It's great to see that my alma mater is finally creating a Jewish Studies department. Yesterday, I got to hear Ilan Fuchs, a potential candidate for Lawrence University's Jewish Studies department, discuss Jewish medical ethics, in specific context of whether one can take another's life in order to save another individual, or even many individuals for that matter. I hope that by exploring what was discussed in yesterday's lecture, we can transcend a simple "yes or no" ruling and discover the complexities inherent within the discussion.
We see a case of this in Scripture, more specifically, in Samuel II 20:15-22. The city of Beth-maacah is besieged, and the soldiers say (verse 21) that if Sheba ben Bichri is killed, then the city will be spared. He was delivered and the city was subsequently spared. Can we derive law from this scenario or are we merely dealing with narrative?
Since Judaism cannot be reduced to Scripture (i.e., Tanach), we need to look at the rabbinic tradition and how the situation evolved over time. We will now approach this from citing sources that answer the question both in the affirmative and the negative. We will start with the negative.
From a traditionalist Jewish standpoint, life has infinite value. It doesn't matter if you are talking about one person or a million. When you multiply any number by infinity, it always ends up equaling infinity. As such, murder is highly immoral in Judaism. It is one of the three sins in Jewish law where you would give up your life so you don't transgress it.
In the Talmud (Pesachim 25b), someone comes before the Raba and says to him: "The governor of my town has ordered me, 'Go kill so-and-so, and if not, I will kill you.'" The Raba replies with "Let him kill you rather than you commit murder. Why do you think your blood is redder? Maybe his blood is redder."
It would seem as if Judaism never condones taking a life to save another. First and foremost, Judaism permits self-defense (Exodus 22:1, 2). Yoma 85b states that if "one comes to kill you, kill them first." Self-defense clearly deals with cases of imminent threat in which there is a pursuer, or a רודף. This example comes up in Jewish law and abortion. In Mishnah Ohalot 7:6, a woman is able to "cut a woman up in the womb" because her life comes before that of the child's. The exception to this rule is if the majority of the fetus has emerged from the womb, thereby having the full status of a human being. This exception has an exception: A minor who is in pursuit may be slain to save the pursued (Sanhedrin 72b). Confused yet?
Because of this, Maimonides (Laws of Murder and Preservation of Life, 1:9) states that until a majority of the child emerges from the birth canal, it is not regarded as a fully autonomous human being, and that an abortion would be obligatory because "one life should not be sacrificed for another."
Yerushalami 8,10 brings about another example. If a group of men comes along and says "give us one of your own [so we may kill him] or you all be killed," you normally let all of them be killed. However, as with the case of Sheba ben Bichri (refer back to second paragraph), if you can find an equivalent, you can, according to Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, sacrifice him for the "greater good" because he will already be charged and executed. According to Rabbi Yochanan, you can sacrifice the individual, even if he isn't subject to execution. Why? Because his presence puts everyone else in danger. However, Maimonides ends up agreeing with Shion ben Lakish (Laws of Basic Principles of Torah, 5:5), even though the majority ruling is normally with the opinion of Rabbi Yochanan.
I am going to throw in one more case (Bava Metzia 62a) before concluding. Two men are traveling together in the desert, and there is only one pitcher of water with enough for one. If they either share or no one uses the water, they both die. The majority ruling is interesting: Rabbi Akiva rules that if unless both can survive, the individual with the pitcher survives because "your life should never take precedence over his." It's not simply a victory for property rights. It's also common sense. For one, if you are obligated to give the water to the other, you'd keep passing the water back and forth until you both die. Second, Akiva's explanation is intuitive. If you were to give the water to your neighbor, you would be essentially stating that your responsibility to your neighbor is greater than to himself. Self-sacrifice is not a Jewish value.
Postscript: If you're even more confused as to what the correct course of action is from a Jewish perspective, that's good because that's the idea. Talmudic thought, as well as Jewish thought as a whole, is supposed to be dialectical. The rabbis have debated these sources throughout time because they wanted to make sure that every factor possible was taken into consideration before rendering a decision. New considerations, thoughts, factors, or refutation of previously accepted facts can change a halachic decision.
R. Moshe Feinstein ran into a similar problem back in the 1970s. There was a case with Siamese twins. If the twins were separated, Twin A would die and Twin B would live. If the surgery were not performed, both twins would die. What's a Jew to do? R. Feinstein said that the surgery should be performed because since Twin A was going to die anyways, his presence was a de facto רודף scenario. Was that an easy decision to make? No. Could one have made a sound counter-argument? Most probably. But R. Feinstein had to make a decision.
This is the beauty of Jewish law. One can make arguments for diametrically opposed ideas, and they can both be equally Jewish! So, what's the answer to the initial question of "Can you take a life to save a life?" It depends on the scenario. Certain mitigating circumstances make the argument much stronger than other scenarios. Even in that situation, we can argue either way. When push comes to shove, you still have to make a decision. Whatever halachic decisions we make in life, may they be made in the goodness of His ways.
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