“We live in a largely secular society. Many Jews get their medical ethics not from Jewish texts but from the newspapers,” said medical ethicist Dr. Rabbi Edward Reichman. “But Judaism is filled with rich ideas on end-of- life” issues.
Reichman, the son of Rabbi Bernard and the late Shoshana Reichman of Congregation Anshai Lebowitz, was the featured speaker at a recent panel discussion on “Decision Making During Life’s Final Passage,” held at and sponsored by the Jewish Home and Care Center on April 11.
Drawing primarily from the Talmud, Reichman touched on a wide range of end-of-life issues, providing the audience of about 60 people — many of them residents of the Jewish Home and Care Center and Chai Point — with Orthodox Jewish interpretations.
He said Jewish law conflicts with secular norms on many issues, like personal autonomy.
In western, secular society, individuals are kings or queens over their own bodies, but Reichman said personal autonomy does not exist in Jewish law. Theoretically, a physician could even “force therapy” on a patient if it is known to improve the patient’s health.
On the issue of easing suffering for a terminally ill patient, Jewish law is opposed to assisted suicide. However, Reichman said it would be permissible to administer large doses of a drug like morphine, which, although it relieves physical pain, might hasten death.
Some topics fell into gray areas of Jewish law. For example, Reichman spoke about whether or not to withdraw or withhold treatment.
“Jewish law does not allow active hastening [of death],” said Reichman. One may not “remove life support, but [one] may refrain from [providing] life support” in certain cases, for example, when somebody is brain-dead.
While some treatments may be withheld in certain cases, Reichman said that food, water and oxygen must be provided if a patient can survive, even if unconscious, on just those basics.
In other words, if a patient is brought into a hospital brain-dead and requires a respirator to live, Jewish law would permit forgoing the respirator and allowing the person to die naturally. However, if the patient is breathing on his/her own, food, water and oxygen must be provided. Once a respirator is used, it is against Jewish law to cease the treatment.
Rabbi Jeffrey Orkin, director of pastoral service for the Jewish Home and Care Center, said that though he was “aware of much of what [Reichman] spoke about, it was refreshing the way he presented it. He is a very scholarly person, and he knows how to discuss end-of-life issues.”
Orkin added that Reichman “made no bones that he was coming from a religious, traditional perspective” but said “there is a lot of sensitivity in our traditions about end-of-life issues,” which Orkin believes could serve to “enlighten” non-Jews and less observant Jews.
Reichman is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Montefiore Medical College and assistant professor of philosophy and history of medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of the Yeshiva University in New York City. He has published articles and book chapters on various topics related to medical ethics.
Other panelists included Robyn Shapiro, director of the Center for the Study of Bioethics, Medical College of Wisconsin and chair of the Medical Ethics Committee; Dr. Raul Mateo, medical director of the Jewish Home and Care Center; Orkin; and Bonnie Jeglum, director of social services at the JHCC.
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