Community Views

Editor's Notebook

Who Should Decide
On Life Or Death?

Is Israel's Struggle
Stuck In A Traffic Jam?

RABBI HERBERT A. YOSKOWITZ SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

PHIL JACOBS EDITOR

The daily newspa- The state's?
on hospital ethics boards when
per barked the
As a Jew, I have points of view situations similar to the one in
headline of anoth- on many questions involving end- the play were brought to our
er "mercy killing" ing life in many kinds of situa- board for counsel.
on the front page of tions, e.g. abortions and ending
My vocation as a pulpit rabbi
the local news sec- fetal life, suicide and ending life has brought me into situations in
tion. "Loving Mom itself, euthanasia and ending ter- which congregants have raised
Kills Herself, Ill minal life, capital punishment issues with me such as whether
Daughter" were and ending criminal life, war and or not it was worth a life to have
the bold words.
ending hostile life.
a gangrenous leg amputated. At
Before the story is told, there
Limited space does not allow all times I try to veer myself to
is a quote. "It was hard ... she for discussion of these provoca- the Jewish teaching that the val-
loved her."
tive topics. For the present, I ue of human life is supreme and
The writer tells the story of a think that it would be helpful to takes precedence over nearly all
73-year-old Allen Park woman focus on the situation covered in other considerations.
apparently no longer
Human life is an
able to care for her 48-
absolute,
basic and
year-old "severely men-
precious good in its
tally disabled daught-
own right. The oblig-
er." The mother, uncer-
ation to preserve life
tain what would hap-
is
commensurately
pen to her daughter
all-encompassing and
when the mother died,
is derived from the
removed the doubt by
biblical
verse, "Nor
killing her daughter
shall
you
stand idly
and herself
by
the
blood
of your
The reporter ended
fellow."
the story by hypothe-
Physicians and
sizing that what the
nurses
are authorized
mother had done was
to
heal
by the verse,
good. After all "it was
"If
you
chance upon
an awful burden taking
an
object
lost by your
care of the daughter."
brother,
you
must re-
The Allen Park sto-
store
it
to
him."
Mai-
ry is somewhat paral-
monides
teaches
that
lel to the play Whose
if
someone
loses
his
Life Is It Anyway?
health and you can
which opened to great
help restore it to him,
acclaim in a New York
you
must do so.
theater in 1979. The
As
a Jewish ethi-
play tells of a talented
cist,
I
look upon the
sculptor who is robbed
newspaper
story and
of the use of his body in
the play as being sto-
an automobile accident.
ries of challenge to
With his spinal cord
preserve nonterminal
snapped, he is left par-
life even when it is a
alyzed from the neck
burden.
down. While he wants
It is so easy for our
to take an oath to die,
sympathy to be di-
he yearns to touch the
rected to those whose
nurse who cares for
life is burdensome to
him. He can do neither.
rule
our thinking.
Focus in the play is
While we wince at
on the struggle be-
life's burdens, we
tween the sculptor's de-
need to abide more by
,mui
sire to be allowed to die
the
biblical impera-
and the health-care
tive to "choose life!"
team's commitment to
Each of us has or
save his life.
probably will have
Sometimes, as in the
some degree of help-
cases of the Allen Park
lessness, misery or
murder-suicide and of
agony. We call God
the struggle in the play,
the rofeh, the doctor.
one can have life at the
As partners of the ro-
expense of dignity or
feh, we are charged to
dignity at the expense
offer service whenev-
of life. A hard-core de-
er and wherever we
cision is: Who makes that deci- the newspaper story. That story can in order to affirm a sense of
sion to determine matters of life allows us to look upon life when meaning in the face of life's as-
or death?
it appears to be more burden than saults on our capacity to believe
In the hospital setting, is it the benefit.
and to hope.
patient, the care-givers or the
Complementing that story is
Sometimes we have to offer
courts? Even in the privacy of our the commitment of doctors, nurs- this affirmation to ourselves.
homes, how should we decide es and others in a hospital setting
That was lacking in the moth-
whose life it is? Is it God's? Man's? to fight for a patient's life even er in Allen Park. That was a chal-
when the patient would rather lenge for the artist in the play.
Herbert A. Yoskowitz is rabbi of
die as we noted in the play.
That is a situation which I try to
Congregation Beth Achim.
Through the years, in my avo- address, as you undoubtedly do,
cation as an ethicist, I have sat on so many days of our lives.

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So many div er- Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat
gent issues c an went from Gaza to Jericho for
cross our desk on the first time. While the event
any given day
made all the international out-
On Tuesd ay, lets such as CNN and the night-
the issue of t he ly news, Mr. Kaye, who was in
settlers' prote st Jerusalem at the time, said he
came to the fo re didn't hear about the event un-
in the form o fa til late in the afternoon the day
national to le- it happened. And when he
phone linkup between edito rs heard about it, it came in a pass-
and writers of the Jewish pre ss ing conversation. Israeli society
and Yechiel Leiter, director of was busy making a living, at-
the pro-settlement moveme nt, tending school, getting through
Yesha.
the day. Just like Mr. Leiter
Many in this business have said they'd be doing.
written about Mr. Leiter and his
"One of Israel's adaptations
group and the effort it is wag- or distractions is to have the
ing to maintain the viability of ability to behave ostrich-like,"
its West Bank settlements in said Mr. Kaye. "A psychologist
the wake of a Rabin govern- would call it intentional self-dis-
ment that sees them sometimes tractionalism. But that's one
as an obstacle to peace with the way you survive in Israel. You
Palestinians.
can't constantly be focused on
Read what Mr. Leiter said, the issues."
albeit taken out of context but
So, Mr. Kaye added, if you
still right on the money. He have a family in Israel, you do
compared the nonviolent protest want to occupy your life with
and civil disobedience of the set- getting the kids off to school,
tlers to the civil-rights actions watching the soccer game,
of the 1960s in the deep South. everything that we here in
But those civil-rights move- metro Detroit or in any other
ments became less and less of Jewish community would con-
the African-American and sider normal life.
white-liberal agenda. It's sim-
Can you blame Israelis? Nor-
ply because once opportunities malcy has never been so normal
became more available and up- before.
ward mobility for people of col-
"Most Jerusalemites looking
or more accepted, the struggle at the West Bank are concerned
took a different direction.
more about how the situation is
`The issue is that Zionism in going to affect traffic on
its purest, raw form has been Jerusalem streets," said Mr.
severed from the consciousness Kaye. "They don't necessarily
of the people by this govern- want to occupy themselves with
ment," said Mr. Leiter.
the small details of what's hap-
He said part of the Rabin gov pening on the West Bank.
ernment's goal is to get Israeli s
"They want a West Bloom-
to wake up each morning, ge t field existence," he said. "That's
the kids off to school, go to wor k what they would love to be liv-
and worry about what movi e ing."
they'll be seeing on a particular
Still, it's not that suburban
night. But that, Mr. Leiter says , lifestyle we see constantly in the
doesn't make the issues such as media here. Every time we look
survival and what is going to up, there's a film or a photo of a
happen in the West Bank go settler being dragged from the
away.
road and arrested. There is no
Now remember that for a sec - "film at 11" of a family of four
and as I tell you about another going to the movies.
part of my Tuesday. That was
But the settler being arrest-
a meeting with community ed is exactly the picture Mr.
shaliach Jeff Kaye. The issue Leiter wants American Jews to
was an exciting one: plans for remember. If it takes a mental
the celebration of Jerusalem image of a young woman and
3000. In the middle of our meet- her child blocking traffic, then
ing, which included discussions that's how urgent the settlers
of how this newspaper will pre- see their message.
view the months of Jerusalem
Our hope is that the message
3000 events, I told Mr. Kaye doesn't go from peaceful civil
about the telephone conference disobedience to bloodshed. From
with Yechiel Leiter.
our lives here in the suburban
The response was interest- Diaspora, we are glad that Is-
ing, and perhaps paints an ac- raelis can have more of an op-
curate picture of what is portunity to live "West
happening in Israel — how the Bloomfield existences." But we
scenery is changing.
must never, ever forget that it's
Mr. Kaye, whom I original- taken Israelis a constant strug-
ly met while in Israel as part of gle to get to build and live in this
the first Miracle Mission in society.
1993, talked about the day TRAFFIC JAM page 12