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Indeed, all this applies [i.e. there is no license to violate Torah
prohibitions to save her, neither is there any mitzvah to do so,] before
the young woman tries to kill herself, because until then it is in her
power to escape [from her destructive frame of mind] and save her-
self, therefore others are not obligated to save her. If though she has
already thrown herself into the ocean and is no longer able to save
herself, the situation becomes one of piku’ach nefesh and according to
many opinions others are obligated to save her.

However, the view of the Minchas Chinuch (Mitzvah 237:2,
Kometz Le’minchah) and of Rav Yerucham Fishel Perlow (in his com-
mentary on Rabbenu Saadya Gaon, Positive Mitzvah 28) is that even
on a weekday [i.e. when no mitzvah is being violated] there is no obli-
gation to save someone who has attempted suicide. Their reasoning is
that the obligation to save a life is derived from the mitzvah to“restore
it to him” (Devarim 22:3) which refers to lost property [and all the
more so his life] and just as we are not obligated to restore the prop-
erty of a person who knowingly loses it neither is there an obligation
to save the life of someone who intentionally destroys it. This opinion
is shared by the Yam Shel Shlomo in Gittin (4, 72) who writes that
there is no obligation to redeem a person who steals from non Jews
in the knowledge that they sentence robbers to death by hanging,
because he is responsible for forfeiting his own life. In Or Gadol (1,
p. 5 col. 4 s.v. ve’chein nireh ketzas) the author writes that nowhere do
we find if a person bakes intentionally on Shabbos after having been
warned, thus making him liable for death by stoning, that others are
obligated to remove the dough from the oven [thereby violating the
rabbinic decree against such an item from the oven] before it bakes
in order to prevent him incurring the death sentence. We would have
expected that even though when a colleague is blameworthy we don’t
tell a person “sin in order to benefit your colleague,” since in this case
he will incur the death penalty, it has become a situation of piku’ach
nefesh in which Shabbos is desecrated. We must therefore conclude
that where the individual is in danger because he has shown no regard
for his own life, we do not desecrate Shabbos for him.” See there (s.v.
hinei nisba’er) where he writes, “This is a novel halachah that I have

360 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein