When Delay Becomes Killing
In the Talmud (Shabbat 129a), when firewood was nowhere to be found, students once smashed and burned precious furniture to provide warmth for their dangerously ill teachers.
When critics challenged: “Didn’t you violate Bal Tashchit (lit. ‘do not destroy’), the prohibition on senseless destruction?” the response was definitive:
Bal Tashchit applies to objects— but first and foremost, it applies to the human body.
Halacha forbids needless destruction, but never at the expense of human life or health. Property can be replaced; a human being cannot.
Today, we face a heartbreaking kal vachomer —all the more so—with thousands of seriously ill people in Gaza. We don’t need to burn furniture or sacrifice property. We only need to open a humanitarian corridor for the thousands of sick people and cancer patients in Gaza to reach hospitals in the West Bank and East Jerusalem [01:06].
To save the lives of children, elders, dialysis patients, amputees—all that is needed is the Israeli government’s permission to reopen the humanitarian medical corridor.
And yet, it is not happening.
The Israeli Supreme Court, petitioned to open the corridor months ago, is waiting. It’s in no rush to save lives. And in the meantime, treatable illnesses become fatal, and people are dying [01:25].
The sick people in Gaza are dying—not because they suffer from incurable diseases, but because Israel blocks much-needed medical supplies, and the Supreme Court refuses to order the opening of a humanitarian corridor.
Over 1,000 patients have already died while waiting for permits that never came [00:24]. There are moments when delay is tantamount to deadly violence. You can wear a black robe, and sit behind a desk—and still be a murderer.
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Watch this heartbreaking video by Physicians for Human Rights Israel. Then consider signing the petition. Then share it widely—because silence, too, kills.
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