Can Desecrating the Sabbath Ever Be Permitted?

Opening post by the rabbi

Can Desecrating the Sabbath Ever Be Permitted?

Posted on 19/3/2006

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Can desecrating the Sabbath ever be permitted?

I have heard that there is a statement (by the Hazon Ish?) that there is no permitted desecration of the Sabbath. It is always either an obligation to desecrate the Sabbath (for example, in a life-threatening situation) or a prohibition. There is no situation in which one is permitted to desecrate the Sabbath without being obligated to do so. Yet we find several examples in the Talmud itself of desecrating the Sabbath for matters that are not indispensable (burning the sacrificial portions of the Passover offering, reaping the Omer, cutting away bits of flesh whose removal is not indispensable to the circumcision), in the discussions in Menahot, chapter ‘Rabbi Yishmael,’ and in Shabbat, chapter ‘Kol Kitvei.’ At first glance, this seems equivalent to permitted desecration of the Sabbath (that is, without obligation). One can distinguish between the cases, but let us leave that for later. There is also permission on the Sabbath to rescue food for three meals (and clothing) from a fire (see Shabbat, chapter ‘Kol Kitvei’). There too, this appears not to be an obligation but a permission. Admittedly, the permission there applies only with respect to rabbinic prohibitions.

My questions to the esteemed public: 1. Can anyone provide a source for that statement (of the Hazon Ish? someone else?)? 2. Is it correct? Is there really no situation of permission to desecrate the Sabbath? (Perhaps this should be linked to the above discussions.) 3. Is there a case of desecrating the Sabbath in order to save a life that is merely permitted? 4. One interesting example was brought by one of my students regarding a woman whose son’s circumcision falls on the Sabbath. On the one hand, she is under no obligation to circumcise him (only permission. And according to some opinions she cannot validly perform the circumcision at all—see Rema, Yoreh De’ah). On the other hand, a circumcision performed at its proper time overrides the Sabbath, and presumably this is because of the son (so that he will be circumcised and not remain uncircumcised) and not for the sake of the father (to fulfill his commandment). If so, then apparently the mother is like the rabbinical court and any other person (of course, not according to the opinions cited in Rema in Yoreh De’ah that a woman’s circumcision is entirely ineffective). May she circumcise her son on the Sabbath? Is she obligated to do so? Is it forbidden? In an initial look, I have not so far found any discussion of this in the standard commentaries on the Shulchan Arukh.

Source (the forum ‘Stop Here, Think’): http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=1848223