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the fire which is consuming his assets ought not to pain him, for he
should instead bolster his faith and not allow his heart to ache3.

The Mishneh Halachos concludes: “Even though he has no
obligation to obtain atonement as a murderer, he must still obtain
atonement for having distressed a fellow Jew. If a person who pains
an animal violates a Torah prohibition, all the more does one who
pains a human. Therefore even though by becoming angry Shimon
was negligent in looking after himself, since Reuven nevertheless
refused to [go to a din Torah and] be guided by Torah law, thereby
causing Shimon pain, he should take ten men with him and go to the
Shimon’s grave and undertake never again to pain a Jew. If Shimon
left orphans, he should assist them if they need it and he should fast
on Monday, Thursday and Monday [i.e. three fasts].”

[However] it should be noted that despite all the above, a person
is sometimes unable to get the better of sudden overexcitement, as
happened in the following case. Some customers entered a patisserie
to buy a cake. After they paid the owner and he handed them the
cake – without recording the sale in the register – the “customers”
brought out documentation showing that they were officials for the
income tax authority and they had not finished speaking before the
vendor collapsed and died. This does not appear to be proper con-
duct because a heart patient sometimes doesn’t have the resources
to get over a sudden shock. Yehudah told Yosef similarly, “And when
he sees that the lad [Binyamin] is not present he [Yaakov] will die”
(Bereishis 44:32). The Seforno explains,“The reason he will die upon
seeing that the lad is not there, without asking what happened to him,
is because‘your servant [i.e. Yehudah] guaranteed’ [his safety] and if I
don’t bring him he will [immediately] jump to the conclusion that he
is undoubtedly lost.”

An additional reason to permit handing over a criminal with heart

3. This idea is mentioned earlier, siman 229 (s.v. ‘Let us now consider the second
topic’) and further, in siman 281 (The First Case s.v.‘And we find even beyond…’
and in Footnote 7 ibid.), quoting the remarks of Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach
zt”l concerning rescuing manuscripts from a fire.

290 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein