A SACRIFICE
I dedicate this Parsha thought to my dear uncle, Rabbi Benjamin Kamenetzky, who passed away at the end of last week. The following thought gives us an insight to the value that Uncle Benyomin placed on life.
In this week’s Parsha, Acharei mos – Kedoshim, we find the famous dictum that the laws of Torah are suspended before loss of life. The verse states “you shall live by them (through the words of Torah and through her laws)”. Our Sages explain that the implication of this verse is that the Torah and her laws are to bring us life not death. Therefore in a circumstance when life is endangered and can be remedied only by transgressing the Torah we must opt to save the life and forego the Torah’s law. There are however, four exceptions where the Torah’s laws trump life itself. In these cases we uphold the the Torah and sacrifice life. These four exceptions are murder, adultery, idol worship and shmad. Shmad, is where the circumstance is such that by transgression of the Torah a disgrace to HaShem and to His Torah will be perpetrated.