Activities Prohibited On Shabbat - Saving of Human Life

Saving of Human Life

For more details on this topic, see pikuach nefesh.

In the event that a human life is in danger, a Jew is not only allowed, but required, to violate any Shabbat law that stands in the way of saving that person. The concept of life being in danger is interpreted broadly: for example, it is mandated that one violate Shabbat to take a woman in active labor to a hospital.

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Famous quotes containing the words saving, human and/or life:

    “Oh that my Pow’r to Saving were confin’d:
    Why am I forc’d, like Heav’n, against my mind,
    To make Examples of another Kind?
    Must I at length the Sword of Justice draw?
    Oh curst Effects of necessary Law!
    How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan,
    Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.”
    —John Dryden (1631–1700)

    “All human excellence is but comparative. There may be persons who excel us, as much as we fancy we excel the meanest.”
    —Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)

    “He is asleep. He knows no longer the fatigue of the work of deciding, the work to finish. He sleeps, he has no longer to strain, to force himself, to require of himself that which he cannot do. He no longer bears the cross of that interior life which proscribes rest, distraction, weaknesshe sleeps and thinks no longer, he has no more duties or chores, no, no, and I, old and tired, oh! I envy that he sleeps and will soon die.”
    —Albert Camus (1913–1960)