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gard to the case of a chalutzah who had become affianced to a kohen,
while they were both unaware of each other’s status and if they now
had to part she would be in danger, for they deeply loved one another.
The Chasam Sofer ruled that they could not be allowed to transgress
even a rabbinical prohibition [i.e. of a kohen marrying a chalutzah],
for they were endangering themselves because of the forbidden desire
within their evil hearts.3

According to all this, the halachah ought to be that there is no
license whatsoever for violating prohibitions in order to prevent a
person threatening suicide from carrying out his intention and taking
his own life.

However on the face of it, the Maharil Diskin’s comments (In his
responsa, Kuntres Acharon, 34) apparently imply that we are obligated
to prevent suicide even by desecrating Shabbos. He writes: “We are
commanded to save even a person who wants to kill himself – even
on Shabbos.” When I showed this to a certain great Torah scholar
he told me that it refers to someone who intends to commit suicide
mistakenly i.e. he thinks that [in his situation] that is what he is sup-
posed to do4 but not to a person who deliberately intends suicide
knowing it is forbidden.

The Maharil’s concluding remarks however do not seem to bear
out this understanding. Regarding a robber who comes in stealth,
upon whom a building collapsed, to extract whom we do not des-
ecrate Shabbos (See Rashi, Sanhedrin 72b), he writes that the thief
is already considered a dead man from the moment he tunnels [or
otherwise breaks] into the house. “However,” concludes the Maharil
Diskin, “the reason we do not [desecrate Shabbos to] clear away the
rubble that fell on him is not because of his carelessness in regard

3. These cases are discussed at length earlier, siman 281.
4. The case discussed by the Maharil is the allowance for a father to desecrate

Shabbos in order to save his daughter who has been abducted for rape (Orach
Chaim 206:14); the Maharil argues that the possibility that the girl would sacri-
fice her life to save herself from this fate should anyway render this a situation of
piku’ach nefesh.

378 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein