Commentaire sur Téroumot 8:12

תנו לנו אחת מכם – they want to come upon her with force.

Introduction Yesterday we learned about a Gentile who threatens to defile a Jew’s bread. In today’s mishnah, the Gentile becomes far more dangerous, threatening to defile Jewish women.

יטמאו כולן – they do not set aside the regard due to one human life for the sake of saving another human life, and in this, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua agree.

Similarly, if gentiles say to women, “Give us one of you that we may defile her, and if not, we will defile you all”, then let them all be defiled rather than hand over to them one soul from Israel. In this case even Rabbi Joshua, who yesterday said he could leave one loaf of bread on a rock for the Gentile to take, agrees that the women should in no way give over one of the other women to be raped. We should note that the same halakhah is true for murder. If a murderer says to a group, “Give over one person that we may kill him, or we will kill everyone” it is forbidden to give over that person. Needless to say, Jews have been through such situations, especially in the Shoah. This is probably one of the most difficult dilemmas a person could ever face (I’m reminded of “Sophie’s choice”) and I don’t think any of us could know what we would actually do in such a horrible situation. The halakhah expresses the idealistic notion that it would be impossible to choose one person to die, because everyone’s life has equal worth. Whether this is the correct, smart or sane solution in the real world, I leave for you to ponder.