Everybody agrees one
may violate any of the Shabbat prohibitions to save a life. Moses Maimonides
states this explicitly: “It is forbidden to delay in violating Shabbat
for a person who is dangerously ill (choleh she-yesh bo sakkana), as it says
[in the Gemara, based on a verse]: ‘[Regarding the laws of the Torah] ‘man
shall fulfill them and live,’ rather than fulfill them to die.’ We learn from
here that the laws of the Torah are not to achieve vengeance in the world, but
rather they bring compassion, loving-kindness, and peace to the world. And
those heretics who claim that this is a violation of Shabbat and it is
prohibited, about them the verse states, ‘and I [God] have given them evil
decrees, and laws by which they cannot live.’”
(Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Shabbat 2:3) (https://www.yu.edu/sites/default/files/legacy//uploadedFiles/Academics/Seminary/RIETS/Programs/Jewish_Medical_Ethics/Verapo_Yerapey/Laws%20of%20Medical%20Treatment%20on%20Shabbat.pdf.
For an in-depth analysis of healing on Shabbat, I also recommend this website
to you)
When a patient is not critically ill tradition has forbidden
to take medicine for whatever ails him because back in Talmudic times until
relatively recently, the ingredients of the medicine needed to be ground and
mixed. Grinding is one of the 39 prohibited laborers. (See TB Shabbat 53b and Shulkhan Arukh, Orekh
Hayyim 328:1)
Because were on the subject of brit milah and taking care of
the health of the baby before and after the circumcision, today’s daf TB
Shabbat 134 digresses and talks about healing in general. The Gemara notes that
some medical preparation is permitted on the holiday but not Shabbat.
“Abaye said to Rav Yosef: What is different about cumin (and use it as a salve on a wound-gg)
that makes it permissible to grind it on a Festival? The fact that it
is suitable for use to spice a pot, in cooking. Based on that
explanation, mixed wine and oil are also suitable for use on Shabbat
for a sick person, as it was taught in a baraita: One may not mix
wine and oil for a sick person on Shabbat. Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar said in the
name of Rabbi Meir: One may even mix wine and oil on Shabbat.
“Rabbi Shimon ben
Elazar said: It happened on one occasion that Rabbi Meir
had intestinal pain on Shabbat, and we sought to mix wine and oil for
him as treatment and he did not let us do so. We said to him:
Will your statement be negated in your lifetime? You permit mixing these
ingredients for a sick person. He said to us: Even though I say this and my
colleagues say that, and I do not retract my statement, still, in all my
days I have never been so presumptuous as to violate the statements of my
colleagues and act in accordance with my opinion. Apparently, it was he
who was stringent with regard to himself, but for everyone it is
permitted.” (Sefaria.org translation)
Rabbi Meir was one
of the great rabbis of his generation. Redaction of the Mishnah began with
Rabbi Akiva, continued by his student Rabbi Meir, and completed by Rabbi Yehuda
HaNasi. An anonymous statement in the Mishnah is attributed to Rabbi Meir
according to Rabbi Akiva’s position. Giving a stringent decision over a more
lenient one in Jewish law is easier and safer for a rabbi. Rabbi Meir is my
kind of rabbi. Although he accepts for himself a stricter approach to Jewish
law, he decides Jewish law for all others leniently. I believe he wants to make
“yiddishkeit” easy, understandable, and acceptable by the masses. Today with so
many issues facing the Jewish people, I believe we need more rabbis like Rabbi
Meir.
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