Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Violating Shabbos to Prepare Food for a Choleh Sh'Yeish Bo Sakana

This is purportedly a true story and I have no reason to doubt it; I just don't remember all the names and dates.  A frum lady was deathly ill and was told (based on the medical knowledge and practice of the day... likely late 1800s) that the only cure involved eating some concoction that was made from pig liver.  She was aghast, but her rav assured her that she was not only allowed to eat it, but that halacha required her to eat it to save her life.  She agreed, but only on condition that they pig be properly shechted.  The rav said, "It's a pig; you can't make it kosher."  But she was insistent.  They found a shochet who agreed.  Then she said, "I want the lungs checked."  At that point, the rav said, "No.  It's a pig.  You can't even make it kosher; you certainly can't make it glatt kosher!"

Halacha has a lot of lenience for someone who is a choleh sh'yeish bo sakana/deathly ill; but there are limits.  Siman 328 (which I remember because 328 is shin-chaf-ches, which means to forget; hey!  It works...) discusses dealing with illness and pains on Shabbos.  Generally speaking, there is an issur d'rabanan to treat minor ailments on Shabbos.  The decree dates back to when ailments were largely treated by making poultices that involved grinding spices.  However, the original decree was for treating minor ailments by any means, so the decree is still in place.  A minor ailment is basically one that does not cause one enough distress that he would need to lie down.

On the other hand, if someone is deathly ill, then we allow -- nay, require and encourage -- any violation of Shabbos necessary to save the life.  That leads to the following interesting halacha. Suppose the patient needs food and you have two choices at hand, : (1) feed him non-kosher food, (2) slaughter an animal and prepare a fresh, kosher snack for him.  Since one is allowed to violate Shabbos, and the only reason not give him kosher food is that slaughtering an animal is a malacha on Shabbos, you slaughter the animal.  Similarly, but less dramatic, if it is a choice between getting him non-kosher food from the hospital kitchen or bringing him kosher food by carrying it through a public thoroughfare, you get him the kosher food.

One might ask: if someone is deathly ill, is Shabbos just not an issue (aka "hutra"), or does his treatment push away the issur of Shabbos (aka, "d'chuya")?  Surprise!  It's a machlokes!  One side reasons that since one is allowed to violate Shabbos, a transgression which in ordinary circumstances is a capital crime, it must be that Shabbos is hutra.  Other say, no, Shabbos is only d'chuya, but it can only be pushed off if there something pushing it away.  What's pushing?  Two reasons are brought by the Mishna Brura (328:14, sk 39).  One sides reasons that a violation of the Torah is a violation, better to violate the Torah once (with sh'chita or carrying) than to violate the Torah again and again (every bite of non-kosher food).  The other side says the problem is that the patient will be so disgusted with the non-kosher food that he will not eat what he really needs and will remain dangerously ill.  According to the first side we would only push off Shabbos in the face of another Torah violation, but for to avoid transgressing a Rabbinic decree we would not push off Shabbos.  If the problem is the patient being disgusted by the food, then it wouldn't matter whether the violation were d'oraisa or d'rabanan -- non-kosher is non-kosher and the patient's psychological needs take precedence.

The majority of poskim, says the Mishna Brura, hold that Shabbos is only d'chuya, but we only worry about the patients psychological revulsion to non-kosher food if eating the food would be a Torah violation.  R' Shlomo Zalman Auerbach says that once the food is not kosher d'oraisa, then one is not even allowed to say to the patient, "You know, if I have to bring you the kosher food it will involve carrying it through a public thoroughfare.", since that could cause the patient to feel compelled to eat the non-kosher food even though the thought appalls him and he'll end up not eating enough.  Even more, one is not even allowed to lie to him and tell him the food is kosher; because we are afraid he will find out after the fact and not be able to keep the food down.  On the other hand, says the Chazon Ish, if the concentration of non-kosher ingredients in the mixture is so low that the patient would consume less than a k'zayis in a time of k'day achilas pras (~9 minutes or so), and so eating the food is only forbidden at the Rabbinic level, then better to eat the non-kosher mixture.

Bottom line, eat healthy, get plenty of exercise, keep your weight under control and avoid getting sick on Shabbos -- much easier that way.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl

Thought for the Day: David HaMelech's Five Stages of Finding HaShem In the World

Many of us "sing" (once you have heard what I call carrying a tune, you'll question how I can, in good conscience, use that verb, even with the quotation marks) Eishes Chayil before the Friday night Shabbos meal.  We feel like we are singing the praises of our wives.  In fact, I have also been to chasunas where the chasson proudly (sometimes even tearfully) sings Eishes Chayil to his new eishes chayil.  Beautiful.  Also wrong.  (The sentiments, of course, are not wrong; just a misunderstanding of the intent of the author of these exalted words.) Chazal (TB Brachos, 10a) tell us that when Sholmo HaMelech wrote the words "She opens her mouth Mwith wisdom; the torah of kindness is on her tongue", that he was referring to his father, Dovid HaMelech, who (I am continuing to quote Chazal here) lived in five worlds and sang a song of praise [to each].  It seems to me that "world" here means a perception of reality.  Four times Dovid had to readjust his perc

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק