[Avodah] Violate Shabbat to Save a Jentile

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 02:11:09AM -0400, Michael Makovi wrote:
: In short, Rabbi Unterman said that "mishum eiva" to justify saving a
: jentile's life on Shabbat, does not mean avoiding their animosity by
: pragmatic means, but rather, it is synonymous with "darkei shalom" a
: positive moral goal in and of itself which can be used to modify would
: what otherwise be the valid halacha, from a legal-logical standpoint,
: were it not for this moral consideration...

RALichtenstein makes the same point.

He proves the point in part by showing that darkhei Shalom (you'll see
why I capitalized in a minute) is given as a reason for giving tzedaqah
to nachriim. But vehalakhta bidrakhav is also given as a reason. It
would seem that darkhei Shalom is either using Shalom as a sheim H',
or referring to emulating His "oseh shalom".

It is therefore noteworthy that RAL is disagreeing with his father-in-law.

...
: One commenter opined that since the Gemara offers many opinions on how
: to save a life on Shabbat, it appears to be an ancient undisputed
: halacha whose rationale is irrelevant - sometimes we save him so that
: he'll keep Shabbat in the future, and sometimes because Shabbat was
: given to us not vice versa. He further said that since Ben Azzai says
: descent from Adam and the resulting universal tzelem elokim
: is a klal gadol, we cannot exclude jentiles from the obligation to
: save a life...

That quote is problematic, as some girsa'os are "miYisrael", some not.
Yes, the latter makes more sense given the reference to Adam.

But in any case, I would agree with this commentator that pasqening based
on rationale is dangerous because it may be a post-facto sevara that
the halakhah doesn't really hinge upon. A major problem with a return
to inserting more value orientation into the halachic process. We must
first identify the values.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 8th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        1 week and 1 day in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Chesed sheb'Gevurah: When is holding back a
Fax: (270) 514-1507                           Chesed for another?