Don’t violate Shabbat to save non-Jewish life, top Shas rabbi says

Giving a lesson recently on the laws of the Sabbath, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Shas and former Sephardi chief rabbi, ruled that the laws are different regarding Jews and gentiles in terms of violating the Sabbath to save a life. Yosef, who is 91, said in the lesson, which was recorded by his adherents, that because the Torah teaches that its laws are for us to “live by them, not to die by them,” the saving of a life takes precedence over all of the laws in the Torah, but only when the life is that of a Jew. He said that the Torah does not permit the desecration of the Sabbath to save the life of a gentile.