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cause pikuach nefesh sets aside the entire Torah. For pikuach nefesh, 8 stand this, because certainly the prohibition of stealing is allowed in #
it would even be permitted to eat pig, all the more so to raise them. the face of danger.
Proof for this comes from the words of the Tosfos (ibid, 82b, s.v. lo) According to the words of the Kovetz Shi’urim, in our case, since
who ask: Why do we need a special prohibition against raising pigs? one would be raising the pigs in order to save someone from danger,
We can learn it from the law in Tractate Shevi’is (7:3), which states therefore it is permissible to raise them. It is appropriate to have the
that it is prohibited to do business with impure things! They answer pigs acquired by a gentile. Then, even though a Jew works with them,
that while it is permissible to raise impure animals in order to anoint he is not considered “cursed is the one who raises pigs.”
skins with their fat, it is prohibited to raise pigs even for the purpose
of profiting from their fat. If it were forbidden to raise pigs even for 
cases of pikuach nefesh then Tosfos would have written so.
But in Tractate Baba Kamma (80a) it says that in the land of Israel
it is forbidden to raise small animals in populated areas because of Is it Proper Not to Tell a Patient that he had Pig
the mitzvah of living in the land of Israel. The Gemara relates the Valves Implanted in his Heart?
story of a pious person who would groan from the pain in his heart.
The physicians declared that “there is no way to fix this, other than by It says in the Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim #328:14): If a dangerously 20818_efi-ab - 20818_park-C_efi-ab | 8 - A | 18-08-20 | 13:46:24 |
suckling warm milk every morning.” A goat was brought to him and ill patient needs meat, one slaughters for him on Shabbos. We do not #20818_efi-ab - 20818_park-C_efi-ab | 8 - A | 18-08-20 | 13:46:24
fastened to the base of his bed, and he sucked from it every morning. say: let him eat a non-kosher carcass. The Mishnah Berurah explains
After some days, his colleagues came to visit him, but as soon as they (ibid, 39) that there are many reasons given for this. One of them is
saw the goat fastened to the legs of his bed, they turned back and lest he be disgusted to eat a carcass (neveilah), and endanger himself
said, “An armed thief is in the house of this man and we came to visit further by refraining to eat from it (as explained in Rosh, Yoma Ch. 8
him?” They investigated and did not find any fault in him except the #14). In the Talmud Yerushalmi (Terumos 8:3) it states: It happened
sin with this goat. He too, while dying, declared that “I know that I that donkey drivers entered a hotel, asked for lentils to eat, and re-
am free of all sin, other than the sin with the goat, where I disregarded ceived them. They asked for lentils a second time, and they received
the words of my friends.” them again. “The first ones were better than these,” they told the hotel

The Kovetz Shi’urim (Baba Kamma #88) writes (Tractate Kes- owners. “This is because we discovered the spinal column of a snake
ubos 60) that someone groaning in pain is not considered as being in the first batch, so did not want to give you any more of it,” the own-
in danger, and this Gemara proves the same. If this pious man was ers responded. The donkey drivers were so disgusted that they died.
considered dangerously ill, he would certainly be allowed to raise an The Pnei Moshe, writes that from this we learn that if a person does
animal in his home, because nothing stands in the way of pikuach not know what he ate, he will not be harmed even if it is something
nefesh. In the Shitah Mekubetzes, in the name of Meiri, however, he disgusting which he hates. But if he is told, he may be harmed since
writes that the pious man was in danger, as implied by the words of he is disgusted by the memory of it.
the physicians “there is no way to fix this….” Nevertheless, he should From here, we can learn that one should not reveal to a Jew that
have ruled stringently since the remedy for him would cause a loss to a pig valve was transplanted into his heart, lest he feel revulsion and
someone else. The Kovetz Shi’urim concludes: It is difficult to under- be harmed. Also, in the above case of the premature baby, it seems to

226 1 Medical-HalacHic Responsa of Rav ZilbeRstein Medications and Heart Valves from Pigs 2 227