Understanding Our Value: The Unmatched Importance of Every Jew

In addition to loving ourselves and understanding who we are, we must recognize our significance – the importance of every Jew. Each Jew's significance is seen in the principle that no life is dismissed for another. No life, regardless of perceived status, is sacrificed to save the most important person.

This is a clear ruling in both Maimonides and the Shulchan Aruch: "We do not dismiss one life for another" (Ohalot 7:6). To understand the weight of this law practically, let's consider a potential scenario – may it never happen.

Suppose the greatest leader of our generation, the sage and leader, falls ill. His life hangs in the balance. The observant Jewish community worldwide pours their hearts out in prayers for his recovery. Generous benefactors donate vast amounts to bring him the best doctors, hoping there is some chance in all these efforts.

A world-renowned specialist claims he can save this great man's life through an organ transplant. Encouraged by his words, all the helpers rally vigorously to achieve this goal, seeking wherever they can to acquire that necessary organ.

After intense efforts, they discover an elderly Jew who, according to all evidence, if the necessary organ is taken from him, the rabbi could be saved. There is no other source for the organ. The old man is senile, in a hospital, unaware of his surroundings. He neither learns nor prays nor fulfills any commandments. Is it permissible to take an organ from him?

The answer is very simple. According to the law of our holy Torah, it is prohibited to take an organ from him to save the leader of the generation. The law states: "We do not dismiss one life for another." It is forbidden to extend one Jew's life at the expense of another's death. We may not shorten the life of that elderly Jew by even a moment, even if it means the great leader may die in his illness. How can this instruction be understood?

One Jew is equivalent to all of Israel

Further, consider how important every Jew is: If we have to violate Shabbat to save even a Jew in a vegetative state (for example, if all of Israel would have to violate Shabbat to save him), it is Hashem's will that everyone desecrates Shabbat to rescue him, and they are indeed obligated to do so.

If hypothetically, Hitler's cursed request to kill one Jew would prevent all death trains, close all extermination camps, and free all Jews, Hashem's will is not to offer even one soul in exchange, even if millions may perish as a result. The law is: "We do not dismiss one life for another." We cannot kill one to save another, even if refusal leads to, God forbid, millions dying. Such is the value of a single, unique Jew.

Moreover, if at any time, non-Jews were to demand that we hand over one Jew to be killed, even a Jew in a vegetative state, we must not hand over even one, even if refusal leads to the death of all Jews, not just in the Holocaust but even from Abraham our Patriarch to the last Jew.

According to Maimonides: Hashem's will is that all should perish rather than surrender even one Jewish soul. This is a clear ruling (Maimonides, Laws of the Foundations of Torah, Chapter 5).

The heart is stormy, how can this be? Yet it is the truth. From Abraham our Patriarch to the last Jew, a 'whole world' would cease to exist rather than take a moment from the life of a single Jew.

This is a profound and terrifying topic beyond our comprehension. Hashem is, so to speak, willing to nullify all creation's plan; there would be no Israel, nothing at all, just so that a single Jew might live one more minute.

Why is a single minute of a Jew's life so important?

The answer is in the words of the Mishnah: "A person must say, 'The world was created for me'" (Sanhedrin Chapter 4).

The entire universe – the heavens and the earth, every human, animal, creature, crawling thing, trees, everything on land and sea, and in all worlds above and below, angels and seraphim, all generations that lived and will live until the coming of the Messiah – was created for me, for every individual.

This understanding lets us grasp why no life is ever disregarded for another. Even if a Jew is in a vegetative state, seemingly doing nothing, the world might perish, but not him, because everything was created for him; he is a whole world. And so is he with every Jew and Jewess, wherever they may be.

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