Q&A: On-Call Duty on the Sabbath
On-Call Duty on the Sabbath
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
My girlfriend is on call this Sabbath, and she serves in the army in Jerusalem. If she comes to me for the Sabbath and gets called up, am I allowed to drive her by car to her base?
If possible, I’d be happy for a more detailed explanation of what is permitted and what is forbidden.
Answer
If this involves a life-threatening situation and she has no other way to get there, then of course it is permitted and required. But it is preferable to do it through a non-Jew. As for returning home, that is much more problematic, and plainly it seems to me that it is forbidden even according to the opinions that permit it for a doctor (because this is not a departure by authorized rescue personnel, but an incidental call-up of an ordinary person). But certainly, according to the opinions that forbid it for a doctor, it would be forbidden here as well.
Discussion on Answer
How can one trust the army that this is really a life-threatening situation? After all, the IDF’s criteria for calling up soldiers are not halakhic criteria.
As far as I know, in principle, calling up soldiers and any activity on the Sabbath requires approval from a military rabbi. Obviously there can be screwups, but as long as there is no clear evidence, one should trust them. I agree that if there is a clear suspicion that this is not correct—and that is not far-fetched—one should not play dumb.
Follow-up question:
Hello Rabbi Michi.
Following up on my previous question—if my girlfriend comes to me for the Sabbath while she is on call in the army, and it’s possible (a very small chance) that they’ll call her up to Jerusalem, to her base—are we allowed to pay for a taxi to take her there if there’s no other way?
My answer:
Interesting question.
Apparently yes, since if there is no other way, this is a life-threatening situation. That is of course true if there really is no other way. But as you asked in the previous question, there is another way: you could drive her there (except that apparently you are concerned that you won’t be able to return). If so, apparently there is no permission to cause the taxi driver to violate the Sabbath, and this would be considered assisting in a transgression, and perhaps even literally a case of “do not place a stumbling block.”
On the other hand, you are not at fault, and you can always refuse to drive her, in which case she has no choice but to take the taxi driver. In my opinion, that can be done.