Israel Matzav: The Shabbos goy

The Shabbos goy

Many of you have probably heard the term 'Shabbos goy,' many more of you may not know precisely what it means. I'm going to explain it to you and then give you a specific example. There are certain types of activities that Jews are not allowed to do on the Sabbath. Sometimes, we need those activities performed on our behalf. The person who performs them is called a 'Shabbos goy.'

For example, there was one wintry Friday night when we lived in America that someone bumped into the thermostat and accidentally turned the heat down to an intolerable level. I went next door to the non-Jewish neighbor and asked his 16-year old son to come to our house. The boy came in and I told him that it was cold in the house and the thermostat had been turned down. He looked at me like I was an idiot and said "let me show you how to turn it up." He turned it up to a reasonable temperature. We gave him a piece of cake and sent him on his way.

But finding a Shabbos goy in a neighborhood like our Jerusalem neighborhood - where the entire neighborhood is populated by religious Jews - is much more complicated. So much so that one of the synagogues has taken upon itself to house a Shabbos goy within the synagogue in case someone needs one. We have used the Shabbos goy in the past, but it had been a couple of years. This past Saturday, we needed the Shabbos goy again.

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Israel Matzav: The Shabbos goy