Where it comes from
Saving a human life overrides almost every other commandment in Judaism, even the Sabbath and the Yom Kippur fast. The Talmud (Yoma 85b) learns this from Leviticus 18:5: the commandments were given so that people should live by them, not die by them.
The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 4:5) teaches that whoever saves a single life is regarded as if they had saved an entire world. And Leviticus 19:16 adds a companion command: “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbour.”
What it means
Life comes first. When someone’s life is at risk, rules give way, and standing by is not neutral. That conviction runs through the lives of doctors, scientists, rescuers and volunteers on Jews Impact, who often gave their discoveries away so that more lives could be saved.
In every faith, and for none
The sanctity of life and the duty to rescue are shared across faiths and in secular ethics. The Qur’an contains a closely parallel verse: whoever saves one life, it is as if they had saved all of humanity (5:32). Medicine’s own oaths rest on the same duty.
Lives that embody it
Many of the people on Jews Impact lived this value, in laboratories, courtrooms, classrooms and rescue work.
Jonas SalkVirologist who developed the first successful polio vaccine; refused to patent it, calling the breakthrough a gift to the world.
Albert SabinBiałystok-born virologist whose cheap, oral polio vaccine, given on a sugar cube and never patented, became the backbone of the global drive to eradicate polio.
Gertrude ElionChemist without a doctorate who pioneered rational drug design and created drugs for leukaemia, transplants, gout and herpes, sharing the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Drew WeissmanImmunologist; 2023 Nobel Prize for the mRNA discoveries that made the COVID vaccines possible.
Janusz KorczakWarsaw paediatrician, author and orphanage director who championed children’s rights, then refused rescue and went with his orphans to Treblinka in August 1942.
Nicholas WintonLondon stockbroker who in 1939 organised the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia, and kept quiet about it for almost fifty years.
Stories to read
- Save a Child's Heart: free heart surgery for children from 75 countries
- United Hatzalah: the volunteer medics who aim to reach anyone in 90 seconds
- When disaster strikes far away: Israel's rescuers, field hospitals and IsraAID
- Could you patent the sun? The vaccine pioneers who gave children a future
Living it today
- Learn basic first aid and CPR.
- Register as a blood, bone marrow or organ donor.
- If you see someone in danger, act or call for help. Do not stand by.
This value is one thread of tikkun olam, the repair of the world, and it belongs to anyone who wants to take part.