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permitted manner we surmise that this will be the case.3 In our case
though, where the woman is entrenched in sin and it is her life and
her livelihood, it is questionable whether it is permitted to heal her.

At any rate, it is clear that a physician who prescribes contraceptive
pills or an intrauterine device to a woman involved in prostitution, is
assisting a sinner in sinning and anyone who can prevent his colleague
from sinning but does not do so bears guilt for that sin.4

Now, the Chazon Ish writes (Yoreh De’ah, 2,16): “It appears that
the law of “lowering [heretics and their ilk, who are apostates out of
spite] into a pit” is applicable only at times when Hashem yisbarach’s
providence is obvious, such as a time when miracles are common-
place, a heavenly voice (bas kol) operates and the generation’s righ-
teous men live under specific Divine providence that is evident to all.
Those who deny at such a time exhibit particular crookedness, being
swayed by their inclination towards lust and abandon and destroying
evildoers then upholds the world’s framework, demonstrating to all
that leading the generation to sin brings punishment to the world and
brings plague, war and famine to the world. However, during times
of concealment when faith is cut off from the ordinary folk, the act
of lowering [an heretic] into a pit, only serves to widen the breech
rather than repair it, for it appears to them an act of destruction and
violence, chas veshalom [Heaven forbid] and since our sole objective
is to bring about correction, this law will not apply when it doesn’t
achieve any correction and we must draw them back [to the right
path] with bonds of love and expose them to the light [of truth] to
whatever extent we are able.”

The Chazon Ish writes further (ibid 28) that“children and disciples
of heretics are considered as acting under compulsion, like children
captured by gentiles [who know only the sinful ways they have been

3. See also further, siman 273, for the comments we cite from the Igros Moshe and
the Binyan Tziyon on the topic of lifnei iver.

4. See our earlier comments on this topic, at the beginning of siman 63, that a
person who fails prevent his colleague sinning is considered as having actively
violated that transgression, not merely passively.

252 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein