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Similarly, if a person sees his friend drowning in the sea or being
attacked by robbers or by a wild animal and is either able to save
him himself or hire others to do so and does not do so, or if he hears
gentiles or informers plotting evil against him or setting a trap for
him and he doesn’t tell his friend, or if he knows of a gentile or of a
marauder who has some complaint against his friend and he can to
placate them on his friend’s behalf and do away with their grudge but
he does not do so and any similar example, he violates ‘Do not stand
idly by the [spilled] blood of your colleague.’

The Chafetz Chaim (Rechilus 9, Be’er Mayim Chaim, 1) adds that
the Torah’s intent with this prohibition is that a person should save
his colleague from any kind of pain or distress, not only from death.

In light of this, anyone who can restore harmony between man and
wife is obligated to do so. This was the habit of Aharon Hakohen,
as Chazal teach us. The Me’am Lo’ez writes about Aharon Hakohen
(Bamidbar, p. 244),“If he saw a couple fighting one another he would
not leave them before he had restored peace between them.”

The question arises only if the couple is not interested in having
strangers deal their problem because of their embarrassment – should
outsiders become involved against their wishes or is this perhaps for-
bidden?

Two situations need to be considered:
1. A case where the couple doesn’t have children who are being ad-
versely affected by the situation between them and the matter solely
concerns the couple’s benefit.
2. If they have children who are being harmed by their quarreling,
as in the question posed at the beginning of our discussion.
We shall first consider the halachah when the couple has children
who are being harmed by their arguments. It seems obligatory to
intervene between the parents in order to save the children since the
parents do not own their children and they are not entitled to harm
them, either physically or emotionally. Consider the following: if
the parents were hurling objects at each other and the children were
being hit, it’s obviously mandatory to intervene in their affairs even
against their wishes in order to save the children from harm. Emo-

202 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein