Years ago,
while sitting at a Shabbat dinner in Jerusalem with our children, Charlie suddenly started to feel horribly and
shake visibly. He vocalized that he thought something was terribly wrong and
that perhaps he was having a stroke.
There was no question at that moment that our son who is shomer Shabbat
would go to the phone, call the magen david adom number and summon an ambulance
to come to the street by the house to whisk Charlie and me off to the Hadassah
Hospital. Similarly, it was no surprise
that the kippah wearing, Sabbath observant emergency room doctors were busy
treating patients on that Friday night. You may say, of course those
individuals would break the laws of Shabbat, because they were involved in a
matter of pikuach nefesh, saving a life and saving a life trumps all
observances proscribed in Jewish law.
The
observance of the commandments is not to be taken lightly, after all in this
week’s parasha, we read in 18:5 “guard my statutes and laws that a person shall
do them and live in them…I am the lord.”
Several have
written commentaries about this very passage. When Nachmanides commented on
this verse, he wrote about the purpose of the mishpatim….the laws. He pointed out that these laws help us create
a civil society, one in which we do not harm one another and where we can
ultimately live in peace together. The mishpatim relate to our relationships
with one another. Nachmanides, however,
did not speak about the chukim, the statutes which are commanded with no
apparent reason for their observance other than the fact that we are commanded
to observe them.
In the book
of Deuteronomy 30:15, we are told, “See I set before you this day life and
prosperity, death and adversity For I command you this day to love the Lord
your G-d to walk in His ways and to keep his commandments, His laws, and His
rules that you may thrive and increase , and that the Lord your G-d may bless
you in the land that you are about to enter and possess.” Such a statement is very precise about
following the chukim and mishpatim. So
where do we see evidence about preserving life? If we’re told told to keep
G-d’s commandments, laws and rules then where did the idea of not observing
them come from in order to save a life? Such discussion emanated from the
Rabbis who presented arguments for such in the Talmud. They were concerned with explaining the
words, “live in them.”
In Masechet Sanhedrin 74A, Rabbi Shimon points out that
if an individual says to you, eat this pork or I will kill you, you should eat
the pork, breaking the laws of kashrut to save your own life. This argument
goes on to say that one must not fast on Yom Kippur if it will endanger their
life. Since we are to live by the
commandments, and not die by them, we must even break the laws of Shabbat if
observance will endanger a life. It is
not that we are being lenient about observing the mitzvot, it is that we are
strict about saving a life, pikuach nefesh.
Some might
think that no matter what you must do to save your own life the principle of
pikuach nefesh comes into play. In actuality, preserving one’s life does not
take precedence over all commandments.
There are 3 commandments which cannot be broken even if we are told that
we will be killed if we do not abandon them….they are idolatry, murder, and
having immoral sexual relationships. If
someone says they will kill you if you do not rape another individual, or they
will kill you if you do not worship idols, or they will kill you if you do not
kill someone else, then you are not permitted to save your life by committing
those acts. In effect, what Judaism is saying is that life at all costs is not
a Jewish value. We value life because as
a way of sanctifying G-d’s presence in our world, as the Source of all life and
there are boundaries that must be preserved in order for that sanctification to
take place.
Rabbi Meier Schweiger of the Pardes Institute, said it best when he noted that the purpose
of the laws and statutes is to push us to be the best we can be, to help us
maximize our human potential, as being created in the image of G-d. The laws and statutes are a way to curb
whatever negative tendencies we might have and provide us with a way to live in
this world without destroying one another. They help us find a balance in life,
reminding us of what we can and cannot do; reminding us that although we value
life, we do not value it all costs. From
a Torah perspective, there are some actions and relationships which can be
damaging to our souls and must always be avoided in order for us to truly live
by the chukim and mishpatim , the statutes and laws.
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