Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
To risk life, limb & shabbos.....for a Haitian Hamitic ingrate?!
The One and Only Mo:
--- Quote from: Dr. Dan on January 18, 2010, 05:48:43 AM ---I placed as detailed a question that gentiles and some Jews on this forum can understand in a non-Talmudic language for Chaim for next week about this subject. Feel free to critique it and I'll adjust it.
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shkoyach, achi.
Masha:
I have also heard the opinion that a Jew should not save a Gentile on a Shabbat. I don't know whether there is a consensus on this point, but I know that this rabbinical opinion does exist. The explanation is the following: if you save a Jew, he would be able to celebrate many more Shabbats.
My take on it is this. The Judaic worldview is based on totally different axioms than our modern secular view. Our modern western perspective is people-centric. Human life is of the paramount significance. It follows from atheist premises that this physical existence is all there is; therefore physical survival is the supreme value - it trumps everything in importance. Judaism takes a more spiritual view. Human life is also very important, but it is not a value in itself: it is important "for the sake of" something else. What this something else is, I am not qualified to answer. Probably the fulfillment of G-d's laws and commandments. When the Sabbath is observed, something of tremendous importance takes place in Heaven and on Earth. The observance of the Sabbath performs the function of the proverbial Atlas who shoulders both the earth and the sky and keeps the world from being destroyed. So it's not that the life of a Gentile is less important than that of a Jew. It is just a commanment-centered view rather than a life-as-a-value-in-itself-centered view. It's not like we can live forever, anyway (in this world).
Masha:
--- Quote from: wonga66 on January 17, 2010, 02:16:20 AM ---Now that Zaka have put themelves in the world limelight, they are obliged to help out in all circumstances http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/44948/Zaka+Operations+Officer+Flown+Back+from+Haiti.html
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--- Quote ---Zaka director Yehuda Meshi-Zahav confirms Weingarten began complaining of excruciating pain about 2 hours following their arrival and doctors made the decision to fly him back home. He added that he was anesthetized by doctors in Shaare Zedek due to the significant pain he was feeling.
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Do you think he might be being punished by haShem for breaking the Shabbat?
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
--- Quote from: Mo2388 on January 18, 2010, 04:53:24 AM ---
--- Quote from: wonga66 on January 16, 2010, 04:58:45 PM ---I am pretty sure that the Halacha is that a Jew can be mechalel shabbos in a gentile country to save a goy if he is the only one around who can administer help and there are goyim watching, as refraining from helping would cause animosity.
But for these admirable Haredi Zaka fellows to voluntarily fly out from Eretz Yisrael risking their lives and even break shabbos for Negroidal gentile cannabalistic zombie/voodoo worshipping ingrates...?!
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/135547
To some this may be a Kiddush Hashem. But there's also a risk of a Chillul Hashem.
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Interesting. Haven't thought of this. The ones who went aren't frum, I imagine.
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No, ZAKA is an orthodox rescue group from what I understand.
Dr. Dan:
Let me make a very important point here. I think that it's nice and fuzzy and all that this orthodox Jewish group goes out there to help the victims of this earthquake..whether sanctioned by Torah or not on Shabbat...I mean the experience they are getting from these rescue operations can also be for, hopefully we never know it nor experience it, if it happens close to home.
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