Collecting Synagogue Pledges 123
example, a wall fell upon a person, we must, as mentioned above, remove the debris on the Sabbath to save him; so too, certainly, if the man is only half-covered by the debris and has the strength to struggle, he is in duty bound to remove rocks and stones and dirt(on the Sabbath ) in order to save himself.
The old man and those like him are actually in duty bound to violate the Sabbath (by carrying money) or even to carry some repellent, such as mace or the like, if this is likely to save him, as the Talmud says,“to observe many Sabbaths.”
Collecting Synagogue Pledges through the Civil Courts
Solomon B. Freehof
QUESTION: One of our congregations has used legal processes in collecting delinquent building pledges. Summonses have been issued to defaulting members, placing liens upon their property. Are there any precedents for this action?(From Rabbi Solomon K. Kaplan, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Philadelphia , Pennsylvania )
ANSWER: The very fact that the question is asked reveals a feeling that it is wrong to bring Jewish religious disputes to the secular courts. Of course, it does happen in modern times that such matters have occasionally been brought to the courts in the United States , as, for example, disputes in Orthodox synagogues on the question of mixed seating, or questions of disinterment from Orthodox cemeteries. Nevertheless, whenever such lawsuits do come up, there is a general feeling in the Jewish Sep munity that the disputes should never have been brought to the courts—that to have done so was a hillul ha-shem.