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of the grainary to say “let all the fruits in the world be forbidden to # dog [who may transmit rabies], do we rule like any other 11
me if the grainary does not belong to the House of the King,” and to possibility of pikuach nefesh, which overrides the laws of
think in his heart that they should only be forbidden to him today. Shabbos, or not? Since even when the dog is surely a wild
This is permitted because his oath was forced upon him. one, it is still only a possibility that it will bite whomever
According to this fundamental principle, the Malbim explains it meets, when there is an additional doubt about whether
the continuation of the spies’ oath (above), cited in Yehoshua (2:17). it is wild or not, perhaps one is not allowed to desecrate
There, it states that the spies swore twice to Rachav that they would Shabbos by killing it? Even though for pikuach nefesh we
not kill her and her family. Regarding their first oath, the spies told desecrate Shabbos even for a very remote possibility, that
her: “We are free of your oath which you made us swear.” The Malbim is, only if the pikuach nefesh is visible. if there is a doubt
explains that they said to her: Since our first oath was forced upon us about the actual substance of the case, perhaps it is not
because we were in your hands, it is not an oath. Despite this, we will permitted. And one needs to delve into the subject more.
once again swear to you now that we are not under coercion (because
they were already outside Yericho). According to the above, even in our case, perhaps it is prohibited to
If so, we can also say the same in our case: Since the oath was desecrate Shabbos to prevent an epileptic from driving on the roads,
forced upon the physician, so as to prevent the patient from getting since it is not certain that he will cause danger. Therefore, the physi-
depressed, it is an oath made under duress and is not valid. The phy- cian need not exert much effort to clarify the truth. This is the truth,
sician should think in his heart at the time of the oath that when he for if not, we would say that an epileptic patient is prohibited from
says the patient does not have cancer (sartan) he means the sartan of swimming in the ocean or walking on the edge of the sidewalk, lest he
the sea (i.e. a crab) or the sartan of the blood. In this way he will avoid have a seizure and endanger himself and others.
the prohibition of swearing falsely. In addition to this, in our case, the physician can take into account
However, it is possible that this is not considered a coerced oath the possibility that the man is speaking the truth, and that there is
because the physician himself is not in a true situation of coercion, but truly someone who resembles him who had the seizure. This is on the
rather is under pressure to do a mitzvah and encourage the patient. basis of an incident cited in Responsa Noda Biyehudah (first edition,
Therefore, it is preferable that the physician announce in advance that Even Haezer #68), as follows:
when he swears the patient does not have sartan (cancer) his intention There was a case of an agunah in the town of Fin, which is near
will be to refer to a creature named sartan (crab). the town of Lissa, who was abandoned by her husband, and alone
 for many years. One day she was sitting in her store, and a man came
and began talking about shopping as if he wanted to buy something.
He asked her about her husband. She answered that she had no
knowledge of him, and he said he had some knowledge about him.
A physician swears that he will make no more
than fifteen attempts to insert a needle into a vein The woman looked at his face and it seemed to her that this was her
husband. The man left her. The woman was confused. She sought out
1 Question the rav, who had the man brought before him. She then recognized
him well and cited signs on his body. In addition, the people of the
An elderly man was hospitalized and required intravenous medica- city recognized him as the son of his parents, husband of this woman.
tion. The physician tried several times to find a vein but was unsuc-

326 1 Medical-HalacHic Responsa of Rav ZilbeRstein Driver has epilepsy 2 335