Q&A: Shutting Down the Light Rail on the Sabbath
Shutting Down the Light Rail on the Sabbath
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I heard that the cost to the economy of shutting down the light rail on the Sabbath is one billion shekels. In your opinion, should operating the light rail on the Sabbath be permitted in order to save that sum for the economy, which could be used for essential public needs like medicines and hospitals (and perhaps even save quite a few lives)?
Best regards,
Answer
What? Of course not! How is that any different from ordinary work on the Sabbath that would bring a lot of money into the economy?
Discussion on Answer
There’s a mix-up here between different questions. In my opinion, the state is not supposed to observe the Sabbath. It’s a democratic state whose majority of citizens do not observe the Sabbath. From a halakhic standpoint, there is no permission to employ people on the Sabbath, not even non-Jews, in order to make money (regardless of the goal). When there is a concrete, immediate danger, and there is no other funding to deal with it, then there may perhaps be room to permit it. If I send a non-Jew or a secular Jew to work so that I will have money, that is forbidden.
Even if the work is done by non-Jews or secular Jews (whose transgressions are not considered transgressions according to your view)?