Violate Sabbath to Prevent Injury to Others

I am a non Jew renting business space in small shopping center. On Saturday morning a road collapse ( landlords property) by the office sidewalk occurred. Life threating to people and accident causing to cars. Can the Jewish landlord break sabbath to prevent harm to others?

Shalom!

Thank you for your question.

There is nothing more important in Judaism than saving a life. This is a concept called “pikuach nefesh.” One is required to violate Shabbat in any and every way if it can save a life. If one is not sure if one’s efforts will save a life, one should make the efforts anyways and do whatever is needed. Even if one later discovers that one’s Shabbat violation was unnecessary one is still credited for the efforts!

However, as a general rule, one is not permitted to violate Shabbat in order to prevent a possible threat to life. So as per your example, if there is a road or sidewalk collapse, and as a result of this collapse someone can get injured (but no one is currently injured) then one may not violate Shabbat. Rather, one may ask a non-Jew to do what is needed in order to do what is necessary to prevent people from getting injured.

In many cases, even a Shabbat observant Jew can take permitted measures to ensure people’s safety in such situations, such as to put some type of roadblock in the area of the damage (assuming that carrying outdoors is permitted in that neighbourhood).

Nevertheless, Shabbat may often be violated if there is a reasonable chance that there is a life-threatening situation at hand. For example, a paramedic is permitted to carry and use his phone/walkie-talkie if there is the potential of saving lives by doing so.

I hope this helps put things in perspective.

Yoma 28a, 58; Jerusalem Talmud, Yoma 8:5; Terumat Hadeshen 1:58; OC 328 and commentaries