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just read the story on the front page….can’t figure out how saving a life, regardless of the situation can be forbidden…am I wrong in stating that saving a life is perhaps the biggest mitzvah of all?
The first thing that someone would need to do is clarify exactly what the Gedolim think about this matter. The fact that there are signs all over Yerushalayim with names on the bottom doesn’t mean anything. There are kana’aim out there who will twist the Gedolims’ words for their own agenda. It could be that someone asked the Gedolim if it’s preferable to volunteer for a shomer-Torah emergency organization rather than MDA, and they answered yes …
If it is indeed true, I imagine that there’s a back story here … I also have trouble understanding how it could be really assur to volunteer for MDA.
One should not question the gedolim regardless if what they say make sense to you.
I agree with Raya
remember no loshon hora on our gedolim. they are a lot wiser then us!
Having had to call MDA more times than I can count on my fingers, I can tell you that many of the volunteers are young people of both genders and that the atmosphere among them is not always appropriate for frum people. There’s often physical contact between them while working together on a patient, and they sit very close to each other while riding in the ambulance. The gedolim did not say not to save lives, they just said to volunteer for the frum organizations where these problems are eliminated.
Hakol TOv: That’s right. I am not mekabel that gedolim, or any Jew for that mattter, said that it is assur to save lives.
Mother in Israel: And anyone who says that those concerns outweigh saving lives is almost exactly the gemara’s definition of a chosid shoteh.
Poshut. Like the Chazon Ish said, we can not have Charadim working under the auspicies of the state (which is why he (and other Charadim) held Sherut Leumi is Yehoreg V’al Ya’avor). Charadim must always be under the direct hechsher of the Gedolim.
I’m just surprised that there were any Charadim working for MADA. I imagine there are not, and the question came up only recently by someone who was unable to be “Mayvin Davar Mitoch Davar”.
MIS, I don’t know why the gedolim did what they did, but that is NOT something YOU should assume. Frum people who volunteer their time to save lives, ONE would assume would act as they would elsewhere and not behave differently because they are on a volunteer life saving mission. YOU should dan l’kaf zchus and keep that in mind as well. There are many other Halachic issues which might have to do with blood, giving blood, collecting blood, yichud, shabbos, tomeh, dinim regarding if a patient dies, etc. All things that need to be considered, taught and followed if you are a frum Jew and if the patient is Frum as well. Things are not always as simple as they appear and if you were never close to someone who died you would not know all the particulars. I am NOT saying that this is the reason either. I don’t know and in most cases with many of these proclamations they come out and there is a big fuss and then a week later it is explained, withdrawn or modified.
RK – I am sorry but I dont know about your brisker tradition, But the way I had hadracha was, is that you dont ask – you do. You dont ask why, if this is pshat then darf min mikabel zein.
I dont think the oilum is understanding MII – There is a difference between opposite gender contact between the patient, and another EMT. One should avoid working with opposite gender teams. One is obviously allowed to save an opposite gender patient.
The problem is not so much the inadvertent contact between the volunteers with other volunteers or patients of the opposite gender, as much as the frivolous conversations and dress (and worse) that openly occur in MDA between opposite gender volunteers when they have free time, as Mother in Israel related.
If you had read the comments on the YWN News regarding
this Psak…..one of the posted comments spoke about what goes
on at After Hours, when the volunteers are catching a bite, or taking a break, they mingle in a way that is not appropriate for a Frum boy/girl. He continued to write that his FRUM good friend who is a volunteer ended up marrying one of the volunteers who it seems was not from a Frum family. We are all human and things can happen. The Rabbonim obviously are putting out this Psak because of Tznius and the dangers of boys and girls mingling on the job and what it may lead to…It was not attacking the actual mitzvah of Pikuach Nefesh.
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