1. Emergency responders and medical personnel are permitted to travel on Shabbat to work in a hospital or to assist at the scene of an emergency. They may drive or violate whatever other Torah prohibition is necessary, since danger to life overrides Shabbat.

2. Contemporary poskim discuss at length whether such individuals may return home on Shabbat after traveling to an emergency or treating patients in a hospital. Some poskim hold that they may even drive home, which constitutes a Torah prohibition. The reason is that there is a principle in the Gemara that Chazal permitted certain individuals to return home to ensure that they are willing to travel initially to help out (hitiru sofam mishum techilatam). According to this opinion, the principle applies even to violating a biblical prohibition (R. Moshe Feinstein, Igrot Moshe, O.C. 4:80). However, many other poskim hold that the allowance to return home applies only to a rabbinic prohibition, but not to a Torah one. According to this approach, it would be forbidden for them to drive home, but they could ride home with a non-Jew, such as in a taxi (R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, Minchat Shlomo 1:8). We will continue discussing this case more tomorrow.

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Dedicated by Fran Broder as a zechus for everlasting peace in Eretz Yisrael in the merit of learning Hilchos Shabbos.