[Avodah] Violate Shabbat to Save a Jentile

[Daniel Israel]

Michael Makovi wrote:
> In the thread [Avodah] R' Berkovits = Conservative halacha??, Rabbi
> Unterman's teshuva (Kol Torah, Nisan 5726) to violate Shabbat to save
> a jentile (the j is to avoid showing up on antisemitic Google
> searches), was raised.

Let me just comment that things have a way of being found.  If you don't 
want something seen on the net, don't post it.  Subterfuges such as this 
one are likely not to work, and the attempt can make an innocent Torah 
discussion appear shifty.

> Personally, it seems to me that if we can say that Shabbat was given
> to us and not us to Shabbat, kal vachomer jentiles were not given to
> Shabbat (to lose their lives on its account).

Without reference to the, AFAIK, settled halacha that one does save the 
life of a non-Jew on Shabbos, the above kv"ch doesn't work.  IIUC, this 
limud says a Jew doesn't give up his life for Shabbos, so the kol 
v'chomer is that a non-Jew doesn't have to die to avoid violating 
Shabbos.  Which is clearly true: in fact a non-Jew is chayiv misah 
(bidei shamayim, I assume) for keeping Shabbos.  Nothing can be implied 
about whether a Jew should violate Shabbos to save him.

-- 
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu