[Avodah] Pikuach Nefesh

[Zev Sero]

On 12/06/2011 3:59 PM, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:

> To add to what R' BW is saying, I think that in the context of a plane
> flying towards a collision course with a city, everyone in the plane -
> however unwilling their participation - is considered a rodef relative to
> the people in the city whose lives would be saved should the plane be shot
> down.

Yes, if it is already flying that course.  What if it isn't, but we know
there are hijackers on board whose current intention is to turn it onto
such a course?  The hijackers themselves are, of course, rodfim.  Are
the passengers *currently* rodfim, or do they become so only when the
plane is on course for the collision?  And what of the people on the
ground, who will be killed if you shoot the plane down, but will live if
you don't?  Their death is "psik reishe delo nicha leih", and also
perhaps grama; is that enough (or even necessary) to justify taking
action to save the many more people in the target buildings or city?

Where the bad guys' bechira, and ability to do teshuvah, really makes a
difference is in the classic (and tragically true) case of the people
who were rounded up in a Selektzia, or whose children were rounded up,
and asked shaylos on whether they're allowed to escape, or to help their
children escape, or to bribe the Nazis to let them escape, knowing that
someone else will be taken in their place.  IMHO the key to solving this
problem is to recognise that escaping does *not* cause another yid to be
harmed; just because the Nazis said they will kill someone else in your
place doesn't mean they will do so.  They're probably not bluffing, but
they're moral agents, and nothing you do compels them to fulfil their
threat.  They might do teshuva and decide not to; if they don't do
teshuva, and they do fulfil their threat, that's the result of their
bad bechira, not of your actions.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher