It was a “Shabbat from Gehenoim” for the ZAKA International Rescue Unit delegation in Haiti. The six man ZAKA delegation (four from Israel and two from Mexico) arrived in Haiti aboard a Mexican air force Hercules, immediately after completing their work in recovery and identification in the Mexico City helicopter crash.
On arrival, the ZAKA delegation was dispatched to the collapsed 8-story university building where cries could be heard from the trapped students. After hours of work around the clock and working with rescue equipment provided by the Mexican military, the ZAKA volunteers succeeded in pulling eight students alive from the rubble, 38 hours after the building collapsed in the earthquake.
In a disturbing email that Mati Goldstein, head of the ZAKA International Rescue Unit delegation managed to send to the ZAKA headquarters in Jerusalem, he writes of the “Shabbat from hell. Everywhere, the acrid smell of bodies hangs in the air. It’s just like the stories we are told of the Holocaust – thousands of bodies everywhere. You have to understand that the situation is true madness, and the more time passes, there are more and more bodies, in numbers that cannot be grasped. It is beyond comprehension.”
Amid the stench and chaos, the ZAKA delegation took time out to recite Shabbos prayers – a surreal sight of ultra-orthodox men wrapped in prayer shawls standing on the collapsed buildings. Many locals sat quietly in the rubble, staring at the men as they prayed facing Jerusalem. At the end of the prayers, they crowded around the delegation and kissed the prayer shawls.
Due to the breakdown in communications in Haiti, the ZAKA delegation which arrived from Mexico was unable to make contact before Shabbat with the Israeli Home Front Command delegation that is now in Haiti.
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9 Responses
Mi k’amcha Yisrael.
Rachmanim, bnei Rachmanim.
Don’t get it. If there was for some reason a heter of “safek pikuach nefesh”, to allow for the chillul Shabbos, then what is the heter to daven?
A truly amazing group, and zoicha to be the shliach to accomplish this miraculous mission. Who would think the group would still be alive under the rubble?
maamin/#2: “safek pikuach nefesh” is exclusive to a nochri. What was the heter to be mechallel shabbos here?
The Heter is clear in Mishna Berura, Mishum Eivah. Thus Stopping to Daven is permitted if it will not result in Eivah which from the kisses to the prayer shawls i believe is appropriatte as it is memaait in th chilul shabbos without Eivah.
#4 in general if there is a 1 percent chance a yid is there you can b mechalel shabos.
Dunno bout the heter, but working around the clock means they need some sort of break so they davened, don’t see the big deal.
#4. The heter of chilul shabbos for a nochri, mishum eivah, is only for an issur derabbanan. See Hilchos Shabbos. Siman 330:2 and the comment of the MB #8. and the Biur Halacha. The possible heteirim are 1. 329:2 although if we never knew that there was a Jew present, the heter is tenuous. Very complicated for we would need to know if there were Jewish students or faculty at the university. 2. A stronger heter is that of Melocho shein tzricha legufah. When the primary intention is not refuah but to prevent harm to Jews such activity would be permitted. I cannot cite a source but have heard this from poskim. I assume that Zaka came to Haiti after conferring with Gedolei Torah. May the rescurers and the victims merit the compassion of Hashem.
Who gave them a heter to work on Shabbos? Does anyone know the rov’s name? Or did they not get a heter?
The heter mishum eivoh is very weak; it was utterly unheard of until the 19th century. In this case there is no real danger of eivoh if they would have arranged not to work on shabbos, so I don’t understand how they could have been moreh heter.