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Thus, even in situations where there is no mitzvah to save a person,
Torah prohibitions are nonetheless set aside for piku’ach nefesh.

In the Sefer Chassidim (683) it says: “If a murderer flees to you,
do not accept him! As it says, ‘A man who is guilty of taking life will
remain on the run until he dies; no one will support him’ (Mishlei 28:
17), just as Rabbi Tarfon did not want to hide a murderer (Niddah
61a). It happened that two people were quarreling and one of them
took out a knife and plunged it into the other one’s heart, killing him.
He was caught by the ruler and they acquitted him on condition that
he swear that he was not the murderer but someone else, who had run
away. The rabbi allowed him to swear falsely in order to save his life
and the She’ilas Yaavetz (Vol. 2, 9, cited in Pis’chei Teshuvah, Yoreh
De’ah 232:12) took issue with this ruling. His reasoning was that a
person who intentionally kills a Jew in front of witnesses incurs the
death penalty, so how are we concerned about saving his life and yet
permit him to add a further serious transgression to his existing sins,
when it is forbidden to save his life, even through permitted means?3

Here too the question arises: if the murderer takes ill in prison, is it
permitted to desecrate Shabbos to heal him? Or do we say that since
the Torah has no compassion on his life and forbids hiding him [from
the authorities], it is not permitted to desecrate Shabbos to save his
life? This is not similar to a person who intentionally attempts sui-
cide, who it is not forbidden to save – since it is forbidden to hide this
murderer, maybe it is also forbidden to desecrate Shabbos to save his
life?

In Chavos Yair (146) I found it written that if a murderer killed
his victim [even intentionally] in a chance encounter but he does not
always tread this wicked path, he is treated as a Jew in every respect
and is extracted from beneath the rubble of a collapsed building [i.e.
Shabbos is desecrated to save him], though no effort is made to save
him from the authorities if they apprehend him for his intentional
murder of an innocent person. It is different in the case of a habitual

3. See further, siman 275, where we note that the Chochmas Shlomo is of the same
opinion as the She’ilas Yaavetz.

272 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein