יום שישי, כ״ד אב תשפ״וFriday, August 7, 2026
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In other words, we are normally not allowed to kill one person to save another; however, because the rodef is engaging in an act of attempted murder, there is a special din of chiyuv missah on the rodef that allows for the hatzalas ha'nirdaf with the life of the rodef.
As we have previously mentioned, Rav Moshe Feinstein holds that a fetus is a full nefesh, and even though one is not chayiv missah for aborting a fetus, it still violates the issur of retzicha.
Why should the fact that the rodef is liable to be killed during his act of attempted murder affect whether or not he is chayiv to pay back the monetary damage he caused?
There is a general principle that when one sees someone in the act of violating an aveirah, the witness should warn them before the aveirah takes place. Why then, in the case of rodef, does the Gemara say that hasra’ah is not required?
Even a katan has enough da'as to qualify as a rodef; by engaging in this type of act, the katan shows that he has at least some form of da'as.
Another fundamental nafka minah is whether one needs to have kavanah (intent) in order to be categorized as a rodef.
We are actually doing a chesed for the rodef by preventing him from spiritually destroying himself. The rodef now gets to die without the blemish of murder tainting his soul.
It appears that killing a rodef is not only a complicated halacha, but only bidieved (a secondary choice). We are therefore left with a fundamental question: Why are we allowed to, or supposed to, kill a rodef?
What if the person has full intent to not only take the action, but also cause the harmful result. However, in this case, the person has the wrong information, so he thinks that he is doing something good, when in fact, he is about to do something very bad.
The obvious question arises: what changes once the fetus leaves the womb? Why is it permitted to sacrifice the fetus to save the mother while the fetus is in utero, but the moment the fetus leaves the womb, we can't choose one life over another?
It has often been assumed that this debate is fundamentally centered around the very question of whether a fetus is considered to be a full nefesh or not.
The reason one receives the death penalty for killing someone is because of middah k'neged middah, measure for measure. When one violates a prohibited act, they receive exactly that which they inflicted upon someone else.
As a fetus grows and develops, it's possible that it becomes human, or at least more human, even if that is not originally the case when it is first conceived as a zygote.
The goal of this column is to help you think about the spectrum of a topic in Torah and see the truth within every opinion of the sugya.
August 7, 2026 
