Minhag Manhattan: Can the Doorman Press the Elevator Button for Me on Shabbat?
This is probably the most common Shabbat question for those of us who live in New York City apartment buildings: May I ask the doorman to press the elevator button for me on Shabbat?
The starting point is that we generally may not ask a non-Jew to perform prohibited activity for us on Shabbat. This prohibition, known as amira l’nochri, is itself rabbinic. But there is a relevant exception. One may ask a non-Jew to perform an action that is itself prohibited only rabbinically when there is a mitzvah need, some degree of illness or distress, or some other significant need. We call this shvut d’shvut: one rabbinic prohibition layered on top of another. The act itself is only rabbinically prohibited, and asking the non-Jew to do it is another rabbinic prohibition. In certain circumstances, the Sages did not impose both layers of restriction (See Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 307:5).
So what about electricity? I don’t want to turn this into a lengthy essay about why electricity is prohibited on Shabbat, which is a large subject of its own. Suffice it to say that there is a major debate about the matter. The Chazon Ish famously considered completing an electrical circuit to involve the biblical prohibition of boneh (building). Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach strongly disagreed with that analysis and argued that, absent some other prohibited result such as producing heat or fire, there is no biblical melacha inherent in completing an electrical circuit. There are many other opinions, but for purposes of answering practical halakhic questions, I generally treat ordinary use of electricity that does not produce fire, significant heat, or some other independently prohibited result as a rabbinic prohibition. That is an important premise of everything that follows here. Someone who follows the Chazon Ish’s approach to electricity would surely reach a different conclusion.
Assuming, then, that the relevant electrical activity of the elevator is rabbinic, asking the doorman to press the button gives us precisely the classic case of shvut d’shvut: the use of the electricity is rabbinic, and amira l’nochri is rabbinic.
The question is, then, whether there is sufficient need here to invoke this rule. Certainly, going to shul to daven or to learn Torah qualifies as a mitzvah purpose. But so are other common Shabbat activities. Returning home for a Shabbat meal, going home to rest, or otherwise enabling oneself to spend Shabbat normally can also be part of the mitzvah of Oneg Shabbat. The Aruch HaShulchan, in explaining this law, explicitly writes that anything needed for hana’at Shabbat (enjoyment of Shabbat) can qualify as a mitzvah need for purposes of shvut d’shvut (O.C. 307:17–18).
There are some more qualifications, though. Shvut d’shvut should only be used when there is a need to rely on it, and the same result cannot reasonably be accomplished without it. For example, if someone lives on the second floor and is perfectly capable of taking the stairs, it is hard to argue that an elevator is really needed. On the other hand, asking someone to walk thirty flights of stairs every time they leave or return to their apartment is a very different matter. The same is obviously true for an elderly person, someone who has difficulty walking, or a parent with young children or a stroller. I don’t think there is a halakhically meaningful number of flights at which this becomes the case universally. Five flights might be nothing to one person and extremely difficult for another.
Another important point: when the conditions for shvut d’shvut are satisfied, there is no need for an elaborate hint. People sometimes think that rather than telling the doorman, "Please press 11," they need to say something like, "It would certainly be nice if I could get to the eleventh floor..." That is not necessary. The entire point of the principle of shvut d’shvut is that in these circumstances one may simply ask a non-Jew to perform the rabbinically prohibited act.
So, in sum, where the elevator is genuinely needed for a mitzvah or for the normal enjoyment of Shabbat, it is permitted to ask the doorman to press the button.
Personally, I live on the eleventh floor. I am perfectly happy to run down eleven flights of stairs, and I usually do. Walking back up eleven flights, however, is another story. On Shabbat, I ask the doorman to press the elevator button for me on the way up. If my wife has a stroller, she will use the elevator going down as well using the same halakhic mechanism.
One final word about these halakhot in general: our goal is not to search for ways around Shabbat restrictions whenever they are inconvenient. But halakha also does not require us to turn living in a high-rise apartment into an endurance sport. The category of shvut d’shvut bimkom mitzvah exists precisely because Chazal themselves recognized that rabbinic prohibitions operate differently when two rabbinic layers come together with a genuine Shabbat or mitzvah need.