[Avodah] Halachic Discussion of Tow Truck Baby

[Zev Sero]

On 1/07/2012 5:41 PM, Prof. Levine wrote:
> At http://tinyurl.com/6tawbv7 R. Gil Student concludes

> I suggest, albeit tentatively, that the husband who flagged down someone
> to help was doing the right thing in trying to secure either a woman or
> gentile to assist.

When the story was posted here with obvious horror, as it it was clear
that he was wrong and a "chassid shoteh", I assumed that the issues R Gil
discusses were well-known to the Areivim, including to the person who
posted it, and that the horror came from the fact that he was entrusting
his wife's safety to a random nochri, which is also against the shulchan
aruch.  I assumed the person who posted it meant that since they were on
the roadside where there weren't any bnei yisrael to assist, it's obvious
that the husband should have treated it as pikuach nefesh and assisted
himself.  If this were to happen in EY or in an area where it's likely
that a passing driver would be from bnei yisrael, then surely it's obvious
that he did the right thing, and why would anyone question it?

I will say that I was somewhat puzzled that nobody answered at all, and
thought perhaps all of this was too obvious to be worth mentioning.  But
perhaps not.  In particular I see that the issue of a nochri, and the
danger that the SA ascribes, seems not to be tofes makom with R Gil at
all;   this is of course in keeping with our common-sense observations of
the usual metzius in the USA, which does not seem to accord with what the
metzius used to be, and still is in places like EY, but nevertheless I
would have thought that it could be used as a snif leheter in this case.

By the way, this was what I was obliquely referring to in my posts about
EMTs, when I said that there are rare situations where pikuach nefesh does
*not* trump all, and one needs a posek to decide them.

-- 
Zev Sero
zev at sero.name