[Sca-cooks] Sabbath Goy tending food

[Avraham haRofeh of Sudentur]

>         I don't think it works quite that way.  You can ask a gentile to
do
> some emergency, necessary thing, like turning off the airconditioner when
it
> unexpectedly gets very cold (my landlord asked my roommate, a Baptist, to
do
> this once - note that he didn't ask me, knowing that I'm Jewish) but you
can't
> make such a person do work, like preparing a regular meal. The Bible says
that
> not only can't you work, but also that you can't make your servants work,
or
> your animals, or the visitor in your house, either.

I've always understood that the "shabbes goy" was given instructions before
Shabbat started. The polite fiction was that you didn't MAKE him work, he
just happened to be doing the things that needed doing - never mind the fact
that you had told him the night before that those things would need to be
done.

Avraham

*******************************************************
Reb Avraham haRofeh of Sudentur
     (mka Randy Goldberg MD)
RandomTag: If you can't dress weird, why dress at all?



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