religion seriously, respecting God, and following the spirit rather than merely the letter of its laws.

But those are the harmless loopholes. The obscene version is ultra-Orthodox parties using political power to exempt their own sons from military service while authorizing summonses for everyone else's and sustaining a government accused of genocide in Gaza.

What believers arrange for themselves is their own business. Exemptions for themselves and war for everyone else are not.

God can presumably see through the elevator loophole. The rest of us can see through the conscription loophole.