We desecrate Shabbos to save a person’s life or even extend it for a few extra hours

All that were counted were 603,550.” (Bamidbar 1:46)

Bamidbar begins with a census of Bnei Yisrael, listing the total in every shevet and concluding with a final tabulation: 603,550.

Then the Torah moves on to discuss the flags of the shevatim. Here, too, each shevet is listed with the number of people, and at the end the Torah again gives us the sum total: 603,550. (2:32)

This repetition begs a question. We know the Torah is especially careful with its words; we can even expound major laws from an extra letter. The Midrash explains that the redundant reference of numbers here, both for each individual shevet and the total number, indicates Hashem’s love for us, that He kiveyachol “loves” to count us repeatedly. (Rabbi Yissocher Frand)

Several years ago, Erev Shabbos Hagadol, I was finishing up some last-minute dishes. As I turned to put the bowls away, I thought I heard a crack, and then my back seized and I couldn’t move. I must’ve made some noise, because my daughter came running in. She gently helped me to bed where I lay completely immobile, waves of incredible pain shooting through me. I couldn’t even move to bentsh licht, and by the the time the seudah came, the pain was so great I could barely breathe.

Hearing me panting and moaning, my husband rushed to a neighbor who was a Hatzalah volunteer and asked if he had something for my pain. The neighbor graciously came to our house, royally decked out in his shtreimel.  aking one look at me, he promptly pulled out his phone from his beketshe pocket and called an ambulance. The incongruity shocked me for a minute, but then I managed to whisper, “It’s just my back. No ambulance!”

“When someone’s in that much pain, he goes to the ER,” countered the chassid.

The Ramban, however, gives a different explanation, saying this redundancy highlights a miracle. Three weeks transpired from the time they were originally counted until the day they actually set up flags. During those 21 days, miraculously, nobody died from the entire nation, leaving the total number the same all those three weeks.  Still, is this miracle so critical that the Torah uses so many words to highlight it? 

Despite my feeble protests, I was off to the ER. They gave me injections for pain and relaxing the muscles, muttering about a possible slipped disc and whatnot. I spent Shabbos in a drug-induced haze, but still feeling the pain — of guilt.

I’d known it was my back. Why had I let them drive me to the hospital? How many people committed chillul Shabbos just because I was a “baby” and couldn’t control my pain?

Reb Leib Rotkin writes: This miracle is so important because it highlights a major principle of Judaism: Whoever preserves the life of a single Jew is considered as if he preserved the entire world.

A few weeks after Pesach, I was slowly healing, but my heart was still heavy. Despite my husband’s confidence in our decision, I knew all that chillul Shabbos was my fault, because I hadn’t managed to grit my teeth and bear it.

Finally, I made an appointment with our rav. Explaining the situation, I added that I’d known it was my back, and that I hadn’t needed to go to the hospital.

“So now you’re a doctor,” said the rav with a smile. “But you’re still not a posek. In the situation you describe, your husband was correct in taking you to the hospital. We don’t take chances with that sort of pain. It could’ve been your kidneys. It could’ve been many things, and you aren’t the judge of what constitutes pikuach nefesh on Shabbos.” His words comforted me, dispersing doubts and torment.

I’m not sharing this to pasken, because obviously, I’m neither a doctor nor a rav. But I wanted to share the warm feelings I felt realizing that Hashem loves me so much He wants me to stay healthy, even perhaps at the cost of Shabbos.

Torah and Yisrael are one. Hashem gave the Torah to me, but even more so, it’s for me.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 945)