Q. If someone staying in a hotel, does not have the permitted battery or connecting incandescent lights with filament bulbs for Shabat. He also does not want to light real candles and is simply leaving on the LED lights in the room. He has however, a screen saver in his laptop that shows two virtual flickering lighted Shabbat candles on silver candlesticks. He will not be making a bracha on the lights on the screen or on the LED lights in the room, but just for the sake of the Shabbat feelings, he wants to live on the laptop screen. Is that permitted or recommended?
A. On question 1791 regarding a very large screen in a family room that serves as a virtual picture frame. It changes according to the times it is programmed, into different scenes, images and pictures of nature that the family greatly enjoys. It also displays family photos, portraits etc.
We wrote that Horav Shlomo Miller’s Shlit’a permits leaving on during Shabbos the picture displayed on the screen, if it does not change and stays the same during the complete Shabbos. He also maintains that the controls should be covered and inaccessible. The same should apply in your case.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit’a