Chapter 73:3-4
Employing Gentiles on the Sabbath
3. and 4. [One may instruct a Gentile during the week to perform a task
[prohibited to a Jew] on Shabbos, only if the following conditions (among
others which we have covered, or will cover over the next few days) are met
(it should be noted that there are many details and exceptions to these
rules which will not cover here)]
a) The Gentile should be contracted for the entire task, and not paid for
each day individually (1).
b) It is forbidden to make a stipulation requiring the Gentile to carry out
the task on Shabbos. Furthermore, even if one does not explicitly stipulate
that the Gentile should work on Shabbos, but sets the deadline for
completing the work for just after Shabbos, and it is clear that this
deadline cannot be met unless some work is performed on Shabbos, it is also
forbidden.
Similarly, it is forbidden to instruct a Gentile to deliver a letter by a
certain date, if it is impossible for him to do so unless he travels on
Shabbos. Also, if Shabbos is the [local] market day, it is forbidden to
give a Gentile money on Friday to purchase an article that can only be
acquired on Shabbos. By the same token, one may not give a Gentile an
article to sell, if it can only be sold on Shabbos.
However, in these cases in which he did not specifically tell the Gentile
to carry out [these transactions] on Shabbos, it is only forbidden when he
gives him the money or the article on Friday. If they are given to the
Gentile beforehand, it is permitted (2). It is, however, preferable not to
live in a city whose primary market day is on Shabbos, because it would be
virtually impossible to avoid violations. However, if the market place is
not located in the Jewish neighborhood, there is no reason to refrain
from living in that city.
FOOTNOTES:
(1) As we saw in yesterday's Halacha, one of the criteria allowing a
Gentile to perform work for a Jew on Shabbos is that the Gentile must be
working for his own benefit, for example, to receive payment.
When a Jew employs a Gentile, the nature of the agreement will determine
whether work performed by the Gentile on Shabbos is considered to be for
his own benefit, and therefore permitted, or work performed as the agent of
the Jew, and forbidden. There are two types of employment arrangements
which are relevant to our discussion:
a) A "Kablan" (contractor): a person hired to complete a specific job, like
a mechanic.
b) A "Schir Yom" (lit: "Hired for the day"): a person hired for a specific
amount of time to perform various tasks, like a secretary, who's wage is
time-related and not tied to the completion of a specific job.
A Gentile contractor hired by a Jew before Shabbos is allowed to choose to
work on the job on Shabbos, because his intention is to complete the job in
order to get paid, and he is therefore seen as working for his own benefit.
A Gentile "Sechir Yom", on the other hand, is being paid to do whatever the
Jew needs, without a specific task to complete, and therefore, looks much
more like an agent of the Jew. The Sages therefore prohibited the work of a
"Sechir Yom" on Shabbos (there are other explanations of the difference
between a Kablan and a Sechir Yom, however I felt that this was the simplest).
(2) The Mishnah Berurah (307:15) disagrees with the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch
in this case, and rules that if it is not possible to accomplish the job
without working on Shabbos, then it is as if he explicitly instructed the
Gentile to work on Shabbos, and is therefore forbidden even if the job was
assigned before Friday.
