Sanctity of Life and Sanctity of the Sabbath

There is a question in the Talmud regarding the source that allows one to desecrate the Shabbos in order to save human life.

We will be focusing on one particular opinion taught to us in the Talmud. The Talmud was written almost 2000 years ago. It is mentioned according to one opinion in the Talmud, that the source from which we derive the law that sanctity of life, and therefore saving a life overrides the laws of Shabbos from the verse that teaches us the sanctity of Shabbos itself. The verse tells us as follows. We shall observe the Shabbos in order to perform the Shabbos throughout the generations. This teaches us that one should violate one Shabbos by saving a life so that the person whose life was saved may live to observe many Shabbosos. The implication from the Gemara is that if we know for certain that the person whose life is being saved will not live until the next Shabbos, one is forbidden to violate the Shabbos on his behalf.

The commentators question this theory from the Gemara that we learned earlier in Tractate Yoma 71, that states that we allow the Shabbos to be violated even if the person for whom the Shabbos is being violated will only live for a few hours.

It is worth noting that the Ohr HaChaim in Parashas Ki Sisa in verse 31:16 writes that we do not violate the Shabbos to save a life if the person will only live for a few more hours. The ruling of the Ohr HaChaim would appear to contradict the accepted law.

The Minchas Chinuch in mitzvah 32 resolves this issue by writing that we allow the laws of Shabbos to be violated to save the life of a person even for a few hours, if a rabbinical prohibition will be violated. It is therefore necessary to make the biblical prohibition into a rabbinic one, otherwise, we do not allow one to violate the Shabbos laws to save a life if it is only for a few hours. The verse quoted earlier which teaches us that one can violate the Shabbos laws to save ones life so that one will be able to observe many Shabbosos refers to violating biblical prohibitions.

The Minchas Chinuch concludes that the final halacha is that one can violate even the biblical prohibitions of Shabbos to save a life, even if the person whose life is being saved will only live for a few hours. This is based on the exposition of the Gemara that derives the source for saving a life on Shabbos and overriding the laws of Shabbos from the verse that states you shall guard My decrees and My laws that man shall carry out and by which he shall live.

Article Source: http://www.bluearticles.com

Billy Kite is a researcher writing on behalf of the source for Gemara Brochos - Shema Tefilla , classes, as well as Daf Yomi gemara, classes with Rabbi Avrohom Adler.

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