Dead Reckoning, Part II: May We Endanger the Living to Retrieve the Dead?

Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman

February 26, 2026

In our previous article, we cited the position of R’ Zalman Nechemiah Goldberg and R’ Yaakov Ariel that as important as it is to bury a meis mitzvah, it does not justify either risking lives or chillul Shabbos. In this article we will consider some arguments in favor of doing those things to retrieve fallen soldiers.[1]

Nighttime raid

Sefer Shmuel I relates an incident that followed the death of Sha’ul Hamelech and his sons in battle against the Plishtim:

It happened the next day, when the Plishtim came to plunder the corpses, that they found Sha’ul and his three sons fallen on Har Hagilboa. They severed his head and stripped off his gear, and they sent heralds all about the land of the Plishtim to inform those in the temple of their idols and the people. They placed his gear in the temple of Ashtaros, and they hung up his remains upon the wall of Bais Shan. The inhabitants of Yaveish Gilad heard about him—about what the Plishtim had done to Sha’ul—and all the daring men arose and went throughout the night, and they took the remains of Sha’ul and the remains of his sons from the wall of Bais Shan and came back to Yaveish. They burned them there. They then took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Yaveishah, and they fasted seven days.[2]

The peirush on Divrei Hayamim attributed to Rashi explains:

Why did [the men of Yaveish Gilad], more than other Jews, endanger themselves to retrieve the bodies of Sha’ul and his sons from Har Hagilboa? Because he had done them a favor by saving them when Nachash Ha’Amoni threatened them.[3],[4]

This apparently assumes that the mission of the men of Yaveish Gilad was dangerous, and if we assume that their conduct was correct, then this incident, as understood by this peirush, constitutes an important precedent for risking lives to retrieve the dead from enemy hands, at least in certain circumstances (although the halachic rationale for this is unclear).[5]

The question of an am ha’aretz

There are a number of reports that R’ Shlomo Zalman Auerbach condoned the chillul Shabbos and chillul Yom Tov that had been done during and after the Yom Kippur War to retrieve fallen soldiers, the sight of which was deemed extremely deleterious to soldiers’ morale.

R’ Yehoshua Ben-Meir (a talmid of R’ Shlomo Zalman, R’ Shmuel Rozovsky, Rav Shach, and R’ Dovid Povarsky) relates that he himself retrieved fallen soldiers on Yom Tov after the Yom Kippur War (on Sukkos), based in part on the concern for army morale. He later asked R’ Shlomo Zalman whether the circumstances had justified traveling on Yom Tov, and he recalls this response:

You are asking the question of an am ha’aretz (ignoramus), whether it is permitted for you to bring yourself and the soldiers into a dangerous place, where there is shelling, for you yourself report that two soldiers were wounded. If it is permitted to bring people into a place of danger, a fortiori it is permitted to remove the dead on Shabbos and Yom Tov, because danger overrides Shabbos.

Rav Ben-Meir responded by asking whether one may enter a dangerous area to retrieve the dead. R’ Shlomo Zalman responded at length in the affirmative, as he recounts:

According to him…the damage to the morale of soldiers who see that if they fall, their bodies will just lie on the side and no one will deal with them,[6] is an important consideration for the fighting spirit, and it thus constitutes pikuach nefesh.[7]

R’ Mordechai Halperin, who was close to both R’ Shlomo Zalman and R’ Yisrael Zev Gustman for decades, reports that on Shabbos Bereishis of the Yom Kippur War (24 Tishrei/October 20), he permitted chillul Shabbos in order to retrieve the dead, due to the concern for military morale:

At that stage I assessed that there was a grave situation in the Tirtur junction and the Matzmed compound (sites in the Battle of the Chinese Farm, one of the most brutal battles of the Yom Kippur War, described by Moshe Dayan as “a vast field of slaughter stretching as far as the eye could see”). The war was in full swing, and the troops were passing by bodies lying on the sides of the road that hadn’t been removed. I determined that the situation constituted pikuach nefesh, and based on this assessment, I expressed my view that travel is permitted to retrieve the dead.

After the war, I presented the account of the incident to Hagaon R’ Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, and I heard from him halacha lema’aseh to permit travel in such situations. I heard similar conclusions then from other poskim as well; I think that Hagaon R’ Yisrael Zev Gustman was among them…[8]

R’ Avraham Moshe Avidan (Zemel) reports having heard a general principle from R’ Shlomo Zalman:

In any situation where the presence of bodies arouses panic, and they rush to remove them even on weekdays in order to prevent faintheartedness, it is permitted to remove them on Shabbos…[9]

Peace of mind

It is a somewhat unsettled question whether one may desecrate Shabbos to bolster the morale of a choleh sheyeish bo sakanah (a sick person in mortal danger). The Gemara says:

The master said in the breisa: If [a woman giving birth] needed a lamp, her friend may light the lamp for her (because peace of mind is critical to her survival).

(The Gemara asks:) That is obvious (because it is pikuach nefesh)!

(The Gemara answers:) No, it is necessary in the case of a blind woman. You might have said that since she cannot see, it is prohibited. So the breisa informs us that it is permitted, because it puts her mind at ease, for she reasons: “If there is something that must be done for me, my friend will see it and do it for me.”[10]

Tosfos explains:

Although in the last perek of Yoma (83a) it says that we only feed a sick person on Yom Kippur on the advice of an expert, here it is permitted in order to settle her mind. This is because the fear that a woman giving birth has that people are not doing what she needs is more dangerous to her than hunger is dangerous to a sick person.[11]

In other words, concerns about morale are not all equally urgent. The fear of a woman in childbirth that she is not being properly cared for is more dangerous to her life than a sick person’s fear that not eating will endanger him is to his life.

Many poskim have applied this dispensation to calm a woman giving birth to other contemporary Shabbos questions, but there is considerable debate about how far to extend it. R’ Moshe Feinstein rules that if a woman in labor says she is afraid to travel to the hospital by herself even after she is told that there is nothing to be afraid of, there is a concern of pikuach nefesh, and her husband or her mother must travel with her.[12]

R’ Avraham Yosef cites his father, R’ Ovadiah, as having ruled that even if there is a hospital within walking distance of a woman in labor, she may travel to a more distant one if it will give her peace of mind.[13] R’ Yaakov Ariel, however, is very unhappy with what he considers to be excessive concern:

The matter of settling the patient’s mind, in my opinion, has crossed all boundaries. At one point they permitted a husband to accompany his wife to the hospital on Shabbos; today they extend this to the mother and the doula as well, and in order for them all to travel, and for the woman in labor to be calm, they also need to transport the children someplace or transport someone to supervise them. Have we forgotten the Mishnah [sic] in Yoma[14] that when a pregnant woman smells food on Yom Kippur and craves it, we first tell her “It is Yom Kippur today”?! Yes, we must settle the mind of a woman in labor, but we also must not go too far. I do not agree with Rav Yosef.[15]

R’ Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg forbids a Jewish driver[16] to take a woman in labor to her preferred hospital if a closer one is available, explaining that the dispensation to settle her mind applies only in those specific circumstances that Chazal established to be dangerous.[17]

Last request

The Mordechai cites Rabeinu Simcha as ruling that when a dangerously ill person requests the presence of his relatives, a non-Jew may be sent to get them, even he will travel outside the techum.[18] The Aruch Hashulchan rules that a Jew may not violate even a Rabbinic prohibition to carry out the request, but he adds a crucial qualification: “It appears to me that if the physician says there will be danger if they do not fulfill his request, he is like every choleh sheyeish bo sakanah…”[19] Similarly, R’ Shlomo Zalman is reported to have ruled—in consonance with the position attributed to him above—that “sometimes it is permitted even to desecrate Torah prohibitions of Shabbos if we need, for example, to bring a son to his father, if there is truly a possibility that his mind will become deranged (sheyitareif dato) and he will be endangered.”[20]

[1]Much has been written about this topic, but there are relatively few firsthand rulings by major poskim; some important discussions in the secondary literature include R’ Yehudah Zoldan, Netilas Sikun Lesheim Hava’as Chalelei Milchamah Likvurah (in his Shvus Yehudah VeYisrael Ch. 21 pp. 350-363) and Hashpalah Vehistaknus Lema’an Kvuras Lochamim; and R’ Azriel Ariel, Sikun Chaim Lema’an Kvuras Chalalim.

[2]Shmuel I 31:8-13, and see the parallel account in Divrei Hayamim I 10:8-12.

[3]See Shmuel I perek 11.

[4]Peirush Hameyuchas LeRashi LeDivrei Hayamim ibid. pasuk 12.

[5]For discussion of this precedent, see the articles of Rav Zoldan and Rav Ariel cited above.

[6]It is unclear whether R’ Shlomo Zalman would extend his argument to retrieving bodies buried by non-Jews in enemy territory.

[7]R’ Yehoshua Ben-Meir, Pinui Chalalim BeShabbos Vechag Bemilchemess Yom Hakipurim (also here and here).

[8]R’ Mordechai Halperin, Pinui Chalalim BeShabbos.

[9]Darchei Chesed (Rav Avidan) perek 10 end of n. 2, cited by Rav Halperin ibid.

[10]Shabbos 128b.

[11]Tosfos ibid. s.v. Ka mashma lan.

[12]Shu”t Igros Moshe O.C. cheilek 1 siman 132. Cf. Shmiras Shabbos Kehilchasah (5770) perek 40 se’if 82 p. 656; Nishmas Avraham (Second Expanded Edition) Vol. 1 (O.C.) p. 514 (and cf. ibid. p. 302 s.v. Ve’ein lehakshos).

[13]Cited by R’ Yaakov Ariel below. Cf. Shmiras Shabbos Kehilchasah perek 32 se’if 38 and nn. 109-111, pp. 534-35; Toras Hayoledess perek 7 p. 68.

[14]See Bavli Yoma 82b.

[15]R’ Yaakov Ariel, Yisuvei Data Beyoledess.

[16]He allows having a non-Jewish driver do so.

[17]Cited in Toras Hayoledess ibid. n. 4, and cf. Rav Zilberstein’s response there.

[18]Mordechai Shabbos remez 314, cited in Bais Yosef O.C. siman 306 and codified in Shulchan Aruch ibid. se’if 9.

[19]Aruch Hashulchan ibid. se’if 20. Cf. Shu”t Yaskil Avdi cheilek 7 O.C. siman 22; Shu”t Tzitz Eliezer cheilek 8 siman 15 perek 9 os 1; Nishmas Avraham ibid. p. 303.