Chief Rabbi Rav Dovid Lau on Wednesday visited the base of the military rabbinate near Ramle, where the difficult work of identifying the fallen victims is being carried out.
In response to the shaila of how to behave on Shabbos, HaRav Lau said: “I am moved by the great dedication of all the staff. I understand that you won’t finish the identification before Shabbos but it’s important and required – it’s pikuach nefesh – because if it’s clarified that if someone’s here, he’ll be removed from the list of the missing – at a time of war, it’s pikuach nefesh.”
“Continue to work even on Shabbos Kodesh and make every effort to continue the kodesh work like a regular day and b’ezras Hashem we’ll be zocheh to a Shabbos nechamah.”
The death toll has reached 1,200 and the process of identifying the victims, many of which were not retrieved until two-three days later and some of which were burned, is proving to be extremely difficult and many halachic shailos have arisen.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
Of-course it is חילול-שבת
What the venerated Chief Rabbi is saying is, the עבירה shall be credited solely & exclusively to Hammas terrorists & organizers & supporters thereof
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That makes no sense.
What he means is: if soldiers are risking their lives, going door to door, to save someone who is already dead. That is pikuach nefesh.
They should only be searching for those who might still be alive in hostage.
We need identification of the dead for that to be possible.
Every minute counts when hostages are in danger