Five Towns Jewish Times It was a bizarre exchange last Monday between Israel’s new finance
minister, Yair Lapid, and Moshe Gafni, Member of Knesset for the Degel
HaTorah party, who is now in the opposition. Gafni attacked Lapid for
posting on Facebook on Shabbos. Lapid responded, “I’m entitled to send
messages on Shabbat. I do not keep Shabbat. I don’t tell you what to do
on Shabbat, you don’t tell me what to do on Shabbat. I don’t ask you,
what does this say? I am entitled to post on Facebook whenever I want.”
(The exchange can be found 17 minutes at
youtube).
Seemingly, Moshe Gafni wished to score some political points with his
constituency by pointing out that Lapid had posted on Facebook on
Shabbos. In a sense, Gafni may be benefiting from Lapid’s Facebook post
on Shabbos. The question is whether what MK Gafni did is halachically
permitted. He must have seen the Lapid post in order to use it against
him. Does this constitute benefiting from the by-product of a Shabbos
violation—something called “maaseh Shabbos”?
To answer this question, we will begin with a general overview of
maaseh Shabbos and then apply it specifically to the case of Gafni and
Lapid.
The term “maaseh Shabbos” is, unfortunately, not one that is well
known in Torah-observant circles, but it is a concept with enormous
halachic ramifications. Literally, it means the by-products of Shabbos
violation. If someone had, chas v’shalom, violated Shabbos by cooking,
sewing, carrying, or planting, what is the halachic status of the
product of his Shabbos violation? May it be used by him? What about by
others? Does it make a difference if he actually did it for the others
as well? If so, is it forever forbidden to them? [...]