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to life but even if there is concern solely of loss of an organ [e.g. he
will lose his potency]. Even then it is permitted to violate a Torah
prohibition, as is evident from the Shach (Yoreh De’ah 157,3), who
writes that Torah prohibitions can be violated in order to avoid the
danger of the loss of an organ, even where there is no danger to life.
The wasteful emission of semen is not classed with forbidden rela-
tions or the spilling of blood [which a person must sacrifice his life
in order to avoid violating], as explained in the response of the Pnei
Yehoshua (2, 44) regarding the case of a man who became ill because
his wife was impure for a long time on account of childbirth. His ab-
domen became swollen and it became a situation of piku’ach nefesh.
The Pnei Yehoshua (s.v. vehashe’ailah hasheini) writes as follows: “It
seems straightforward to me that this is certainly classed neither as
immorality nor as bloodshed. Although Chazal have likened spilling
semen wastefully to spilling blood, that is because it is such a serious
sin…in order to highlight its severity, and even though… it is actual
bloodshed for he is killing the child that would be able to develop
from that drop – as it says “who slaughter the children” (Yeshayah
57:5) which we read as sochatei (who squeeze) the children – there
nevertheless seems to me to be clear proof that this [consideration]
is irrelevant…because if a woman is in difficult labor [and the fetus
is endangering her life] we dismember the fetus in her womb [and
extract it piecemeal]. Rashi explains (Sanhedrin 72b, s.v. yatza) that
before the fetus has emerged it is not yet considered a life and it can
be killed [to save its mother’s life]... All the more so here where there
is no life yet here at all, it is clearly permitted to ‘kill’ it [i.e. a potential
embryo] in order to save its father.”

In a case of prolonged erection necessitating the emission of semen,
the question arises of which of the two possible ways of bringing this
about is preferable: 1. to emit semen by masturbation, violating the
prohibition of emitting semen for naught 2. to have intercourse with
the bride, who is a niddah by rabbinic decree owing to her virginal
bleeding (see Beis Yosef, Yoreh De’ah 193). Is it preferable to violate a
rabbinic prohibition (of niddah on account of the virginal bleeding)
or to violate a Torah prohibition (of emitting semen for naught)?

150 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein