A Jew owns a high end hotel by the airport. On Shabbat and Moadim he leaves his employees to take care of business. One Shabbat morning there is a plane crash that engulfs his hotel in flames. Casualties are high. Does he have any responsibility to be there even though there are employees, officials and EMTs taking care of the situation?
Avi

Of course! Life first! He must do that which he can!

Author Topic: what's responsible Jew to do?Author

Avi d'Israeli

A Jew owns a high end hotel by the airport. On Shabbat and Moadim he leaves his employees to take care of business. One Shabbat morning there is a plane crash that engulfs his hotel in flames. Casualties are high. Does he have any responsibility to be there even though there are employees, officials and EMTs taking care of the situation?
Avi

Yocheved Broscova-Guerra
Posted March 19, 2007 05:27 AM
Of course! Life first! He must do that which he can!
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Actually, he is not allowed to do anything with regard to the building and/or possessions except for some food and items of kedusha which might be brought out of the wreakage... Yes, he should be there because it would be a chillu Hashem for him to not be there, and his being there to comfort victims and do what can be done would be a praiseworthy measure of action... as Yocheved states "Life first"; However, he is not obligated to be there since he would never be there on Shabbat. Halachically he is exempt from being there only because it is normal for him not to be there on Shabbat, yet above and beyond halachah he should be there because compassionate action (has the potential to) resolve even tragic happenings.
Shavua tov.

Yehonaton & Yocheved,

This is not a case of pekuach nefesh. There already are medical people and other mergency types of authorities taking care of the situation. Yehonaton, you say he should save the food? You mean he should violate Shabbat to save the food?

Should the Jew drive up there, violating Shabbat to comfort people? Is it chillul HaShem not to do so?

Avi

I cannot imagine it being permissible to desecrate Shabbos to travel to the burning building as simply an owner. Walking there and assisting with saving life perhaps he has a greater capability than others to know where to look within the building, and if he could come to not might look bad, but I would suspect he cannot do anything.

One cannot put out a fire on Shabbos to save their house from burning down, right?

This situation is more like visiting the ill than saving a life. the safety of these people are his responsibility. Providing them comfort is not Chillul HaShem, in my humble opinion

If I were the owner of the hotel, and I saw people on the news, trapped, burning, etc. I would NOT be able to live with myself if I did not go there and offer all I could in the way of assistance. Anything I could offer, including special knowledge of places where people may be trapped, perhaps which people were day-sleepers, ( I used to have a B&B, and I worked in an extended stay hotel many years ago, so I know that the owners and other front desk employees always have special notes on guests of special needs), be it assisting exhausted fire-fighters (who may be helping Jews out of their rooms, by the way), helping employees emotionally, aiding the firefighters with architectural knowledge to gain easiest access in the safest manner, etc.

I realize that I, by nature, am more quick to get my hands dirty in threatening situations than many of my contemporaries, and perhaps I would hold myself to higher standards of action due to my cool-headedness in pressure situations than would a person who naturally is not thus inclined. Be that as it may, I still would lean toward the argument that could be made that one should do all they CAN do. Some can do more than others--but that doesn't make it any less a responsibility when life-threatening/endangering situations arise.

It is an emergency. A crisis. A financial crisis is no reason to break Shabbos, of course. But one which is killing people? To my mind, there is no question as to what should be done. It is not visiting the sick-- as an owner, your knowledge is likely to be the ONLY key to saving other's lives.

Let us look at it this way-- if yours was the only knowledge which would enable the emergency personnel to help someone on the fifteenth floor, be it access information, or simply that they were daysleepers and would need to be accounted for, could you live with the fact that you didn't go and a person perished?? Life first. Always.

I for one would rather have gone, even if amazingly, somehow none of my knowledge was needed and all were mercifully saved, and have offer it up on Yom Kippur, than to not have gone and risk the consequences. HaSh-m is the PERFECT judge, and that means he weighs not only the person's life but also his application of halacha--and perhaps never more so than in pressured situations. I would hope that I could lift my hands before him sinlessly, and with a pure heart (and hands) say to Him I did my very best.

The car is the fastest way to get there to do the most amount of good. I wouldn't hesitate with life in the balance. We do the same if one of us is very ill.

There are always dilemmas like this and most of the time they are (thank G-d) hypothetical.

How would you hear about the plane crash on a Shabbos in the first place?

If you live within walking distance, I think it is human nature to go to see if you can help, whether you are the owner or not and whether it is Shabbos or not. If you are driving distance, isn't there a thing whereby if someone is very sick or dying and they ask for you by name, you have to go? Its considered (I think) a bit like pikuach nefesh. With that in mind, if you are well known by the guests, then I would suggest that it is likely that they would ask for you by name and should therefore go. However, if you are a very hands-off owner, perhaps you even live in another country, then there is no benefit in you going.

That's my thought, anyway.

quote:

How would you hear about the plane crash on a Shabbos in the first place?

Perhaps someone would send a fax?

Many home telephone answering machines broadcast an incoming message while it is being recorded, and a hotel owner might in fact have an emergency use private line to his home that employees or alarm company personal might call, or that the fire department would have on record.

A gentile neighbor might come over to inform the hotel owner. A hotel owner might even have gentile servants working at his home who listen to local news, or also volunteer for the fire department, and carry pagers which alert them to things.

A fire/police scanner might be in operation.

And it could even be from the Connecticut shore one can see out over Long Island Sound to where Laguardia airport is, and even see flames or here explosions.

fair enough!