Each of the following questions is an actual situation that people have asked me:

Question #1: My car needs repair work and the most convenient time to drop it off at Angelo’s Service Station is Friday afternoon. May I bring Angelo the car then knowing that he is going to repair it on Shabbos?

Question #2: A gala Shabbos sheva brachos is being held at an apartment several flights of stairs below street level, a very common situation in hilly Yerushalayim. The kallah’s elderly grandmother arrived before Shabbos by elevator, intending to return home by using the Shabbos elevator (a subject we will discuss at a different time iy’H). Indeed, the building’s elevator actually has a Shabbos setting, but we discovered on Shabbos that the Shabbos setting is not working. How does Grandma get home?

Writing and erasing are two of the thirty-nine melachos of Shabbos that were performed in the building of the mishkan. Each board used in constructing the mishkan was marked so that it would be returned to its correct place when the mishkan was reassembled (Rashi Shabbos 73a; Gemara Shabbos 103b). (The Talmud Yerushalmi emphasizes the importance that each board be kept in the same place [Shabbos 12:3].) The numbers written on the boards were also sometimes erased if someone made a mistake.

In our parsha, the midwives tell Pharaoh that the Jewish women handle their own childbirths without any assistance. Such women would have no need to go to the hospital on Shabbos. However, the rest of us need to know what to do about Shabbos emergencies. I once received the following communication: “As an active member [...]