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Fellow Weekly - Issue 125
WHAT'S THE LAW ™
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Encouraging intelligent and entertaining debate at your Shabbat table.
Fellow Weekly raises issues of business law and ethics through lively emails by featuring your real-life scenarios answered by our leading authorities and professionals.
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Case # 232 My Skin or My Kin?
"The living room needs some tidying up, darlings. Please make Mommy a pleasant surprise. I've got to fold the laundry. I'll be back downstairs in seven minutes, boys."
"Sure thing Mommy," chanted the precocious Berman twins, Yair and Yonatan with a foreboding ringing intone in their somewhat innocent voices.
"It's awfully quiet down there boys: Is everything all right?" The stern and inquisitive voice emanating from the upstairs down the starwell was met with a deafening silence.
Ten minutes later, Mrs. Berman returned. Her mouth dropped wide open in shock but not disbelief! Yair carefully held a scissors in hand and was studiously cutting an M for mommy from a paper. Between Yair and Yonatan lay a freshly cut apron identically matching her designer curtains. Her eyes glanced hard at the curtains and discerned a gouging hole on the bottom of the curtains...Yair! How dare you! "Mommy. It was not me!"
A similar painful dilemma has tragically surfaced in almost every generation throughout the long Jewish exile in numerous different forms. One such heart wrenching and difficult to write about example follows. May we merit the final redemption soon.
The ghettos were run by Jewish councils, (Judenrat) who were responsible for carrying out Nazi orders.
The transports bound for Auschwitz and other concentration camps would come, and the Nazis would ask for 1,000 Jews. The Council's rationalization was, "If we did not send off the one thousand, they would ask for two thousand." Avi was chosen by the Judenrat. He reckoned that he could bribe a council member...but that meant someone else would have to take his place...?
History proved however, that not only the one thousand went, but ultimately the two thousand went, too. And not only the two thousand, but the council members went and their entire families went also. By the end of the war, almost all from the ghettos were swept away.
May Yair say that it was not him, whereby Mommy would know that it was Yonatan?
May the council hand over 1000 to save 2000?
May Avi bribe the council members to save him, knowing that another would have to take his place?
Please email us with your comments and answers at weekly@projectfellow.org
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LAST WEEK'S CASE ♦ CASE 231 ♦To Live or Let Live!
Stories of heroic soldiers are particularly moving. During the Second Lebanon War of 2006 - in the fiercely-waged battle of Bint Jbeil - a courageous soldier jumped on a live grenade, whereby sacrificing his own life to spare those of his fellow soldiers.
In the 1950's a soldier was captured along with four comrades by the enemy. The soldiers were taken into custody in Quneitra and sent to a Damascus prison for interrogation. They were sent to separate cells and brutally tortured.
Believing his comrades to have been killed, as falsely claimed by his captors in an attempt to weaken morale, he took his life rather than divulge secrets to his captors.
Stories of captains abandoning ship to save their own lives at the expense of saving passengers lives are typically vilified. Yet, each time we board an airplane, the airline flight attendant gives the following preflight safety instructions:
"In case of a loss of airplane pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the overhead compartments.
Put mask on yourself first before assisting children or those not able to help themselves."
When may one risk his/her life to save another?
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The Answer
We present you here with a concise ruling. For a more intricate elucidation, please see the detailed explanation below.
See detailed explanation
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Detailed Explanation
To Live or Let Live invokes the following six laws:
1. A person who is able to directly or indirectly save another's life and fails to do so transgresses the sin "Do not stand idly by your brother's blood" [Vayikra 19: 16, Choshen Mishpat 426].
2. One is even required to suffer great pain in order to spare another's life (Netziv, Ha'amek Sha'aloh 129: 4) Long term excruciating pain is subject to Halachic discussion (ibid. and Even Habochen 3).
3. One is not required to give up his/her life or place his/her life in peril to save another's life [Radvaz 3: 1052].
4. Nevertheless, Netziv permits one to choose to take potentially fatal (a semi- risk or safeik sakanah) risks in an effort to save the life of another (Netziv, Ha'amek Sha'aloh 129: 4). Poskim rule the same way with regards to giving away limbs (in order to save another).
5. Moreover, one is encouraged not to be excessively protective over his/her life and willingly take risks in order to save other's lives [Mishna Berura 329: 19] .
6. However, when only one life can be saved, one has a responsibility to preserve the life G-d entrusted in him/her first.
One should not give up his/her life to save another person:
Three exceptions exist:
1) One's child or close family member
2) for a Torah leader
3) During warfare it is permissible for a soldier to give up his life to save others [Ya"avetz, Minchas Chinuch 425:3, Chidushei Griz Halevi: Vayishlach].
Application:
During warfare a soldier may take his life to protect the lives of others. Thus the soldiers in Beit Jbeil and Damascus were permitted to take their lives to protect their comrades and country.
After the sinking of the Titanic, international protocol for the captain's legal responsibilities was set out in the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) convention. Though, no where does it say in the present draft (1974) that the captain should be the last to leave, many captains maintain that it is understood in the industry that he must be on board to direct evacuation. No specific time of escape is given.
BBC quotes Mr. Schroder-Hinrichs
"As the ship's master, you are trained to take command, to do everything so that the numbers of fatalities are reduced to the minimum."
"That said when the ship is sinking, you do try to rescue your own life, but it's hard to quantify when. As long as your own life is not at risk and there are passengers on board, there is a strong moral obligation to stay," he says.
While in some countries a captain may be imprisoned up to 12 years for leaving to early, the matter remains unclear in secular law. Presently, the international and local national communities are re-assessing the need for more precise rules.
Netziv, would rule that as one is encouraged to fulfill a moral obligation put his/her life at semi- risk to save others, but cannot be compelled to do so, the captain should remain on the boat as long as his life is not acutely in danger.
At a point when the captain's life is acutely in danger, he must try to rescue his own life first. He may choose in his stead though, a close family member or Torah leader.
Similarly, on the airplane, even if a few second wait would pose a potential fatal risk, Netziv would allow for an adult to take a risk and first assist a child. In a situation where the adult will not have time to do both, the adult must save his/her own life first, unless, the child is his/her own or close family member or Torah Leader.
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Note:
Although we aim to present the correct ruling, varying details are always important and decisively influence every individual case. Our readers are thus encouraged to present their personal cases to a competent authority and not solely rely on the information provided.
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