MUGGERS AND MONEY ON SABBATH

QUESTION:

An elderly Orthodox Jew, walking home from the synagogue on the Sabbath, was, of course, carrying no money. A hold-up man accosted him and, because the old man had no money to give him, shot and killed him. It was suggested that elderly Orthodox Jews, living in high-risk areas, should carry a token bill with them, say a ten-dollar bill, to hand over to the hold-up man and thus save their lives. Is there a liberal Jewish attitude applicable to this opinion? (Asked by Rabbi Reeve Brenner, Hebrew Center of Westchester, Tuckahoe, New York.)

ANSWER:

NON-ORTHODOX JEWS do not hesitate to carry money on the Sabbath. Therefore there is no need for “a liberal Jewish posture” in this matter. The only type of permission to carry money that would be convincing to an Orthodox man would be that which is based firmly on Orthodox law. Let us, therefore, consider the strict Halacha on the question as to whether a man may carry money on the Sabbath if that act is likely to save his life in case he is held up.

First of all, there is no question that the carrying of money is forbidden on the Sabbath. (See Maimonides, Yad, Sabbath 25:6 and Orah Hayyim 301:33.) The reason for the prohibition is not directly Biblical but is based upon the rabbinical concept of muktsa. There are numerous types of muktsa. The one that applies here is the muktsa prohibition to handle such objects as are normally used to perform the type of work which is prohibited on the Sabbath. Since, therefore, it is prohibited to do business on the Sabbath, and money is considered to be specifically “set aside” (muktsa) as an instrument for doing business, money may not be handled or carried on the Sabbath.

However, it is to be noted that in this very matter of carrying money on the Sabbath, there are some grounds for leniency. Isserles, in his note to the law in the Shulchan Aruch (Orah Hayyim 301:33), says: “Many permit the carrying of money on the Sabbath if one is afraid that if he leaves the money in his lodging, his money will be stolen.” There are some discussions in the commentators as to whether the money should be sewn in the garments or carried loose. But be that as it may, Isserles says: Nohagin l’hokel (“It is customary to be lenient in this matter”).

Now, our problem here is primarily how to persuade the pious old man to carry the money for his safety’s sake. Therefore one could well argue with him as follows: Since it is permitted to carry the money in order to save the money from being stolen, should it not be permitted to carry the money to save one’s life from danger from injury or death? Of course, this is, in a way, the reverse of what Isserles permits. He permits the money to be carried on the Sabbath in order that it not be stolen, and we here would permit it to be carried on the Sabbath in order that it could be stolen. However, as we have said, danger to health or even life is more important than safeguarding the money.

Further discussion of this problem should also consider the laws of healing the sick on the Sabbath. If a person is dangerously sick, all Sabbath laws must be set aside completely. This applies not only to the secondary Sabbath laws like muktsa, the carrying of money, but also the strict Biblical laws, such as lighting fires, etc. (Yad, Sabbath 2:1 and Orah Hayyim 328, 329). Furthermore, this violating of the Sabbath for the sick must not be done surreptitiously but openly by adults and men of standing (Orah Hayyim 328:12 based on Yoma 84b).

Yet actually there are provisions in the law much more relevant to our question than the fact that money may be carried to save it, or that a dangerously sick person may be saved by means which are in violation of Sabbath laws. The important and the direct law in this case is the law of pikuach nefesh, direct danger to life from accident, fire, violence. The law, as stated in the Talmud (Yoma 84b), and as codified in the Shulchan Aruch 329:1, 2, is clear and forthright. It is as follows: “All danger to life sets aside the Sabbath, and whoever is most active [in violating the Sabbath to save life], he is most praiseworthy.” Mugging is clearly a source of danger to life, and if a life can be saved by carrying money, which is based only on the laws of muktsa, then certainly one is to be praised who can save a life by this violation.

Of course, it can be argued that we do not know whether the man might be mugged at all, or if mugged, whether or not the mugger would kill him. However, the law is also clear that when there is such danger of violence to life, we do not stop to count the probabilities. Thus, for example, if a wall falls, and if we think that someone is buried under it, but we really do not know whether or not a person is there under the ruins, though we suspect that he may be, or we do not know whether he is already dead or perhaps still alive, we must simply take for granted that there is danger of accidental death, and we dig into the ruined heap on the Sabbath (Orah Hayyim 329:2). This mugging situation is so frequent, especially in certain neighborhoods, that we may not stop to count the probabilities. We assume that the danger is present; and just as we are in duty bound to violate the Sabbath to save an endangered life, so the endangered person is equally in duty bound to save his own.

Maimonides, in his discussion of saving life on the Sabbath, cites the verse in Leviticus 18:5: “My statutes and ordinances which a man should do and live by” (Yad, Sabbath 2:3). To this he adds the Talmudic amplification: “live by but not die by.” This amplification of the Biblical verse is derived from the Talmud (Yoma 85b) where, in the discussion of saving a man from danger, one scholar says: “Violate one Sabbath in his behalf that he may live to observe many Sabbaths.” Clearly, then, it is a man’s duty to save the lives of others regardless of whether the action involves violating the Sabbath. In fact, the law is that if we see a man attacked on the Sabbath, we may even prepare or use weapons to defend him, even if such actions are forbidden on the Sabbath (Yad, Hil. Sabbath 2:24). Obviously, too, just as a man is in duty bound to violate the Sabbath in order to save others, so a man is clearly in duty bound to save himself if he can. If, for example, a wall fell upon a person, we must, as mentioned above, remove the debris on the Sabbath to save him; so too, certainly, if the man is only half-covered by the debris and has the strength to struggle, he is in duty bound to remove rocks and stones and dirt (on the Sabbath) in order to save himself.

The old man and those like him are actually in duty bound to violate the Sabbath (by carrying money) or even to carry some repellent, such as mace or the like, if this is likely to save him, as the Talmud says, “to observe many Sabbaths.”