Question

A Jewish tax collector who doesn’t want to lose the customs revenue that comes in on the Sabbath—may he hire a non-Jew on a contract basis to sit at the customs post and collect on the Sabbath? I thought that logically they would be lenient here as well, because the Jewish collector isn’t acting in his own name anyway—who would give money to this Jew? For what reason? He comes in the name of the non-Jewish king, and collects in his name. And the actual collection is done by a non-Jew. So it comes out that in the end the Jew is just kind of “mixing in” here. And that’s another strong reason to be lenient. Is there anything to this?