CORR 131-135

SUBSTITUTING FOR CHRISTIANS ON CHRISTMAS

QUESTION:

The Men’s Club of Temple Beth El, Detroit, substituted for Christian volunteer hospital aides on Christmas last year (1971). That year Christmas fell on the Sabbath and questions arose in the Detroit community as to whether it was proper for a Jewish congregation thus openly (and also with newspaper publicity) to violate the Sabbath. Since then, other Men’s Clubs are planning to volunteer for such duties on Christmas. This has raised the wider question: first, as mentioned about the Sabbath and secondly, about the value or propriety of this sort of substitute volunteering. (From Rabbi Richard Hertz, Detroit, Michigan)

ANSWER:

THERE ARE ONE or two general statements which must be made before going into the detailed laws involved in this matter. First of all, the propriety of violating the Sabbath: It is of course obvious that most modern individuals, not only in Reform congregations but in others, do not, in their personal life, follow with any degree of strictness the laws of working, traveling, opening letters, etc., on the Sabbath. Nevertheless, there is a difference between what is done privately and what is done publicly. This difference has long been recognized in Jewish law. The building of a house by contract (kablonus) may go on any day of the week including the Sabbath, for the Gentile contractor works, not by day-by-day orders from the Jewish owner, but by his own orders. But while such Sabbath work would be permitted, let us say, outside of the city, in the city where everybody sees the work going on, it is prohibited (see Orah Hayyim 244).

The Responsa Committee of the Conference receives many inquiries about the propriety of the Sabbath observance in our synagogues. May we permit a caterer, preparing for a Bar Mitzvah meal, to prepare the meal on the Sabbath? May the congregation have its business meeting on Friday night? May the Gift Corner (Judaica Shop) be open for business on Friday night, etc., etc.? So whatever the personal observance of individuals may be, there is considerable sensitiveness as to public violation of the Sabbath by the congregation itself. The question therefore is, whether such activities as substituting on Christmas for hospital work, etc., would justify the various public violations of the Sabbath that might be involved in transportation, copying of records, etc.

First of all, it must be recorded that the motivation which led this Men’s Club and leads other Men’s Clubs to such help to Christians is a well-established and honored motivation since ancient times. There is both the negative motive to avoid ill-will (m’shum eyveh) and the positive one to increase comradely relationship (mipney darche shalom). See the full discussion of these two motives in Dr. Lauterbach’s magnificent paper, “The Attitude of the Jew Towards the Non- Jew,” C.C.A.R. Yearbook, XXXI, 186. The motivation therefore for these volunteer substitutes is not only worthy, it is also traditional.

But there is a more specific concern that this substitution takes place on Christmas. The Talmud (the beginning of Tractate on Idolatry, Avodah Zara) prohibits any association with the heathens on or within days of their holidays, lest we become involved in their worship, or lest the money that they earn in business dealings with us be contributed to the idol worship. These laws of non-association at the non-Jewish holidays are carried over in the Shulchan Aruch, Yore Deah 141; but it is a well established principle in Jewish law that these laws refer to actual idol worshipers; that Christians and Mohammedans are not deemed to be idolators in Jewish law, and therefore there is no objection to associating with them on Christian and Moslem holidays (see Yore Deah 147:12, especially the long note by Isserles). Furthermore, it has long become an unobjectionable custom to give gifts to Christians on their holidays. The great fifteenth century authority, Israel Isserlein ( Terumas Ha-deshem #195) discusses the propriety of giving gifts on New Year’s Day, which of course was a religious holiday (as he himself mentions) namely, the Christian Feast of Circumcision, eight days after Christmas.

Since the motivation of comradeship is traditionally praiseworthy and since there is no objection to associating with Gentiles on the days of their religious fes tivals, the question now arises: What sort of activity is most suitable for this expression of goodwill? The Talmud lists certain types of what we would call social service today, which it is our duty to do for non-Jews. This is discussed in the Talmud, Gittin 61 a; namely, we sustain the poor of Gentiles, comfort their mourners, bury their dead as we do with fellow-Israelites; and in the Palestinian Talmud (J. Gittin 47c) there is added that in cities where Jews and Gentiles live together there is even joint collection and expenditure of funds, i.e., a sort of Community Chest. And all this social service referred even to idolators from whom in those ancient days Israelites were expected to keep away. Then how much more is it our duty to perform these social services for Christians who are not idolators at all and with whom we associate freely.

Now what should be the final question is: Which of these praiseworthy acts of social service and comradeship may be done on the Sabbath whenever, as occurred in 1971, Christmas falls on the Sabbath? First of all, any seriously sick person may be helped on the Sabbath and, in fact, it is considered a sin to hesitate and inquire whether to violate the Sabbath or not (see especially Orah Hayyim 328). It may be properly considered that sick people in the hospital are under the class of “seriously sick,” and it is a duty to help them on the Sabbath. It is not only for the seriously sick that the Sabbath may be violated. The violation of the Sabbath is likewise permitted in order to rescue anybody from danger (see Orah Hayyim 329 and 330). Since saving people from danger permits the violation of the Sabbath, we can properly include our substituting not only for hospital workers, but also for firemen and policemen on these days, even if the days occur on the Sabbath.

However, it would not be proper (even though still comradely) to substitute in violation of the Sabbath for salesmen, postal clerks, etc. There is no objection and, indeed, it is comradely and in accordance with the spirit of Jewish tradition to substitute for any workers on their holidays, provided Sabbath violation by a congregation is not involved. But in those years in which Christmas comes on the Sabbath, it would be in consonance with Jewish tradition and the sentiment of the general Jewish community if these voluntary, comradely acts were confined to hospitals and to the institutions of public safety.