[Avodah] pikuach nefesh

[Eli Turkel]

After some questions I will attempt to clarify a little more (better?) the
position of
R. Zilberstein (in several shiurim over the years) and the poskim he quotes.

1. The case asked of the CI (Sanhedrin 25) is quite close to the trolley
case. The case was a car out of control
that is headed towards a crowd. One is able to move the steering wheel to
direct it towards a
much smaller group of people. The CI introduces the case of deflecting an
arrow from the many
to the few. The CI attempts to allow it since the action is a positive one
not meant to kill anyone.
However, the CI ends with a tzarich iyun because in fact he is actively
killing someone even though
unwillingly.

R Zilberstein was discussing a case of triage. He paskened that a doctor
should choose the medium case
rather than the most severe case as the chance of saving the patient is
greater. He then said that even
if the doctor was in the middle of treating the severe case, eg he was
putting pressure on a wound to
slow the blood flow,  he should leave because any damage to that patient is
indirect (based on an
Even Haezel) and so even the CI would agree.

2. In a later shiur the question came up whether a doctor should treat a
person wounded by a terrorist
or else try and stop the terrorist from a mass murder. His conclusion was
that if the terrorist is in
the immediate vicinity he should try and stop him. However, in more general
cases there are too
many doubts and better to defintely save this one patient (ein safek motzi
mide vadai)

3. In the lrecent shiur that I quoted R. Zilberstein reaches the following
conclusions based on the
Meiri that the Mishna that says that once the baby has its head out that the
mother and baby are equal
applied to outside people. However, the mother has the right to save her own
life at the expense of the infant.

All the conclusions were preceded by perhaps (Nireh or Yitachen)

a. The paratrooper is allowed to cut the cord from the other parachute to
save his own life
b. One is not required to give preference to the officer but it is
preferable
c. The electrician is allowed to disconnect the electricity even though
someone is on life support
d. Tzarich Iyun if one can kill a terrorist when innocent bystanders will
also be killed
e. If a doctor is a rodef someone can kill the doctor even though the
patient will die
f. One could bomb the train station going to  Auschwitz  even though there
are Jews in the station

Again all the above conclusions were introduced with Nireh or Yitachen
He concludes based on a Chatam Sofer that learning these halachot can result
in the zechut that it won't be necessary to deal with such questions
lemaaseh



-- 
Eli Turkel
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