Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman April 17, 2026 Our previous article cited…
Shelf Unstable: Are Rickety Ladders Dangerous for Someone Doing a Mitzvah?
Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman
August 28, 2025
The Associated Press reports:
Werner on Thursday said it is recalling more than 100,000 faulty ladders due to a locking mechanism that can fail, potentially causing users to fall and injure themselves…In cooperation with federal consumer product regulators, Werner is recalling 122,250 Multi-Max Pro ladders that come in 20-foot and 24-foot sizes…
Werner said it has received 18 reports of falls, including 14 reports of injuries resulting in bruising, lacerations, head injuries, and fractures to the wrist, leg and ribs.[1]
The Torah commands:
If you build a new house, you shall make a fence for your roof, and you shall not place blood in your house if one who falls shall fall from it.[2]
The Gemara elaborates:
For we learned in a breisa: R’ Nosson says: From where do we learn that a person should not raise a vicious dog in his house and should not place a rickety ladder in his house? To teach this, the pasuk says: “You shall not place blood in your house.”[3]
The Maharsha explains that R’ Nosson is extending the mitzvah to build a fence, which is for the safety of the house’s residents, to a prohibition against raising a vicious dog and setting up an unstable ladder—neither of which is likely to result in harm to the residents, because the dog is familiar with them and they know the ladder is rickety, so the prohibition is for the protection of others.[4]
The Rambam rules:
It is a mitzvas asei for a person to make a fence for his roof, as it says, “You shall make a fence for your roof,” provided that the building is a residence. But a warehouse, a barn for cattle, and the like do not require it. And any house that is not four by four amos is exempt from a fence…
Anyone who leaves his roof without a fence has negated a positive mitzvah and violated a negative mitzvah, as it says, “And you shall not place blood in your house.” One does not receive lashes for this lav, because it does not entail an action.
Both a roof and anything else that involves danger that a person may stumble upon and die, e.g., if he has a well or a pit in his courtyard—whether with water or without—he must make around them a mound ten tfachim high, or make a cover for it, so that a person will not fall into it and die.
Likewise, any hazard that presents a mortal danger, there is a mitzvah to remove it, to safeguard against it, and to be very, very careful about the matter, as it says, “Beware for yourself and greatly beware for your soul.”
If he didn’t remove it, and he left in place the hazards that lead to danger, he has negated a positive mitzvah and violated “And you shall not place blood.”[5]
The Dvar Avraham infers from the Rambam’s repeated references to death that these obligations to safeguard against danger are limited to lethal danger. He maintains that this is the view of most Rishonim, but he notes that the Sefer Hachinuch seems to understand that the obligations extend even to lesser perils.[6]
The Gemara discusses the risk posed by rickety ladders in another context as well:
But what of the one whose father said to him, “Climb up the tower and fetch for me some young birds,” and he climbed up the tower, drove the mother bird away and took the offspring, and on the way back he fell and died?…
(The Gemara asks:) But R’ Elazar said: Those sent to perform a mitzvah are not harmed, neither on their way nor on their return (so how could the son have died?)!
(The Gemara answers:) It was a rickety ladder, whose potential to cause harm is kvia (ever present), and wherever the harm is kvia, we do not rely on miracles, as it is written (when Hashem sent Shmuel to anoint Dovid as king to replace Sha’ul): “And Shmuel said, ‘How can I go? Sha’ul will hear and kill me!’” (Shmuel was sent to perform a mitzvah by Hashem Himself, yet we see that he was nevertheless reluctant to go on account of danger; evidently, where the harm is kvia, we do not rely on miracles.)[7]
The Gemara here asserts that R’ Elazar’s principle that those sent to perform a mitzvah are not harmed does not apply where the danger is kvia. Elsewhere, the Gemara asserts a similar limitation of the principle—also derived from the passage in Sefer Shmuel—that it does not apply where the danger is shechiach (likely):
For it was taught in a breisa: If there is a hole in a wall between the apartments of a Jew and a non-Jew, he searches (for chametz) as far as his hand reaches. As for any chametz that might be in the rest of the hole, he nullifies it in his heart. Pleimo said: He does not search the hole at all, because of the danger (that his neighbor might accuse him of using witchcraft against him).
(The Gemara asks:) But R’ Elazar said: Those sent to perform a mitzvah are not harmed, neither on their way nor on their return!
(The Gemara answers:) It is different where harm is shechiach, as it is written: “And Shmuel said, ‘How can I go? Sha’ul will hear and kill me!’” (Where harm is shechiach, even one engaged in a mitzvah is not promised protection.)[8]
I have long wondered whether kvia and shechiach are completely synonymous or they connote different categories of elevated danger levels; I am not aware of any discussion of this. But in any event, while both these Gemaros assert, without qualification, similar if not necessarily identical limitations of the principle that those sent to perform a mitzvah are not harmed, the Aruch Laner (R’ Yaakov Ettlinger) maintains that whether such limitations exist is actually the subject of dispute among the Tana’im. He invokes the existence of a dissenting view that maintains that the principle is absolute—with no exception for likely danger—to explain the following Gemara:
And R’ Il’a said in the name of R’ Elazar the son of R’ Shimon: It is permitted for a person to deviate from the truth in a matter that threatens the peace…R’ Nosson says it is a mitzvah, as it says, “And Shmuel said, ‘How can I go? Sha’ul will hear and kill me!’” (And Hashem responded that Shmuel should take along a heifer and say he came to bring an offering to Hashem; though he would in fact bring the korban, he lied to Sha’ul by implying that it was the sole purpose of his trip.)[9]
How can the Gemara derive from this incident that one may deviate from the truth for peace if—as per the previously cited Gemaros—Shmuel had to so deviate just to avoid being killed by Sha’ul? The Aruch Laner explains that R’ Nosson understands—contrary to the opinion seen in those Gemaros—that people sent to do a mitzvah are not harmed even where the danger is shechiach, so the only possible justification for Shmuel misleading Sha’ul was the goal of preserving peace.[10]
[1]Werner recalls more than 100,000 ladders due to potential fall and injury hazard. https://apnews.com/article/safety-recall-werner-ladders-home-depot-8d3b0e9011267963516b07fc5ded4fcd.
[3]Bava Kama 15b and 46a.
[4]Maharsha Chidushei Agados ibid. 15b.
[6]Sefer Hachinuch mitzvos 546 and 547. Shu”t Dvar Avraham cheilek 1 end of siman 37 os 25.
[8]Psachim 8b. We have previously touched on the principle that those sent to perform a mitzvah are not harmed in Professional Courtesy: The Authority of Experts, Mar. 19, 2020; and in Battle Over Draft Protection: Should Yeshiva Students Be Conscripted? Nov. 16, 2023.
[10]Aruch Laner, Yevamos ibid. All three of the cited Gemaros appear to take for granted that Shmuel acted correctly, for one reason or another; but the Rambam (Shmonah Prakim perek 7) seems to assume that Shmuel’s fear of Sha’ul was a moral failing.
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