[Avodah] Driving on Shabbos

[Michael Makovi]

> Someone wrote that RSZA paskens that if a car stops you on Shabbos to ask
> directions
> you should remind him (or her) that it's Shabbos and then give him
> directions to limit the
> chillul Shabbos.
>
> What about dan l'chaf z'chus?  Assume it's a goy.
>
> ri

Maybe this is too unrealistic; i.e. when I look out on Shabbat at the
hundreds and hundreds of cars driving on the highway between Jerusalem
and Tel Aviv, I KNOW they're not gentiles. Such a "dan l'chaf z'chut"
is outrageously unrealistic. True, you are to assume even unrealistic
scenarios, but this is almost as unrealistic as assuming he's a
Martian.

Or perhaps such a dan l'chaf z'chut ironically leads to a negative
result: if you assume he's a gentile, and don't mention Shabbat, then
you've lost a chance to remind him of Yiddishkeit. Heck, we could dan
l'chaf z'chut that everyone in the Reform temple is a gentile, but
then R' Toby would have no one to invite for Shabbat, and she'd be
lonely (joke); seriously, we'd lose the chance for kiruv.

Or perhaps you can assume he's a Jew but specifically a tinok
she-nishba, and that's your dan l'chaf z'chut.

Mikha'el Makovi