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no license to commit any sin to save them. The halachos of piku’ach
nefesh only apply to a person who needs help but not when his life
is in his own hands and he is the one putting an end to his own life.

According to this, we well understand that the halachah allows
a thief who breaks and enters in order to steal to be killed, rather
than expecting the homeowner to forego his property so as to save
the thief ’s life – just as there is an obligation to spend all one’s assets
in order to save a fellow Jew’s life.5 The difference is that a thief is
risking his life of his own volition. [Chazal teach that there is a pre-
sumption that he realizes that the homeowner will not surrender his
belongings and must therefore intend to defend himself at the cost
of the homeowner’s life; this entitles the homeowner to preempt him
and kill him instead.] Since he is acting negligently by placing himself
in a dangerous position, there is no obligation to save him. We learn
similarly in maseches Shabbos (4a) that we do not tell a person “sin in
order to benefit your colleague” when the colleague is at fault6.

We find a halachah that goes even further than the argument ad-
vanced by the Etz Chaim and Melemed Leho’il. It is well known that
extinguishing a fire is forbidden on Shabbos unless there is a risk of
danger to life. If there is no such concern, the fire may not be put
out. This holds true even when the owner of the burning property is
standing right next to his assets which are going up in flames and he
is liable to get sick and die of his anguish – it is nonetheless forbidden
to extinguish the fire. The comments of the Aderes in the pamphlet
Oveir Orach (334) about saving manuscripts [from the flames] are
known:“There is something of a case to be made for this posing dan-
ger to the life of the person who has labored and toiled over them all
his life, who may become ill from anguish, Rachmana litzlan [may the
Merciful One spare us]. As I heard about the gaon Rav A. Charlap
zt”l, who was the av beis din in Bialystok, whose Torah manuscripts

5. See earlier siman 122, where the various opinions regarding the obligation to
spend all one’s assets in order to save a fellow Jew’s life are explained at length.

6. For additional explanations of the allowance to kill a thief who breaks and en-
ters, see earlier at the end of siman 109, and siman 273 s.v.‘An example of this.’

358 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein