Halacha Date: 12 Tevet 5779 December 20 2018
Question: May one board an Israeli ship whose captain and crew are mostly Jewish if one knows that the voyage will continue on Shabbat as well?
Answer:
Boarding a Ship Traveling on Shabbat
The law of boarding a ship when one knows that the ship will be in the middle of the sea on Shabbat is not a simple one. However, if one is traveling in order to perform a Mitzvah, such as one traveling from a country outside of Israel to Israel, one may board the ship and embark on the voyage even on Friday. However, if the purpose of one’s trip is not to perform a Mitzvah and one is merely traveling for business and the like, one should only embark on this journey in the beginning of the week, i.e. Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday. There are certain situations which warrant beginning a sea voyage even on Wednesday (See Shulchan Aruch Chapter 248, Section 4).
If later, when Shabbat arrives, the ship’s crew has no choice but to desecrate the Shabbat due to life-threatening circumstances, they will indeed be permitted to do so, for nothing stands in the way of a life-threatening circumstance. For this reason, it was customary to continue to navigate the ship on Shabbat as well even if the ship’s crew was Jewish, for they did not have the ability to anchor in the middle of the sea and if they were to stop operating the vessel, this would create a dangerous situation.
Developments in Recent Generations
Nowadays, however, due to technological advances, it is certainly feasible for the captain of the ship to halt the vessel for the entire day of Shabbat by docking it temporarily in any given port along the route. If so, the custom to continue operating the vessel on Shabbat through Shabbat desecration is completely forbidden and there is no way to permit this.
Based on this, the Lubavitcher Rebbe zt”l (leader of the Chassidic court of Chabad) publicized his opinion decades ago to the rabbis of Israel where he writes that after consulting with experts in this field, there is no danger whatsoever for a ship to be halted in the middle of the sea on Shabbat, for there are so many docks and islands where they can stop along the way. He completely rejected the claim that the ship operates completely automatically on Shabbat, for experience has shown that this is incorrect.
He quoted his father-in-law, the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe zt”l, as saying that some claim that grounding the ship for the entire duration of Shabbat causes great financial loss to the State of Israel to which the Rebbe responded that this claim is tantamount to one trying to extinguish a fire using gasoline; although one wishes to extinguish the blaze, he is in fact fueling it even more. Similarly, when people use Shabbat desecration to prevent financial loss, they do not know that Shabbat is the source of all blessing and that desecrating it will cause much steeper loses for the state.
Many other great luminaries from the previous generation, including Hagaon Harav Yitzchak Yaakov Weiss zt”l (in his Minchat Yitzchak, Volume 2, Chapter 106) rule likewise. Thus, Maran zt”l writes (in his Chazon Ovadia-Shabbat part 1, page 112) that it is not permitted to travel aboard such ships when it is known that they will eventually desecrate the Shabbat. He further rebuffs the opinion of one of the luminaries of the generation who has written several reasons for leniency regarding this matter. Maran zt”l concludes by writing that if one is G-d-fearing and abstains from traveling in this manner, he shall surely be blessed from above.
Summary: One should not travel aboard a Jewish ship if one knows that during the journey, they will desecrate Shabbat without any tangible concern for a life-threatening situation.
