rabbi, the elevator on shabbos raises something i never understood. people press the button with an elbow, or ask a non jew to press it. but if electricity is not a real melacha (and this site holds it is at most derabbanan, maybe not even that), why does the elbow help anything? and why does a non jew pressing help?
1. shinui. the idea that doing an action differently, with an elbow or the back of the hand, changes the din. does a shinui turn a Torah melacha into something permitted, or does it only help on a derabbanan? and if the elevator ride is the same either way, what did the elbow actually fix?
2. electricity. if pressing a button is not a melacha d’oraisa at all, then what are the elbow and the non jew accomplishing? are we solving a derabbanan problem, a minhag problem, or a maris ayin problem?
3. amira l’akum. asking a non jew to do something i cannot do. what is the Torah logic of that, if it is assur for me, why is it fine to have him do it for my benefit? is the point that shabbos is commanded on us and not on him, or is it a legal fiction we lean on? and what are the limits, can i ask him to cook for me too?
4. gramma and timers. shabbos elevators that stop on every floor by themselves are the standard heter in hotels and hospitals. if a timer doing the whole thing is fine, what exactly is the Torah trying to protect, the action or the atmosphere?
5. the real question underneath. is shabbos about avoiding specific actions, or about living a different kind of day? and if it is the atmosphere, do the workarounds protect it or destroy it?
basically, when the workarounds work, what did they actually do?
The first thing is to understand what a shinui actually does. A Torah melachah is the melachah done in its normal way, the way people normally perform that action. The Mishnah itself gives the example of carrying with one’s elbow or foot and says פטור, שלא הוציא כדרך המוציאין, because he did not carry in the normal manner (Shabbat 92a). That does not normally make a Torah melachah permitted. It lowers it from the Torah level to a rabbinic prohibition. But if the original act was already only rabbinic, doing it with a genuine shinui can create another rabbinic layer. That is the basic idea of שבות דשבות. In situations of a mitzvah, illness, a legitimate need, and similar circumstances, Chazal allowed such combinations. Shulchan Aruch gives precisely this rule regarding asking a non-Jew to perform something that is itself only rabbinically prohibited when there is צורך הרבה, a legitimate need, or a mitzvah (O.C. 307:5).
So if you assume, for purposes of the question, that pushing an elevator button is itself only derabbanan, pushing it in a genuinely unusual way such as with the elbow gives you the same basic structure. Asking a non-Jew also adds another rabbinic layer because amirah l’akum is itself a shvut. The non-Jew is not commanded to keep Shabbat, so his pressing the button is not your Torah melachah. Chazal nevertheless prohibited simply telling a non-Jew to do melachah for you, and then they themselves created circumstances where that prohibition is relaxed. That is why you cannot ordinarily say, “Since a non-Jew may cook, let him cook my lunch on Shabbat.” Cooking is a Torah melachah, and ordinary amirah l’akum is still prohibited. But where the underlying action is itself only rabbinic, we have the classic shvut d’shvut structure.
According to the position I follow, however, the elevator example is really easier than all of this. I do not consider an ordinary electrical button press by itself to be one of the thirty-nine melachot, and in this type of elevator situation I do not see a melachah being performed at all, not even De’Rabanan. So I would not require the elbow in the first place. I am explaining why people who do consider the button at least a rabbinic prohibition use the elbow or a non-Jew. Within their assumptions, those devices have a halachic function. They are not magic and they are not pretending the elevator ride changed. What changed is the halachic character of the person’s action.
Timers and automatic systems make the idea even clearer. If I arrange something before Shabbat and it operates automatically afterward, there may be no human action on Shabbat at all. That is not necessarily even the technical category of grama. The machine is simply doing what it was programmed to do. A preprogrammed elevator that stops at every floor is therefore fundamentally different from a person standing there operating it on Shabbat. Any additional questions about what the passenger’s weight causes are separate questions.
The larger point is that Shabbat is both a system of specific melachot and a day with a completely different character. The Torah gave us thirty-nine categories of creative work based upon the Mishkan, and Chazal built protective rules around them so that Shabbat would remain Shabbat. But Chazal did not intend those protections to make ordinary life impossible. They built limitations, exceptions, shinui, shvut d’shvut, grama, amirah l’akum in appropriate circumstances, and other mechanisms into the system itself. These are not cheats around Shabbat. They are part of the Halachah of Shabbat.
The purpose is ultimately much greater than avoiding buttons. Shabbat is our weekly testimony that Hashem created the world and ceased creating on the seventh day. We imitate that cessation and thereby create a day of connection. Think of an anniversary. The dinner, the gift and the special evening are not valuable because eating dinner is inherently profound. They are valuable because they express and renew the relationship. Shabbat works similarly. We stop the melachot, step outside the ordinary week, and once every seven days renew that relationship with Hashem.