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You own a big internet server. It serves some 150,000 members practically all of whom are Goyim. The server crashes 1 hour before sundown on Friday. Do you hire goyim to fix it during Shabbat hours? It's not "pekuach nefesh" but being that many people are counting on it for communication, work and entertainment during the weekend and they don't have the obligation to observe Shabbat, can a Jew hire Goyim to work on Shabbat in such a circumstance?
Let's assume the business is structured as a proprietary LLC and not a corporation. |
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Why assume that there is active hiring?
Let there be standing staff, including remote distance telecommuting workers who are Jews who will work when its locally Shabbos at the server farm, but not Shabbos for them in their locality. |
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GY Moderator |
MosheYisraeli, I'm not sure what your הוה אמינבא is to assume one might be able to employ these goyim on Shabbos. And why should our keeping of Shabbos depend on a goy's enjoyment or lack thereof. In other words, I really don't understand your question.
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My fundamental question is "what responsibility does a Jew have to Goyim in a disaster situation when it comes to Shabbat?" This is a disaster that does not involve pekuach nefesh. A Goy can work for me on Shabbat on his own initiative, but not at my behest. Now in the example I gave, is it reasonable to allow 150,000 Goyim go without such an important service because I cannot tell another goy to work on the system during Shabbat hours? In other words, should we force Goyim to observe Shabbat in such a circumstance?
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GY Moderator |
Sorry, I still don't get you.
Who is forcing Goyim to keep Shabbos? And I still don't understand how you could possibly think that we should be Mechallel Shabbos for Goyim. Maybe we have a different idea of what a "disaster" is. |
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Moshe, I think you are mixing up a few different concepts here. Lets take a simpler starting point: Suppose there is a Jewish shopkeeper who does not keep Shabbos, and feels it is necessary for him, and feels he has benefit, from running business as usual on Shabbos. I do not know any such business owners. But my rabbi once gave us a lecture about such a hypothetical situation, that if a business owner came to him seeking guidance for whether he could be at his own business and where is the limit of what he could and could not do, to perhaps give advice to his employees for what they should do, but the owner himself not doing any work directly, that there was room within halacha to work out such things. In your scenario the Jewish computer server farm owner need not be there, the computer professionals will know what is needed to do to keep the computers running, and they themselves might not even need to be there. I think it is definitely possible for a Frum Jew to own a computer company upon which gentiles rely for 7x24 operation, especially where instructions for preventive maintenance are generally not given to designate Shabbos times, and where gentile workers have standing instructions and fixed salaries for their responsibilities. If I am accurate in these things, what is the worry? Do you not have enough latitude to know that there is a way to solve such a problem as you are describing? Oh, and that's not even having to utilize having a gentile partner who's nearly sole purpose is to be paid out of the proceeds from Shabbos sales, and to make executive decisions in the Jewish part owner's absence! |
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Yisroel, I think you are missing my point. I'm not suggesting that we should be mechallel Shabbat. I AM ASKING what is the most reasonable and permissible action. Again, I am asking, I am not suggesting. Rob, I like your answer, although it is dodging the question by placing professionals on the payroll who weren't there in the original question. I know there are many safeguards that can be brought to bear to avoid such a situation, but my question is about this specific situation and scenario. |
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Not a dodge - but a talmudic deduction that there would be employees! A Frum Yid who is a doctor and an author is probably not the one swapping the hot-swappable disk bays in the RAID controller on the cluster of computers which back each other up with global fault-tolerance and automated disaster recovery. In fact, no human is --- I believe Hashem has entrusted fault-tolerant automated disaster recovery technologies to server farms that this need not even be an issue. Perhaps a Jewish computer server cluster owner would probabilistically engineer ahead of time sufficient back-up capacity to be able to run for 25 hours on battery power and live-spare disks in the disk arrays for whatever computing needs the customers would have, and/or use off-site fault-tolerance as well in a timezone where the Shabbos visibility could easily be reduced to 13 hours. |
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Rob,
I cannot argue technology with you, this is your expertise and we are all beneficiaries of that, baruch HaShem. But, my question was about a halachic scenario not technological quest. I know of several logistic and technologic approaches to solving this particular problem but I was asking a specific halachic scenario and it seems no one wants to give me a halachic answer. |
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Yisroel,
For example, is it permissible to call a goy soon after the crash (1 hr) before sundown to fix the system? I am getting him to work for me "before" Shabbat...even though I know he might work through Shabbat. Or halachically, the fact that I asked him to work before Shabbat is okay...especially with the anticipation that the problem is simple enough it could be resolved in less than one hour? I'm trying to get at the halachic separation between what's a reasonable anticipation that it will be done before Shabbat in which case I'm okay. Or, that it will continue into Shabbat hours, in which case I could still be okay....or would I be? That's my fundamental question. It's a halachic one. I know many logistic and technological ways to get around this one, but I am asking a very specific halachic question. |
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GY Moderator |
As I understand it, you can ask a goy before Shabbos to do work for you even if you know the goy is going to do the work on Shabbos PROVIDED you have given the goy enough time (either before or after Shabbos) to do the job. In other words, you can't give in some clothing for dry cleaning a minute before Shabbos and ask that it be ready the minute Shabbos ends.
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Design the system right, and someone with 12 hours before Shabbos in their locality can do the millisecond of work to instruct the fail-over scenario to kick in. Whether your gentile employees will choose to figure out what went wrong with the previously running system, and perhaps switch it back into production usage, on your Shabbos, that would be their choice for how to professionally carry out their duties which were pre-arranged. Perhaps you will have a preference to only doing the minimum necessary when its your Shabbos, or your Shabbos if you were at the location (you might be travelling). And perhaps even with that preference you would not object to your gentile professional staff doing more if they want to for their interest or benefit. |
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Rob,
Can what you are saying be achieved without a "mirror" site? Your server just crashed and no one can have access to it from a remote location because it's down, broken, non-functional!!!!? |
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A mirror site might mean to you a complete additional set of all hardware which replicates all software state?
I believe that RAID disk arrays are able to provide error recovery capability without a complete mirror. The shortest explanation I can give is that given a set of disks of the same size, being written to a block at a time, there can be a single check disk for however many other disks, and with a simple "binary exclusive or" calculation, the hardware can detect when there is an error in the data, and recover the lost block. The mirror anology is lost since how can one disk contain enough information to back up several other disks of the same size? And the "check disk" for one particular block number is staggered for the particular block right before or right after. A RAID disk system can also include live spares which the hardware puts into service as needed whenever a single disk breaks, or is removed, and can go through a completely automatic fail-over process of replicating the data from the failed disk onto the formerly spare disk since for each block of data stored on the broken disk, there is enough data by the exclusive or logic to recover the lost data and repopulate the broken disk. Yeah, its all in Torah. The Dead Sea Scrolls, according to Discovery Seminar, provided fragments to resolve all 9 or so discrepencies in the way we should be writing a Sefer Torah! Error detection and recovery! |
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GY Teacher  |
On account of telling a Goy to do work for another Goy (or for himself) with a Jew's property is forbidden in. See SA OC 307:21.
The next thing, this may lead to a big financial loss. See there #5 that this is only permitted to tell him to do a D'rabanan (That there be 2 Shvus (Issur D'rabanan for Shabbos) telling a Goy and that is for a D'rabanan. To tell a Goy to tell another Goy to do a Malacha D'oraisah (that would make 2 Shvus) is a Machlokes. See MB #24. ____________ http://limudtorah.jewishweb.org Please help the Global Yeshiva to continue spreading high quality Torah by sponsoring a Shiur in the "Understanding Mishna Brurah" forum. All sponsorships are tax deductible. |
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In order to defend a Jewish business owner after the fact who may appear to have given instruction to avoid financial loss, can we rely upon any opinion that electric circuits are not prohibitted work from the Torah?
I am of course not suggesting that we pasken in such a way ahead of time. |
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GY Teacher |
Quote "In order to defend a Jewish business owner after the fact who may appear to have given instruction to avoid financial loss, can we rely upon any opinion that electric circuits are not prohibited work from the Torah?
I am of course not suggesting that we pasken in such a way ahead of time." B'Dieved everything is fine, whether there was an Issur done or not. I was thinking about that as a could be a Sniff to permit L'Chatchila, but I would pass that decision to someone else. ____________ http://limudtorah.jewishweb.org Please help the Global Yeshiva to continue spreading high quality Torah by sponsoring a Shiur in the "Understanding Mishna Brurah" forum. All sponsorships are tax deductible. |
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You may not encourage, allow and certainly not force Goyim to keep Shabbos, but that is a different issue. But that does not change the prohibition on your working, or even considering work when we should be minchu on Shabbos. |
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Starting from from here, eretz chemdah has a six page discussion on running an internet site on Shabbat.
התפתחותו המדהימה של העולם הווירטואלי – האינטרנט, בשנים האחרונות, מציבה אתגר הלכי ורוחני בפני מרנן ורבנן. פוסקי ההלכה צריכים לתת דעתם לסכנות המרובות מצד אחד וליתרונות העצומים מצד שני. בקונטרס זה נעשה נסיון לחבר ישן וחדש ולנסות למצוא את המקורות בדברי חז"ל ובדברי הראשונים והאחרונים למציאות החדשה, הדימיונית - תרתי משמע. בהשארת אתר אינטרנט בבעלות יהודי פתוח בשבת וביו"ט יכולות להתעורר שאלות הנוגעות לכמה וכמה איסורים. א. "לפני עיוור" ו"מסייע לעוברי עבירה"; ב. מקח וממכר בשבת (באתרים מסחריים); ג. שכר שבת (באתרים הגובים דמי-שימוש, בחנויות ושווקים וירטואלים); ד. הנאה מחילול שבת (מאתרים מסחריים); ה. מראית-עין וחשד; ו. זילותא דשבת. ונדון בהם אחד לאחד ונבדוק האם אכן הבעלים עוברים על האיסורים הנ"ל. http://www.eretzhemdah.org/hemdatyamimheb/5764/korach64/shutim.htm Aryeh Shore |
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R'Aryeh
Great in informative site. But I believe that M. Yisraeli's question used the servers as an example to illustrate his question regarding; When he can ask a goy to work? And, what is a jew's obligation not to inconvenience a goy while we keep Shabbos? |
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