[Avodah] taker but not giver

[Chana Luntz]

RZS writes: 

<<What do you mean, my perception?   Are you seriously asserting that 
breaking shabbos to heal nochrim *was* permitted before 1800?!  Every 
single posek before that date explicitly says it is forbidden!   I can 
explain what changed, but you can't ignore that it *did* change!  You 
can't pretend that this is an old halacha.   And what authority did the 
poskim of the Enlightenment have to permit what Chazal and all the Rishonim
and Acharonim forbade, if *not* because they determined that it was pikuach
nefesh, so the long-standing heter for that applied?>>

I am slightly baffled by this discussion because I thought it was it was
explicit in the gemara Avodah Zara 26a:
Rav Yosef thought to say that acting as midwife on Shabbat was permitted
because of eiva.  Abaye said to him, she can say to her, for us who keep
Shabbat we will violate Shabbat, for you who do not keep Shabbat we will not
violate Shabbat.  Rav Yosef thought to say,  nursing for money is permitted
because of eiva. Abaye said to him if she is not married she can say she
wants to get married, and if she is married she can say she does not wish to
be repulsive to her husband".

Ie Rav Yosef here clearly contemplates a Jewish midwife breaking Shabbat to
help a non-Jew give birth because of eiva (this being the most common
scenario where a non-Jew would be looking to a Jew for medical treatment).
Now Abaye says that is not necessary because the midwife can say something
that gets rid of the eiva, but he does not dispute the underlying assumption
which is that if there was eiva, and her statement was not enough to take it
away, it would be permissible for the midwife to act as Rav Yosef clearly
held.

Surely the most that can be said to have changed in or since the 1800s is
that the non-Jews were/are no longer accepting of the "for us who keep
Shabbat we will violate Shabbat" as good enough - that the social contract
in more recent times expects Jews to both give and take, and their religious
beliefs about Shabbat do not exempt them from that social contract.  In the
times of Abaye - clearly there was no such sense of contract - it was clear
it is all about money (she is only allowed to do it for payment, not for
free, and she can turn it down for free saying I need to work, but she can't
turn it down for money if she is a professional midwife - even though she is
directly enabling Avodah zara, which is how the piece starts).  Given that
nobody was taking money for working on Shabbat, that I don't work Shabbat
for anybody (but I do it for free for Jews so they can keep Shabbat) might
well have dissipated the eiva.  If the Chachamim of the 1800s, or any
period, decide that actually, saying that "for us who keep Shabbat we will
violate Shabbat, for you who do not keep Shabbat we will not violate
Shabbat" - does not dissipate the eiva, then surely the din falls back onto
that of Rav Yosef, who permits it.

Zev Sero            ?Were we directed from Washington when to sow

Shabbat Shalom

Chana