TURKEY (VINnews) — Israel’s Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau has published an open letter to the Israeli delegation to Turkey.
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His instructions included a halachic message to Jewish rescue workers to continue operations on Friday night and Shabbos day, in accordance with pikuach nefesh.
Rabbi Lau emphasized: “Wherever there is any chance of saving lives and finding survivors, the engineering team must continue its activities.”
Israel’s military has dispatched 380 personnel to Turkey, including search-and-rescue and medical teams. Israel has also established a field hospital in the city of Kahramanmaraş, the center of the quakes’ destruction.
Volunteers with United Hatzalah and ZAKA as well as Home Front officers are part of a delegation working to rescue survivors from beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings and also to treat them in a field hospital set up by the IDF in the disaster zone.
Rabbi Lau urged field hospitals to “continue to function normally” through Shabbos.
“A dreadful tragedy occurred this week in Turkey,” the letter said. “A severe earthquake hit many cities and a large number of buildings collapsed upon their residents. Rescue operations have been ongoing for several days.
“The State of Israel has come to the aid of those stricken and sent delegations of Home Front officers as well as those working with United Hatzalah. The delegations are made up of two components: teams to locate and extract the victims, using mechanical and engineering equipment; and medical personnel working in the field hospital.”
With regard to the continuation of the rescue efforts on Shabbos the letter says:
1) The field hospital will continue to operate on a regular footing, providing medical treatment to all those in need.
2) In any place there is any chance whatsoever of rescuing a survivor from beneath the rubble, rescue teams should do whatever they can to save lives.
Pardon my ignorance, but I always thought that Pikuach Nefesh pushing off shabbos is only for saving a Jewish life.
Can some one find source. Does it include non Jews too?
Kiddush Ha Shem!
Bet nyt, notorious anti frum bigot eliza shapiro and anti frum hate peddler [and perpetually unemployed shnorrer whose poor wife has been moichel her kesubah for over a decade] nick moster will not have anything to say about all those frum Israeli heroes going to a foreign country to selflessly perform chesed for other people.
I want to thank those who answered my enquiry regarding the halacha of Pechuach Nefesh in regards to Shabbos for a non Jew.
Thanks, I really appreciated those sources.
Every non-jew is a mikvah dip away from being a jew. should we really let the absence of a trip to the swimming hole be a reason to die under a pile of rubble. I do not care about the Halacha on this one. Lives should be saved !!!!!
Humans are made in our Creator’s Image, no? Therefore every life is sacred. Its not only Torah but common sense. A Jew should stand there on Shabbes and watch a goyesha baby die? Wow.
May those who decry Torah learn from this the value of the true synthesis of a life dedicated to living by its standards. Modernity and halacha are not antithetical, rather the fulfillment of Torah im Derech Eretz- a full and rich life constructed and adorned by the beauty of Torah.
Rabbi Lau is not a baal halacha. You can not give a blanket heter to be m’chalel Shabbos, especially because it is a safek pikuach nefesh!