[Avodah] free public transport on Shabbos/Yomtov

[Chana Luntz]

>>Nor does he say "*only* in streets...". 

Nor does he say "only" driven by a non-Jew, and yet that is clearly what
he means. He says driven by a non-Jew in streets in which the majority
dwellers are non-Jewish.

<<I think the expression "in streets" refers to the whole line, not to
each individual stretch of road along it. Because I don't see how it
matters why the bus is going along that stretch of road when it could
have been rerouted to go along a parallel road; what matters is why the
bus is running from the beginning of the line to the end of the line at
all, and that is for all the people who have occasion to travel along
any part of it.>>

Rav Uzziel explains why he thinks it is important, because the non-Jewish
driver will, if the relevant street is majority Jewish, or the area is a
Jewish area, which is what he means when he talks about a Jewish yishuv,
see himself as servicing Jews. He clearly doesn't mean a Jewish yishuv
in the Israeli sense, because he starts the teshuva by rejecting those
people who have disallowed such transport on the grounds of "lest it
might go outside the techum shabbas". He says
ואין מקום לאסרם משום שמא יצא בהם חוץ לתחום, הואיל וקרונות אלו מיוחדות
להתהלך בתוך העיר באזור המיוחד להם,
And there is no place to forbid because they go out in them outside of
the techum, since these wagons are specifically to go inside the city,
in an area that is specific for them.

So we are discussing a city, and a city in which there might or might not
be "Jewish settlements". But clearly there are also non-Jewish areas,
and bus lines run by non-Jews, for non-Jews, and not a Jewish majority.

>Wait a minute. He doesn't say anything about where it stops. Just where
it goes.

Goes and returns might be better literally, but I think that makes it
worse for you. Ie that means it is forbidden when- hen holechet ushuvot
b'makom sheyesh bo yishuv Yehudi, if it merely goes and returns in a
place where there are Jews dwelling, even when the Jews there can't even
get on. I assume though he means it has to have a potential to stop,
since the next line says "because for sure that the non-Jew will intend in
this journey of his (note the singular, it is what the particular non-Jew
driving is deemed to intend) to cause Jews to travel. שודאי הוא שהלא -
יהודי מכוין בנסיעתו זאת להנוסעים היהודים The driver is not worried
about how far they travel, or the rest of the line. He is intending
(well hoping) for Jews to travel. And he can't cause Jews to travel if
he doesn't have a stop for them. But if you want to have it that Rav
Uzziel would forbid even an express bus that passes through a Jewish
area without a designated stop, because other people might think the bus
is servicing the Jewish area (even though the driver knows it doesn't),
then that is another potential interpretation. I don't think Rav Uzziel
was going that far, however.

<< There's nothing about stopping in that passage, or in anything you've
quoted. And by ???? ????? I think he means a Jewish population. >>

Not sure what you mean here. In Israel, every city where you have no
worry about going outside the techum has, as far as I am aware, a Jewish
majority of the total population (Jerusalem, Haifa, etc) even where
they have non Jewish areas in them and private Arab bus companies. If
that is what is meant by Jewish population, ie majority population of
the city in total is Jewish and we are talking about Eretz Yisrael,
then the permitted transport would be a null set, and there would be no
need for caveats, or suggestions of permissibility. In chutz L'aretz,
you have cities where the majority of the total population is non Jewish,
but local areas where the majority is Jewish. But if all we are worried
about is the total population of the city, then there is no reason for
any of the caveats either - it is all generally permissible in chutz
l'aretz, as the majority population of every city outside Israel in the
world, including, I think New York, is not Jewish. This I think is your
position, but you don't need any of the detail of this teshuva.

But, if you hold, as it seems to me straightforward that Rav Uzziel
holds, that even within a city you need to look at the local areas,
then you need to distinguish between streets (which I believe is why he
specifically used the term) where the majority are Jewish, and streets
where the majority are not. As you point out, using the term street
dwellers might leave one to think that it is only when people live on
the specific street that count, to exclude streets that are just Jewish
shops, and no dwellers, whereas I understand Rav Uzziel to be including
the surrounding areas that are serviced by that bus, and that is why he
sometimes uses the term place וגם במקום שאין בו רוב ישראל ("and even
in a place where the majority is not Jewish" ...) . And that leads to
a nuanced psak, which needs all these caveats. Even where the majority
of the city is not Jewish, while the bus is running in the Jewish area,
it is considered by the driver, and the bus company, to be servicing
Jews, since the majority of that area is Jewish, even if no Jews are
actually serviced at all. And that makes use of such a bus forbidden.

<<That's why it's certain that the bus must be running for that
population. Also when he says "all the residents are not Jewish" I
don't think he can possibly mean that literally; he means the majority.>>

I agree with you that the use of "all" in his summary clearly doesn't
mean all, as he modifies it in the earlier parts of the teshuva by
frequently using the word majority (and otherwise the summary and the
teshuva would conflict). But I think it inescapable that his view is
that if the bus is running in Jewish areas, ie areas where the majority
are Jewish, then the bus is considered at that point to be running for
the Jewish population there, regardless of where it runs before or after.

> If the line exists to serve Jews, then it is not a non-Jewish line.

<<Sure it is. If it's owned and run by non-Jews, as is the case
everywhere in chu"l (except the frum community buses, which obviously
don't run on Shabbos so they're not an issue), then it's a non-Jewish
line, even if it exists primarily to serve Jews.>>

That might be your view, but it is not Rav Uzziel's view. He has three
criteria, not two. A) owned by non-Jews; b) run by non-Jews; c) doesn't
go in Jewish areas. The first two don't need much stating (although he
has a quick line at the beginning to make it clear that if the buses
are owned by Jews, then the fact that the drivers are non-Jews is not
enough. And in chul given that there are enough Jewish taxi companies,
there is no reason why there couldn't be a bus company owner who happened
to be Jewish). The last criteria takes a lot more explaining, because
clearly it is more complicated. He has to justify it and explain what
he means and how he got to it. BTW, this understanding would mean that
it presumably would be possible to catch an Arab bus that only ran
in Arab areas of say Jerusalem or Haifa (assuming anybody wanted to,
in order to go to shul, and they couldn't find a local shul). But I
really don't think that was the scenario he was thinking of, but rather
the common chul scenario of being too far from the only shul in town.
Because criteria d) is a mitzvah like going to shul (which presumes
that going to shul is a mitzvah, about which there is also some debate,
but it would seem Rav Uzziel is on the side that it is).

> Zev Sero            Wishing everyone a *healthy* and happy summer

Regards
Chana