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possible danger in order to save his father from certain danger. How-
ever, we cannot derive from here that we are allowed to leave innocent
children in the company of a sick deviant who will harm them phys-
ically and spiritually, in order to prevent any harm to his unfortunate
mother. For it is incumbent on her to strengthen her faith and trust in
Hashem yisbarach that whatever He does is for the good. Although
until now her entire life has revolved around her son, now that she is
unable to take care of him she must find things to fill her broken and
dejected heart.

This can be proven from maseches Shabbos (120) where we learn
that if fire breaks out in a person’s house on Shabbos, threatening
to destroy it along with his possessions, it is forbidden to extinguish
it. Even though there are people who invest the best years of their
lives in their property and their money is more precious to them than
their health, it is still forbidden for them to extinguish the fire. We are
not concerned about their anguish which may endanger their lives,
because a person has the capacity and is obligated to overcome his
anguish by trusting in Hashem yisbarach and finding happiness in
observing the Torah, and so it is in our case.5

If the woman is a heart patient who cannot possibly cope with
the pain of having her son locked up and being cut off from her, the
community must donate money to hire a man to chaperone the son,
staying with him during the day in his mother’s home and keeping
constant watch over him so that he doesn’t harm any children, for the
mother is a good mother and is not doing her son any harm6. All this

5. For further discussion of this idea see earlier, siman 276, regarding the case of
a person whose construction darkened his neighbor’s home, to the point where
the latter died from misery and the Mordechai’s comments cited there. See
also further, siman 281 (the first way of explaining the Chafetz Chaim’s view),
quoting the opinion of Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach zt”l concerning rescuing
manuscripts from a fire.

6. See earlier at the end of siman 271, regarding a girl who was being beaten by
her mother and the mother threatened suicide if her daughter were to be taken
away from her. We wrote there that if this turns out to be true i.e. eyewitnesses
testify to having seen the mother beat the child, the child should be removed

322 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein