[Avodah] Flight or Fight

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 08:55:16PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> Chilul Shabbos?!
...
> Also note that the "ethicist" thinks it would be perfectly reasonable
> to turn the plane around if someone had a medical emergency.  Why is
> one person's medical emergency more important than another person's
> Shabbos emergency?

Well, since someone's medical emergency is dokheh Shabbos (whether
directly or mipenei eivah), it seems to me the ethicist hit upon
the correct ranking.

But in any case, traveling more than 3 parsah on Fri is a halachic
problem.
    Sukkah 44b
    OC 149:1

Bizman hazeh I assume that means more than 3 hr 36 min (or 4:48 according
to the SA haRav's 24 min parsa), not just 12 km or so. The MB s"q 1
mentions a qulah of allowing such travel if you're expected to arrive
with more than 1/3 of the day (4 sha'os zemaniyos) left.

I therefore am inclined toward R Prof YL's perception that booking the
flight was chilul Shabbos to begin with. (Written in wishy-washy language
because I don't have enough details of the story to be sure.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The trick is learning to be passionate in one's
micha at aishdas.org        ideals, but compassionate to one's peers.
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