[Avodah] Pikuach Nefesh

[Doron Beckerman]

I wrote about the 9/11 scenario in Halachah here:

http://bariveshema.blogspot.com/2006/10/911-scenario-in-halachah.html

In terms of the passive Rodef angle, there was a debate about this between
the author of "Mishnas Pikuach Nefesh" and the author of "B'chol Nafshecha".
The latter author convincingly asserted:
"There is no greater "he is beinf pursued by heaven" than this. Even if a
Rodef B'oness is a Rodef, that is only if he has some possibility of
preventing it, but here when they were taken hostage against their will and
they have no way or possibility of preventing it, how can they be considered
Rodfim?  It is worse than someone who is being thrown from the rooftop,
where he has some possibility of preventing it, only he get killed then, but
here where he had no possibility of preventing it, it is precisely 'Mishmaya
ka M'radfei Lah".

In a later letter he elaborates:
"The simple scenario of a Rodef is one who is chasing after his fellow to
kill him; there is a Chiddush that even if he is not literally chasing after
him, so long as his body is endangering his friend, he is also considered a
Rodef as per the Rambam regarding a fetus where we need to employ the rule
of Mishmaya etc. Similar to this is one being thrown off the roof, where his
body is endangering his friend's life. All this is irrelevant in the case of
the plane where the passengers are doing no act of Redifah at all, and their
bodies are not endangering the tower, but the danger is only from the plane
itself and the terrorists in it, and there is no significance to the
passengers. It is also not comparable to Yichaduhu, since there the danger
to all the inhabitants is due to him, but here the danger is not because of
the passengers at all. All this is simple."

(He goes on to refute a tzushtell the former author made to a Maharashdam,
where someone was refusing to throw his baggage overboard to save the ship.)
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