[Avodah] pikuach nefesh

[Eli Turkel]

R Zilberstein in his shiur yesterday discussed some aspects of pikuach nefesh.
Since it overlaps with some discussions in areivim and avodah I
thought of bringing some highlights.

The basic question was a plane who has a sick patient on boeard and
when should the
doctor insist on an emergency landing.
The basic answer was that for hilchot shabbat one violates shabbat if
the risk is more
then 1/1000 (R Elyashiv). Howver, if it involves a loss of money to
the airline company and other
passengers then one makes an emergency landing only if the danger is
greater the 5%,
i.e. mitzvot between people are more stringent then mitzvot between man and G-d.

Any international laws requiring the plane to make an emergency stop
would certainly be vaild
according to halacha.

One question he brought up was a case of a dangerous guard dog that escaped into
the negev in an isolated region. He was asked if they could search for
the dog on shabbat
since the was unlikely to dog was highly unlikely to see humans but if
that would happen
he would severely attack the person. His final psak was to use a Druse
driver and one could
violate rabbinical laws (including Techum according to some opinions)
but not biblical ones.

He told a story of some Belgian Jew who got on a plane friday morning
to go home and
was sitting on the runway for hours. He saw that shabbat was getting
close but the engines were
just starting up. To get off the plane he faked a heart attack. After
the ambulance arrived
and took him back to the airport he said he felt much better. R
Zilberstein said that if the airline
was nonJewish what he did was certainly wrong and a chillul hashem. He
said he could fly to
Belgium and ask a goy to take his luggage and bring him home. For a
jewish pilot he was
not certain since he would then be getting benefit from the actions of
the Jewish pilot on shabbat.
However, in any case he would have to pay for the ambulance and other
losses to the
airline and possibly other passengers. He then discussed several
teshuvot that discuss what happens
if he knows he does not have the money to repay the damages.

Other differences are that one can be mechalel shabbat to bring a
better doctor then the one
available but one cannot cause monetary loss for this even if he will
pay it back. If one
has diarrhea for 3 days it is considered pikuach nefesh and one can
violate shabbat to make the
patient feel better even if it is not a cure but one cannot cause a
monetary loss to others.

In summary it easier to violate shabbat even for a remote chance of
loss of life but to cause
a loss of money to others the sakana has to be more real and even then
one needs to pay back the loss.

-- 
Eli Turkel