[Avodah] saves a life, or a Jewish life?

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 09:10:00PM +0300, Michael Makovi wrote:
: Regarding Sanhedrin 4:5, about saving a life saving the world: does it
: read nefesh ahat mibnei adam or miyisrael?

: I have collected some sources on this at
: http://michaelmakovi.blogspot.com/2009/08/save-jewish-life-save-whole-world.html

: Teaser: One of my sources about the Mishna's correct reading, is the KORAN!

It sort of depends on the precision of the translation. Is it "as though
he saved all of humanity" or "all of the people" [ie the Jewish People]?
You quote the latter.

In any case, here's a posting from Amitai Halevi to soc.culture.jewish
on the topic, posted 4-Nov-1996.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

From: Amitai Halevi <chr0... at aluf.technion.ac.il>
Subject: Re: Quotation from the Talmud
Date: 1996/11/04
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On Fri, 1 Nov 1996, Dene Bebbington wrote:
> There is a saying from the Talmud that is commonly cited as being: "He
> who saves a single life, saves the entire world", however I've read
> somewhere that the actual quote is apparently: "Whosoever preserves a
> single soul of Israel, Scripture ascribes to him as if he had
> preserved
> a complete world".

> Can anyone tell me which is correct, and if so what the origin of the
> less accurate one is?

This question came up some time ago on scj. I cannot find my original
post on the subject in my files, so I will reproduce it in brief.

The source for this saying is in the Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5. It appears
in several versions:

1. In the standard edition of the Mishnayot, the wording is: "Whoever
destroys the life of a single human being [nefesh a`hat mi-bnei adam]
... it is as if he had destroyed an entire world; and whoever preserves
the life of a single human being ... it is as if he had preserved an
entire world".

2. In the Talmud Bavli, where this mishnah appears on Sanhedrin 37a, the
wording is the same, except for the substitution of "life of a single Jew"
[nefesh a`hat \mi-yisrael] for "life of a single human being".

3. In the Talmud Jerushalmi, Mishnah 5 is divided into subsections
(Halakhot). In my edition the saying appears in Halakhot 12-13.
Others divide Mishnah 5 differently: e.g. MTR locates it in Halakhah 9.
It reads "destroys a single life" [ma'abed nefesh a`hat] and "preserves
a single life" [meqayem nefesh a`hat]. There is no specific mention of
either "human being" or "Jew", though the former is clearly implied.

The question is: Which is the original version? Was the limitation
to Jewish lives there to begin with, and then taken out as a result
of Church censorship? This is suggested in the book of corrigenda,
Hesronot Ha-shas. Alternatively, was the universal formulation the
original one, and the limitation to Jewish lives introduced into it at
some later date, perhaps in a period when particularly severe persecution
of Jews generated a justified feeling of xenophobia?

The answer would seem to be obvious from the context, which is the same
in all three versions. The citation is preceded by the words: "This is
why Adam was created alone. It is to teach us that ...". A bit father
down it reads: "When a man mints a number of coins from a single die,
they are all identical; but the King of the kings of kings, the Holy One
blessed be He, minted every human being from the die of the primal Adam,
and not one of them is like any other".

Evidently, if the original had referred to the preservation of Jewish
lives alone, the reference would have been to Abraham at the earliest.
The repeated reference to Adam, progenitor of all mankind, makes it clear
that the original must have referred to the preservation of human life
in general.

This is aparently how the Rishonim (medieval commentators) understood it
as well. Rambam adopts the Yerushalmi version, (3.) slightly altered,
in Hilkhot Sanhedrin 12:3, but also cites the Bavli version (2. above)
briefly in Hilkhot Rotzea`h 1:6. Hameiri too bases his commentary on
the Yerushalmi version, illustrating "the destruction of a whole world"
by pointing out that Cain's murder of Abel eliminated all of his victm's
descendents at one fell swoop. Abel, like Adam was not Jewish; he was
not even the ancestor of Jews.

The humanistic version was not universally accepted by the A`haronim
(later commentators). MaHaRSh"A, for example, in Hidushei Agadot on
Sanh.37a, stays with Version 2, and explains at some length why it is
only important to save Jewish lives, even though the Mishnah bases the
dictum on Adam's being the father of all mankind. I would be interested
in learning what present-day Orthodox Judaism regards as the authentic
reading.

(Posted and mailed)

 Amitai

 *--------------------------------------------------------------------*
 | E. Amitai Halevi  <chr0... at aluf.technion.ac.il>                    |
 | Department of Chemistry,  Technion-Israel Institute of Technology  |     
 | http://www.technion.ac.il/technion/chemistry/staff/halevi          |
 | "`Od yenuvun be-seva, deshenim ve-ra`ananim yihyu",  Psalms 92,15  |
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