Gentiles, Jews, and Shabbat, Part 2
Parashat Pekudei
Parashat Pekudei
Ethan Tucker
In part 1, we saw the broad prohibition in many early sources of benefiting from Gentile melakhah on Shabbat. How was it possible to move from the broad prohibition on even benefiting from Gentile melakhah, to the world of the Shabbes Goy, a state of affairs where Jews regularly deployed Gentiles to do forbidden tasks for them on Shabbat?