I’d like to add a few thoughts regarding Talia’s question about saving a non-Jew’s life on Shabbat. This is the type of question that I find very difficult to consider within the abstract parameters of hypothetical situations, and so while I leave it to the halakhic experts at Ma’ayanot to deliver the kind of multi-faceted explanations that Ms. Schwartz has offered us, I would like to supplement them:
I think that when we consider pikuah nefesh from an abstract perspective, we risk losing a certain degree of our own status as tzelem Elokim by ignoring the notion that this feature characterizes all people. I don’t think we have to look outside our own tradition – originating in Tanakh itself – to suggest that it is abhorrent to entertain the possibility of having the opportunity to save a human life and opting not to do so because of an ungrounded assumption about the lesser value of a non-Jew’s life. Moreover, the idea that any one of us, faced with such a situation, would first stop to think about the halakhic ramifications of violating Shabbat relative to whether a person is Jewish or not (while perhaps losing precious time as a person is dying) makes my stomach turn. And so, with all the respect I have for due process in halakha, and for attempts to ground hashkafic perspectives in the basis of halakha, I would hope that our students recognize that if we aspire to emulate G-d Himself, then in this type of scenario, determining the value of a human life based on whether or not a person is Jewish requires a good deal of hubris that is not warranted in any one of us.
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