Reply To: Chivalry & Yiddishkeit: A Foreign Concept

I’m glad there are others here willing to stick their necks out to defend Shulchan Orach, Halacha and the Torah! (:

To reiterate: If all things are equal, i.e. there is a man and a woman in the river, and you only have the capacity to save one, Shulchan Orach states in black and white to save the man.

When the Titanic sank, there were not enough space in the lifeboats. Anyone who did not make it to a lifeboat, perished. In theory you are supposed to save a Talmid Chochom first, but in practice halacha is not like that since no one can evaluate one person over another.

kiruvwife:

To clarify, Shulchan Orach does not specify a priority when saving a life between a Kohain and a Yisroel. (Of course in other situations halacha specifies Kohanim have priority.) I never saw any psak saying otherwise between Kohain & Yisroel.

Your question about all of Klal Yisroel being simutaneously at risk is unrealistic. In fact the Chazal clearly state that Hashem will never endanger all of Klal Yisroel at once.

Again:

Psak: Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 252:8, “And if they both [a man and a woman] are going to drown in a river, one should save the man first.”

Mishna & Meforshim: Mishna Horayos 3:7, “A man has privilege over a woman, to be saved from death and to return his loss”, Rambam [on that Mishna], “You already know that men are obligated to keep all of the commandments while the women are obligated to keep only part of them, as is explained in Kiddushin (Mishna 1:7) and he is [thus] more sanctified and therefore the man’s life is saved first”).