Two words
The sixth commandment is one of the shortest in the Torah.
In Hebrew it is two words, lo tirtzach. The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, Egypt, 1100s) opens his laws of murder with them, and he does not limit them to some people:
The reason goes back to before there was a Jewish people. After the Flood, Hashem tells Noach and his sons why human life is different:
Every person is made "in the image of God." Keep that phrase in mind. The Mechilta, an early midrash on Shemot, quotes this verse when it explains where the sixth commandment sits on the tablets.
Opposite “I am Hashem your God”
Read straight across the two tablets, and the sixth commandment lines up with the first.
In one view in the Mechilta (an early midrash on Shemot from the Sages of the Mishnah), the Ten Commandments were written five on each tablet. Then every commandment on one tablet faces a partner on the other: the first with the sixth, the second with the seventh, and so on.
Diminished whose image? The Mechilta answers with a parable:
In plain words: every person carries the King's image, the way a coin carries the face of the king who minted it. Destroying a person diminishes the image of the King that he carries. That is why "Do not murder" stands opposite "I am Hashem your God."
This pairing is the view of Rabbi Chananya ben Gamliel (in some editions, Chanina). The Sages there disagree and say all ten were written on each tablet (Mechilta, Bachodesh 8).
One life, a whole world
The Mishnah explains why the first person was created alone.
Rashi explains the reason: a whole world of people came from one person. Our printed Mishnah, and the Bavli's copy of it, say "one soul of Israel." Not every version does. The Yerushalmi (the Talmud of the Land of Israel) quotes this Mishnah as "one soul," with no "of Israel." The Rambam has both: in his laws of murder (1:16) he writes "one soul of Israel," and where he sets down the court's warning to witnesses he writes "one soul from the world":
The Mishnah ends this teaching with a line many people know by heart: לְפִיכָךְ כָּל אֶחָד וְאֶחָד חַיָּב לוֹמַר, בִּשְׁבִילִי נִבְרָא הָעוֹלָם, "therefore each and every person must say: the world was created for me."
Where does all this come from? Not from a lecture about the value of life. It is part of a speech the court gave to witnesses before they testified in a case where a life was at stake.
What the court told the witnesses
In a capital case (one where the accused could be put to death), the court did not simply take testimony. It first brought the witnesses in and warned them. Step through what it said.
Notice who hears this speech: not a murderer, but two witnesses who think they are on the right side. Even they are told that a careless word can cost a life.
Like shedding blood
The Gemara uses the language of bloodshed for something a person can do with words alone.
In Bava Metzia, in its discussion of hurting people with words, the Gemara records:
Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak finds the reason in the face itself. Someone who is shamed first turns red, then pale, as if the blood drained out. The Hebrew for shaming someone, malbin panim, means "making a face white."
Right after this, Abaye asks Rav Dimi what the people of the Land of Israel were careful about, and he answers: בְּאַחְווֹרֵי אַפֵּי, "about making faces pale." Rav Dimi explains with a teaching of Rabbi Chanina: three kinds of people go down to Gehinom (punishment after death) and do not come up.
Two things to notice. The hurtful nickname still counts. Rashi explains: the other person is used to the name and his face no longer goes white, but the one who uses it still means to shame him. And the person listed next to the one who shames in public is the one who is unfaithful with a married woman, the subject of the very next commandment.
The Gemara on the next page goes further, in a teaching it brings in the name of Rav (and in other versions, of Rabbi Shimon Chasida, or of Rabbi Yochanan in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai):
Does this mean you may never tell a friend he did something wrong? No. The Torah commands it, and the Sages set its limit:
Rebuke is a mitzvah, called tochacha. Rebuke that makes your friend's face change is not.
Do not stand by your neighbor's blood
Not killing is only half of it. The Torah also forbids watching.
The Gemara reads it as a duty to act:
The Gemara then asks why this verse is needed at all, since the duty to save a person is already learned from the mitzvah of returning a lost object (Devarim 22:2), read as returning a person to himself. It answers:
So the duty does not end with "I can't do it myself." The Rambam sums it up:
In the same law he adds warnings: someone who hears that people are plotting to harm another person, or setting a trap for him, and does not let him know, has also stood by.
Shedding blood, saving, or neither?
Ten cases. For each one, decide: is it like shedding blood, a duty to save, or not this mitzvah at all?
The cases are ours, not the sources'. The sources show how to think about them. For a real situation, ask your rav.
A life comes before Shabbat
Pikuach nefesh, saving a life, pushes aside almost every mitzvah in the Torah. The Gemara brings several sources. Here are two. Rava says only the second, Shmuel's, cannot be challenged.
And there is no room to hesitate:
The Gemara adds: even though the net may catch fish too, which on Shabbat is forbidden by itself. When a life is at stake, the one who hurries is the one who is praised. The Mishnah, in a ruling of Rabbi Matya ben Charash, says the same even when it is only possible that a life is at stake: every case of doubt about a life pushes Shabbat aside (Mishnah Yoma 8:6).
So does saving a life push aside everything? Almost.
Where it stops
Saving a life comes before almost every mitzvah. Not before this one.
Three you may not break, even to live
Rabbi Yochanan reports this in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Yehotzadak. Our own observation: compare the list with the tablets. Idol worship, forbidden relationships and bloodshed are close to the second, seventh and sixth commandments.
“Who says your blood is redder?”
This one is not learned from a verse. The Gemara calls it sevara, plain logic: you cannot save your own life by taking someone else's, because no one can say his blood is worth more.
Self-defense is not murder, with a limit
Rava says this about a burglar who breaks into a house (Shemot 22:1). Stopping someone who is trying to kill is not what the sixth commandment forbids. But there is a limit. The Rambam rules that someone who saves the person being chased must use no more force than it takes:
Whether the person under attack must hold back in the same way is a question the poskim discuss. The Gemara holds Avner to it (Sanhedrin 49a), and the Mishneh LaMelech writes that the one being chased is not expected to measure. This is about real danger to life, not about fights.
If someone is in danger. This page is for learning. If you know someone is in danger, or someone is talking about hurting himself or someone else, tell a trusted adult now: a parent, a teacher, a school counselor or a rav. In an emergency, call for help first. Getting help for someone in danger is exactly what "do not stand by" asks of you.
Common questions
Short answers, with sources.
Is it "do not kill" or "do not murder"?
"Murder" is closer. The same Torah tells a court to punish some crimes with death, and Rava teaches that a person may stop someone who comes to kill him (Sanhedrin 72a). So the commandment cannot mean every killing. The exceptions are narrow: a court's sentence under Torah law, and stopping someone who is about to kill. Neither lets a person decide on his own who deserves to die.
Why is shaming someone compared to shedding blood?
Because you can see it in his face: the red leaves and the white comes (Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak, Bava Metzia 58b). The Gemara says it is better to throw yourself into a furnace than to shame someone in public (Bava Metzia 59a), and a hurtful nickname counts even when the other person is used to it (Bava Metzia 58b).
Do I have to put myself in danger to save someone?
How much risk a rescuer must take on himself is a real disagreement among the poskim (rabbis who decide Jewish law); ask your rav. What is clear from the Gemara is that "I can't do it myself" is not the end: you must get others to help, even if you have to hire them (Sanhedrin 73a; Rambam, Laws of Murder and Guarding Life 1:14). In an emergency, call for help first.
Can I break Shabbat to call an ambulance?
Yes. Saving a life pushes Shabbat aside, even when it is only possible that a life is at stake (Mishnah Yoma 8:6; Yoma 85b), and the Gemara praises the one who hurries without stopping to ask (Yoma 84b).
What if someone threatens to kill me unless I kill someone else?
Rava's answer: "Let him kill you, and do not kill. What makes you think your blood is redder?" (Pesachim 25b). Bloodshed is one of the three sins a person may not commit even to save his own life (Sanhedrin 74a).
What does "the world was created for me" mean?
It comes at the end of the Mishnah's teaching that one life is a whole world (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5). Rashi explains it as a reason to stay away from sin: "I am as important as a whole world, so I will not drive myself out of the world with one sin" (Rashi on Sanhedrin 37a).
Why does the Mechilta pair this commandment with "I am Hashem your God"?
In Rabbi Chananya ben Gamliel's view, the commandments were written five on each tablet, so the sixth sits opposite the first. The Mechilta explains: every person is made in God's image, so whoever sheds blood diminishes the King's image, like someone who smashes the king's statues (Mechilta, Bachodesh 8; Bereishit 9:6).
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