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.
Read more about this topic: Activities Prohibited On Shabbat
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)
“How rare to be born a human being!
Wash him off with cedar-bark and milkweed
send the damned doctors home.
Baby, baby, noble baby,
Noble-hearted baby”
—Gary Snyder (b. 1930)
“I smiled,
I waited,
I was circumspect;
O never, never, never write that I
missed life or loving.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)