Are Jews required to save a non-Jew's life on the Sabbath?

[danholo]

A Jew is required to save a non-Jewish life just as much as he is required to save a Jewish life, with or without notice from "goyim."

An extension of this myth, which Shahak embraces, is that Shabbat may only be violated to save a Jewish life. Again, this is a perversion of true Jewish law. Shahak's story about the orthodox Jew who left a non-Jew to die on Shabbat rather than call an ambulance -- in line with the Chief Rabbinate's ruling -- is problematic for two reasons.

1. The chief rabbinate of Israel has ruled very explicitly that Shabbat must be violated for the purpose of saving any human life, be it Jewish or not. They phrased this ruling very carefully, because there is a belief among the more ignorant in the orthodox community that this is not the case.

2. The Summer 1966 edition of the magazine Tradition recounts an interview with Mr. Shahak who, when asked to identify the mysterious orthodox Jew who would have let that man die, acknowledges that the Jew of whom he spoke did not exist.

I've located the article in Tradition. Volume 8, Number 2, pp. 58-65. Shahak's admission that he lied about the Jew who would not save the Gentile is documented therein, as is his lie concerning the Chief Rabbinate's ruling. (pg. 59) Additionally, the responsum on saving lives on Shabbat is summarized with appropriate quotations and citations of Torah, Talmud and various post-Talmudic authorities.

http://www.lukeford.net/profiles/pro...ael_shahak.htm

[walesdave]

I have to say I've got no problem with Jews ( I love them so much, my wife and I made a baby one!!), I enjoy Arab company tremendously, I'll even have a drink with a Catholic, but the Shas party turn my stomach. They openly defy equality laws and when the government tells them to comply- they threaten to quit the coalition and bring the government down. I hate racial/ religious generalisations with a passion- Shas is the only group that brings out the bigot in me. What makes it interesting is that my brother-in-law is a Shas supporter, and we both get along really well.

[danholo]

Originally posted by walesdave
I have to say I've got no problem with Jews ( I love them so much, my wife and I made a baby one!!), I enjoy Arab company tremendously, I'll even have a drink with a Catholic, but the Shas party turn my stomach. They openly defy equality laws and when the government tells them to comply- they threaten to quit the coalition and bring the government down. I hate racial/ religious generalisations with a passion- Shas is the only group that brings out the bigot in me. What makes it interesting is that my brother-in-law is a Shas supporter, and we both get along really well.

It's odd.. Jews are not allowed to be racists.. And these religious Jews are!
I guess they're really hooked on nationalism and keeping Israel its Jewish identity by the most extreme means. But not all Haredim are racist either...

[danholo]

Originally posted by Philip


I'm afraid that I find that to be a disingenuous answer. I think I have demonstrated, in agreement with your statement, that Israel's High Court has ruled that Israel's laws prohibit discrimination against non-Jews in allocating state land. I think that I have also demonstrated, however, that the High Court's ruling on this matter has been ignored, a matter which you side-stepped. Of what concern is "the law" when it does not apply?

Since there are clearly, as evidenced by the continued denial of a lease of state land in Katzir to the Arab Kadaanan family, instances of discrimination against non-Jews in the allocation of state lands --even in defiance of a High Court ruling -- will you declare that you do not accept these practices either?



I do not accept what the community of Katzir has done.



I would certainly prefer to learn about Judaism directly, but I can't because I don't know Hebrew.


This is false. I don't know Hebrew and I have been studying Judaism these past 5 months. There are many books on Judaism that are in English.
No where do they say not to save a Gentiles life. A Gentile's life is as precious as a Jews. This is the truth in Judaism.


(And what if it is not Yom Kippur? -- what is your source for this unusually specific pronouncement?)

I used Yom Kippur as an example, since it is the holiest day for Jews and like a Shabat.



Shahak apparently was accurate in his quote of Maimonides, whom I understand to be regarded as the most important of all Talmudic scholars -- I followed your links and the nearest thing to a refutation of the Maimonides quote about the prohibition against saving a Gentile was a statement about how a man's virtues are timeless but his vices belong only to the age he finds himself in, which I took to be a verification. On this matter, it seems that Shahak told the truth.


Yes. You are right. I will have to go ask a Rabbi about this.


Also, I think Shahak has been pretty clear that he was looking to the influences and attitudes conveyed by traditional Judaism, and not insisting that the anti-Gentile pronouncements were religiously followed by Israel (though apparently they are religiously followed by certain sects).


There are lots of sects in Israel. I am least fond of the one's who hate Arabs by following Meir Kahane's interpretation of Torah.


And, if we read carefully, we can see that the extension of pikuach nefesh to cover Gentile as well as Jewish life can be seen (not must be seen, but can be seen) as just an indirect means to serve Jewish interests. While one of your links proclaimed that the Rabbinic Council had, contrary to Shahak's claims, ruled that Gentile lives as well as Jewish lives should be actively protected, Shahak's take on this is "They added much sanctimonious twaddle to the effect that if the consequence of such an act puts Jews in danger, the violation of the Sabbath is permitted, for their sake." And the excerpt from the Talmud that I re-quoted from Shahak earlier speaks of "the Gentiles in whose [protective] shade we, the people of Israel, are exiled" -- is it for their own sake that such Gentile lives are to be valued, or only because of the '[protective] shade' that they provide to Jews?


Pikuach nefesh extends to everyone everywhere. That is the way I see it and that is what I have come to learn from my study of Judaism. Israel Shahak really hates Jews for some reason by spewing this bile.
What excrept ot the Talmud is Shahak quoting? I can tell you that Shahak was no Jewish scholar.


Finally, I point to Miriam's post in this thread:

This is not a statement that Jewish interests must be balanced against non-Jewish interests, but rather a statement that Jewish interests must be served, and all else be damned. Will you disavow this sentiment, Danholo?

I'll have to consult a Rabbi concerning Deuteronomy 23:20 if this is what you are implying. If it is truly what the literal interpretation implies, yes I disavow this.

Thank G-d there is www.askmoses.com

[Philip]

Danholo, thank you for your responses. I appreciate your honesty and I perceive that you are a good person; I won't hold it against you if you do not return this sentiment.

Originally posted by danholo
I don't know Hebrew and I have been studying Judaism these past 5 months. There are many books on Judaism that are in English.
No where do they say not to save a Gentiles life. A Gentile's life is as precious as a Jews. This is the truth in Judaism.

I submit that by studying Judaism through English translations, you are ultimately getting a second-hand account, as I am. Of course your study is more valid than mine, because my only concern is with particular aspects and not with the whole. I hope that you are right about pikuach nefresh. There are awful things in the literature of most religions, I expect, and it is not particularly damning to Judaism that it is no exception. I think that it is damning, however, when those awful things are accepted and followed.

Pikuach nefesh extends to everyone everywhere. That is the way I see it and that is what I have come to learn from my study of Judaism. Israel Shahak really hates Jews for some reason by spewing this bile.
What excrept ot the Talmud is Shahak quoting? I can tell you that Shahak was no Jewish scholar.

My perception is that Israel Shahak was a humanist first and foremost, but also a Jew who insisted upon a form of Judaism that is compatible with his humanism, which he was content that he had found. What you see as his hatred of Jews, I see as his hatred of the anti-humanistic aspects of certain forms of Judaism, and his disappointment with those who accept them.

The lenient interpretation quoted by Shahak he noted as coming from Moses Rivkes, Be'er Haggolah on Shulhan 'Arukh, 'Hoshen Mishpat' 425. (I hope that means more to you than it does to me.) The strict interpretation (i.e., the prohibition against acting to save a non-Jew's life) he noted as coming from 'Yoreh De'ah' 158 and Shulhan 'Arukh in 'Hoshen Mishpat' 425. He also notes of the lenient interpretation that

Thus Professor Jacob Katz, in his Hebrew book Between Jews and Gentiles as well as in its more apologetic English version Exclusiveness and Tolerance, quotes only this passage verbatim and draws the amazing conclusion that 'regarding the obligation to save life no discrimination should be made between Jew and Christian'. He does not quote any of the authoritative views I have cited above or in the next section.

He also quotes a correspondence between an Israeli soldier and a rabbi (Shim'on Weiser), "published in the yearbook of one of the country's most prestigious religious colleges, Midrashiyyat No'am" in 1974. Most of the correspondence concerns halakhik "purity of arms" in wartime (...and concludes that, contrary to Israel's wartime rules for its troops, civilian Arabs encountered in wartime should always be killed unless it is quite clear that they have no evil intent -- let's leave this one as a separate matter for now), but part of it addresses the protection of life:

But we find the true explanation in the Tosalot. There [ .... ] we learn the following comment on the talmudic pronouncement that Gentiles who fall into a well should not be helped out, but neither should they be pushed into the well to be killed, which means that they should neither be saved from death nor killed directly.

[danholo]

I submit that by studying Judaism through English translations, you are ultimately getting a second-hand account, as I am.

Not actually. I read Torah with the original Hebrew and English side by side. I know a little Hebrew and read both languages together.

I don't really get this "second-hand" account.. I read many translations in English also and other books about Judaism.
None of them have anything "negative" in them.
I really would suggest that you would speak with a Rabbi about this.
www.askmoses.com is a great source. Sometimes though there might not be anyone to help and the connection could disconnect for some reason.

[ibrodsky]

Posted by philip: But when we get to the Talmud (and, not reading Hebrew, I am again reduced to relying on secondary sources, and at this point just a single secondary source), things run wild. Maimonides himself wrote

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"As for Gentiles with whom we are not at war ... their death must not be caused, but it is forbidden to save them if they are at the point of death; if, for example, one of them is seen falling into the sea, he should not be rescued, for it is written: 'neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy fellow'17 - but [a Gentile] is not thy fellow."

Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ibrodsky responds: I can't guarantee that Maimonides didn't say this.

However, I have read a good deal of Maimonides and I can say with certainty that this quote is at complete odds with his philosophy. It is almost certainly taken out of context.

Anyone who is seriously interested in understanding Maimonides should read: Maimonides: A Guide For Today's Perplexed by Kenneth Seeskin (head of Philosophy Dept. at Northwestern University.

The main theme of Maimonides philosophy was that religion must conform to facts and reason. If religion teaches moral behavior, then commandments or observances that require, invite, or could be misinterpreted to excuse immoral behavior have either been misinterpreted or are in need of repair.

Maimonides lived in the 12th century and much of his writing seems arcane to the modern reader. I confess the first time I read Guide for the Perplexed I completely misunderstood it. Maimonides' style was to state opposing arguments without comment or even any hint of where he stood; only after doing so would he begin to analyze the arguments.

So it is easy to pull statements out of his writing that are, in fact, simply restatements of what others believed or proposed.

The claim that Maimonides believed it was forbidden to save Gentiles at the point of death is absurd. Maimonides was a physician. Not only that -- he was court physician for the Sultan of Egypt!

As a non-observant Jew, I would not have spent as much time reading Maimonides as I have were it not for the fact that I became convinced he played a major role in freeing Jews, Christians, and everyone else from prejudice.

The fact that he would present arguments exactly as their proponents presented them before analyzing and refuting (or confirming) them only testifies to his scrupulous attachment to accuracy and fairness. Thomas Aquinas was an admirer of Maimonides and used similar logic, i.e., presenting a series of arguments, then a series of objections, and only after that drawing conclusions.

One can only conclude that Israel Shahak either 1) completely misunderstood Maimonides or 2) purposely used such quotes to give a false impression.

I have never read the Talmud, but I suspect that this same method of presenting, analyzing, and only then refuting ideas is used. Thus, most of the "quotations" that appear on Islamist and NeoNazi Websites are probably taken out of context.

[ibrodsky]

Here is an excerpt from a letter Maimonides wrote to another physician:

...I live in Fostat and the Sultan resides in Cairo; these two places are two Sabbath limits (marked off areas around a town within which it is permitted to move on the Sabbath; approximately one and a half miles) distant from each other. My duties to the Sultan are very heavy. I am obliged to visit him every day, early in the morning, and when he, any of his children or any one of his concubines are indisposed, I cannot leave Cairo but must stay during most of the day in the palace. It also frequently happens that one or two of the officers fall sick and I must attend to their healing. Hence, as a rule, every day, in the morning I go to Cairo. Even if nothing unusual happens there, I do not return to Fostat until the afternoon. Then I am famished, but I find the antechambers filled with people, both Jews and Gentiles, nobles and common people, judges and policemen, friends and enemies - a mixed multitude who await the time of my return.

I dismount from my animal, wash my hands, go forth to my patients and entreat them to bear with me while I partake of some light refreshment, the only meal I eat in 24 hours. Then I go to attend to my patients and write prescriptions and directions for their ailments. Patients go in and out until nightfall, and sometimes even, as the Torah is my faith, until two hours or more into the night. I converse with them and prescribe for them even while lying down from sheer fatigue. When night falls, I am so exhausted that I can hardly speak.

Clearly, most of Maimonides' patients were Gentiles.

[Mediocrates]

Miriam it is absolutely inappropriate to defend your religion to someone like Philp. Religion is not to be excused or defended in the face of people who hate it and use your own words against you.

[Philip]

Originally posted by danholo
Oh yeah. Where exactly did Maimonides write what he wrote? That saving of life thing I mean.

Shahak gives the reference as Mishneh Torah, 'Murderer' 4, 11.

[danholo]

This should be Murderer and Protection of Life - Rotze'ach u-Shemiras Nefesh 4:11:

éà[ç] ääåøâ ðôùåú, åìàäéå ùðé äòãéàøåÃÂéï ÃÂåúå ëÃÂçú, ÃÂìàøÃÂäå äÃÂçã ÃÂçø äÃÂçã, ÃÂÃ¥ ùäøâ áôðé ùðé òãéàáìàäúøÃÂä, ÃÂÃ¥ ùäåëçùå äòãéàááãé÷åú åìàäåëçùå áç÷éøåú--ëì ÃÂìå äøöçðéï, ëåðñéï ÃÂåúï ìëéôä åîÃÂëéìéï ÃÂåúï ìçàöø åîéàìçõ òã ùéöøå îòéäï; Ã¥ÃÂçø ëê îÃÂëéìéàÃÂåúï ùòåøéÃÂ, òã ùëøñàðá÷òú îëåáã äçåìé.

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/i/b504.htm

All we need now is a person who can translate this for us!

[elke]

Originally posted by freethepeeps


Well, all the above examples apply across the board, to people of all races, no!

Racism is only one type of discrimination. No, these examples do not apply across the board: they apply to people under 55, to people who cannot earn income high enough to be able to live in these communities, or to people who are not Native Americans. All these attributes are not the matter of choice for most people, they are something intrinsic to them. Therefore, this is certainly "discrimination".

Don't get me wrong: I am not saying that this is necessarily bad or immoral, all I am saying is that communities have been given the right to decide on the types of people they wish to live among.

The subject of this discussion is "Israel's Apartheid", and as an example of this "apartheid" the Katzir community has been given. What I am saying is that this is not an uncommon situation elsewhere as well.

[Philip]

A search of the web suggests that pikuah nefresh applies only with regard to saving Jewish lives. Gentile lives may be required to be saved according to eivah (emnity) or according to darkei shalom (keeping peace among the nations).

http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v33/mj_v33i46.html

http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v33/mj_v33i52.html

http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v33/mj_v33i56.html

http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v33/mj_v33i62.html

http://shamash.org/listarchives/mail.../volume7/v7n77

http://shamash.org/listarchives/mail.../volume7/v7n86

http://shamash.org/listarchives/mail.../volume7/v7n87

http://shamash.org/listarchives/mail.../volume7/v7n93

http://shamash.org/listarchives/mail...volume7/v7n103

http://shamash.org/listarchives/mail...volume7/v7n109

I think this was a very thoughtful comment:

If the halacha did demand that the Jew, in such a situation, should allow the non-Jew to die, then the halacha itself would give rise to eivah, so I would think that the halacha cannot be written that way.

...although a shortcoming of this is that eivah (nor darkei shalom?) is apparently not sufficient ground to violate the sabbath.

[Mediocrates]

I have a better idea. Why don't you ask a Rabbi. I did and he sez yer all wet.

I believe there is a website called ask a rabbi

http://server1.jrmportal.com/askarabbi/

But try not to be insulting and oblique like "Tell me why it's ok to kill gentiles on the Sabbath" or something equally useless.

Or you could ask one in person. (look out for the 'horns' though, they can be sharp suckas).

It would appear that the listserv you posted has lay people on it though I didn't look at it long enough. I'm sure though that if you want to believe that Jews advocate the death of goyim on shabbat there nothing on God's gray earth that will shake you of that National Alliance belief system.

[danholo]

I just logged on to AskMoses.com and had a chat with a rabbi about Philip's "accusations".

Here is the transcript:

Rabbi Kaplan: Welcome. I'll be with you in a moment...
Daniel: Shalom Rabbi
Daniel: On a pro-Israel board some man is trying to convince us that Pikuach Nefesh only concerns Jews.
Daniel: Isn't it true that Pikuach Nefesh extends also to non-Jews everywhere any time?
Rabbi Kaplan: Practically, it extends to non-Jews as well, althouth in theory there is a difference.
Daniel: So what's the difference.. and why?
Daniel: Isn't that a little racist?!
Daniel: You are telling me that I am not commanded to save a non-Jews life?
Rabbi Kaplan: Practially, you are. In theory there is a difference. The Torah tells us that we should vioulate a Mitzvah to save a human life because this would bring many more Mitzvot in the future. However, for a non-Jew, who doesn't do Mitzvot anyway, the this reason doesn't exist. However, our authoritied declared that since we can't separate between the lives of a Jew or a non-Jew, practically we have to violate a Mitzvah even to save the life of a non-Jew.
Daniel: So in the long run I do have to save a non-Jews life?
Daniel: But in a sense I would not be allowed to save a Hindu's life, since they are idolators?
Daniel: At least they don't sacrifice their children to their gods.
Rabbi Kaplan: In practice, yes, you have to save any person.
Daniel: But you would save any person, right?
Daniel: That was a stupid question...
Daniel: oops
Daniel: of course you would
Rabbi Kaplan: Yes.
Daniel: So, in theory, the man on the board is correct and he can continue spreading his stuff and prove that Jews or Judaism are racist in a way?
Rabbi Kaplan: Not really. Actually what we see is that the opposite is true. Even though from an objective point of view there is a reason to save only Jews and not non-Jews, we still don't practice this difference in order to not make a difference between them. Isn't this just the opposite of racism?
Daniel: Yes it is.
Daniel: Other question.
Daniel: I was reading Torah the other day, for the "fun" of it and Deuteronomy 23:20 cought my eye.
Daniel: It says that to a fellow Jew you are not to demand interest, but to a non-Jew you are allowed to.
Daniel: At first impression, the verse sounds a little anti-Gentile, since you have to favour the Jew.
Daniel: What explanation would you give to 23:20, since I went to Chabad.org and checked the Parshah for Ki Teitzei, but it didn't help enough.
Rabbi Kaplan: I think it's very just. You can't demant interest from a Jew becase he can't do the same to you. You can demand interest from a non-Jew because he can do the same to you.
Daniel: That was simple.

I know I'm trolling now, but I'm doing it on my own behalf. I think AskMoses.com is great resource fot Jews and non-Jews alike, who have "Jewish" questions. You can log on and talk to a Rabbi one-on-one 24/6.
The service is provided by Chabad. (These people sure are do-gooders.)