EXOD572 According to the Talmud, the last words of the following passage gave us permission to attempt to heal: “When men quarrel and one strikes the other with stone or fist, and he does not die but has to take to his bed, if he then gets up and walks outdoors on his staff, the assailant shall go unpunished, except that he must pay for his idleness [time lost] and he must surely heal him (ve-rapo yerapeh) Exodus 21:18-19. “And he must surely heal him”: From this verse we derive the permission [of human beings] to heal (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Kamma 85a). On the basis of “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), the Rabbis (Sanhedrin 84b and Rashi there, s.v. ve’ahavta) conclude that this permission even extends to treatments that require inflicting a wound, for they presume that we would all prefer to suffer from a temporary wound to get well and must therefore have permission to treat other people likewise. This, incidentally, also sets up the basis for judging therapies in terms of the balance of their risks and benefits, for in each case--and especially if the patient is unconscious or mentally incompetent--we must think of what we would want done and do the same out of love of our neighbor. On the basis of an extra letter in the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 22:2 [והשבתו-AJL] the Talmud (Bava Kamma 81b) declares that the Torah imposes an obligation to restore another person’s body as well as his or her property and hence to come to the aid of someone in a life-threatening situation. That duty also stems from Leviticus 19:16, which the Talmud (Sanhedrin 73a) uses to ground our obligation to do what we personally can to save lives and also to hire those who are more qualified to heal others. “If you see your fellow’s ox or sheep gone astray, do not ignore it; you must take it back to your fellow. If your fellow does not live near you or you do not know who he is, you shall bring it home and it shall remain with you until your fellow claims it; then you shall give it back to him (ve-hashevato lo). Deuteronomy 22:1-2. On what biblical basis can it be derived that it is obligatory to restore the body of a fellow human being [when ill or in danger, just as it is obligatory to restore his or her property]? Because the Torah says: “And you shall restore it to him” (Deuteronomy 22:2). [“To him] is superfluous, for to whom else would you return it? The Rabbis, assuming that nothing in the Torah is superfluous, therefore use that extra letter in the Hebrew word indicating [to him” to assert that] the Torah imposes a duty on us to restore lost property to its owner and a person's body to him or her (avedat gufo, the loss of one's body) when it is lost through illness or danger [see Rashi on the Sanhedrin passage, s.v. talmud lomar ve’hashevato lo.] Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 73a; see also Bava Kamma 81b.