EXOD192 Jewish law opposes cremation, and regards it as an extreme lack of respect for the dead body. Although no explicit biblical law prohibits cremation, the prophet Amos, writing over 2,700 years ago, speaks of the punishment of the nation of Moab for its many sins, specifying that it had "burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime" Amos 2:1. The Torah takes burial and a gradual decomposition of the dead body for granted "For dust you are and to dust you shall return." Genesis 3:19

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EXOD245 The medieval Bible commentator Abarbanel found support for the ethical superiority of a nonmeat diet in the fact that this was the diet (manna) supplied by God to the Israelites in the desert. In the Torah, God refers to manna as "bread from the sky" (lechem min ha-shamayim; [this verse].). Abarbanel sees the manna diet as intended to teach Jews in all generations a lesson: "Meat is not an essential food, but is rather a matter of gluttony… In addition, meat generates cruel blood in human beings. This is why you find that the predatory carnivorous birds are cruel .... But sheep and cattle, chickens, turtle doves, and doves, which live on the grass of the field, have no cruelty or wickedness…" (commentary on Exodus 16:4).

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EXOD285 To this day, a Hebrew expression that is associated with Orthodox Jews is Baruch Hashem ("Blessed is the Lord"). Thus, when one asks an Orthodox Jew how he or she is doing, the person often will answer, "Baruch Hashem" (which is intended to convey that everything is as God wills). Yet few Jews realize that this expression, which comes from the Torah, is used there exclusively by non-Israelites. Perhaps its most well-known usage is by Jethro who, when he hears Moses tell about the miraculous escape of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery, comments: "Baruch Hashem who delivered you from the Egyptians and from Pharaoh…" [this verse]. Earlier in the Torah, Noah uses this expression as well Genesis 9:26, as does Abraham's servant (assumed to be Eliezer; Genesis 24:27. In Genesis 14:20, the non-Israelite King Melchizedek uses a variant of this expression.

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EXOD397 The Fourth commandment(concerning the Sabbath), which regulates a day of rest for human beings, also applies to animals. On this day, "you shall not do any work, you, your son or daughter… We are cattle…"[This verse]. The Torah later returned to the steam, and place particular emphasis on the significance of both animals' and employees' rest on the Sabbath: "six days show you work, but on the seventh day shall you cease from labor, in order that your ox and donkey may rest, and that your servant and the stranger may be refreshed" Exodus 23:12.

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EXOD566 Does Jewish law require doctors to do all within their power to prolong the life of a patient in chronic pain and suffering from a terminal illness? In a seminal ruling specifically addressed to physicians, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein wrote: "If a patient is terminally ill and in intractable pain, so that there is no hope of surviving in a condition free of pain, but it is possible, through medical or technological methods, to prolong his life, then it is improper to do so. Rather, the patient should be made as comfortable as possible and left without any further intervention" Igrot Moshe, Choshen Mishpat 2:73. [In the context of this response, Rabbi Feinstein goes on to make the statement previously cited that actively hastening the patient's death by even a moment is "murder"] On the other hand, if medicines can be found to make the patient comfortable, "so that he will not be in pain, [then] efforts should be made to prevent the patient from dying." Thus, for Rabbi Feinstein, the key concern regarding terminal patients, particularly those who can live for only a few more months, is the absence of "intractable pain." ... Dr. Kenneth Prager, an observant Jew, argues that even in instances in which pain can be contained, there are still reasons why it might be wrong to prolong a terminal patient's life. He feels, therefore, that Rabbi Feinstein's ruling "does not address the ever-increasing number of patients in Intensive Care Units on life support with no hope of leaving the hospital alive or are being kept alive by ventilators, dialysis machines, pressors (potent medications to maintain their failing blood pressure), potent antibiotics, and even artificial pumps that assist a failing heart. These patients are nearly always prevented from feeling pain by the administration of narcotics that render them unconscious. They cannot communicate with their families. Patients may be kept in this condition for literally weeks or even months during which time they developed horribly large and deep ulcers of their skin, disfiguring bloating of their entire body, and undergo repeated skin punctures for IVs and catheters. My experience with the Orthodox rabbinate is that they have been loath to allow withdrawal of life support in these situations even though the intensive care is clearly prolonging the misery of the dying process. These treatments, in my view, also violate the dignity of patients because of this disfigurement and breakdown of their bodies, sometimes with actual putrefaction of their tissues. I have even had rabbis who were loath to withhold attempts at recitation in these patients, thereby subjecting these poor people to the degradation of chest compression, rib fractures, and electric shocks in attempts to prolong the dying process for an even longer period. I believe that such efforts are in direct contradiction to those posekim (decisors of Jewish law) who have declared that if the physician cannot help a patient, but can only cause prolonged suffering, these physicians do not have permission to treat the patient. Verapo yerapeh ("And heal shall he heal") the biblical expression from which the Talmud derives reshut (permission) for doctors to practice medicine [this verse and Bava Kamma 85a) only pertains when the physician can help the patient. However, 'permission' to be a doctor ceases once a doctor can no longer help the patient. For too many rabbis, the sanctity of life has become an end in itself and they feel that efforts should be made to prolong the lives of patients at all cost, as long as the patients are not suffering, regardless of the breakdown of their bodies." [in Prager's view," the ancient notion of a goses (a legal term referring to a patient so sick that it is presumed he will be dead within 72 hours) is a very useful one. But unfortunately the definition of this term has been muddled in the halachic mind because of the sophisticated technology that can keep virtually everyone, no matter how sick, alive for a while, without, however, healing the patient. We need a new invigorated definition of the term goses by the rabbinate to accommodate the realities of changing medical technology."

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EXOD593 Although "An eye for an eye" does mandate punishing a person who maims another (Jewish law did not enforce this verse literally…), what is in frequently noted is that it limits the retribution which can be taken. For example, "An eye for an eye" forbids taking two eyes for an eye, even though people who avenge themselves on another often exact a far worse vengeance then the suffering that was inflicted upon them. ... Even though the language of the biblical verse seems definitive, the Rabbis understood it as meaning that on moral grounds, someone who intentionally blinds another deserves to lose his sight. But the court exacts only financial compensation, lest it commit the greater injustice of killing the offender while blinding him. "An eye for an eye" therefore establishes two biblical principles of justice: Evil must be punished, but punishment must be proportionate to and not exceed, the offense.

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EXOD624 Jewish teachings on self-defense are based on a ruling in [this verse]. … The Bible scholar Moshe Greenberg notes that "both [ancient] Assyrian and Babylonian law know of offenses against property that entailed the death sentence. In Babylonia, breaking and entering… and theft from another's possession are punished by death. Assyrian law punishes theft committed by a wife against her husband with death. In view of this, the leniency biblical law in dealing with all types of property offenses is astonishing. No property offense is punishable with death" (Moshe Greenberg," Some Postulates of Biblical Criminal Law," in Judah Goldin, editor, The Jewish Expression, page 27).

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EXOD653 Biblical laws that mandate that strangers be treated justly are a characteristic and recurring feature of Torah legislation: [this verse], and later "… Hear out your fellow man and decide justly between any man and a fellow Israelite or a stranger" Deuteronomy 1:16, and the previously cited, "The stranger who resides with you shall be as one of your citizens…" Leviticus 19:34. Throughout history, strangers in societies all over the world often have been denied basic rights and discriminated against. In contrast, the Torah insists "There shall be one law for you and for the stranger who lives among you" Exodus 12:49, see also Numbers 15:15. To this day, the ancient physical injunction represents the cornerstone of a just society.

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EXOD657 The Torah's rationale for this command is somewhat counterintuitive, since so many of us do not learn from our own suffering not to inflict suffering on others. The last people we would expect to abuse their children are those who themselves were abused as children, but, in fact, they are far more likely to do so than adults who were not abused. Similarly, historians have often explained the widespread German support for Nazism as a response, in part, to the severe terms the Allies imposed on the Germans at the end of World War I. In short, suffering is often not an ennobling teacher. But that is exactly what the Torah demands of the Israelites, and continues to demand of Jews today: Learn from the bad treatment you have experienced at the hands of others not to treat others in the same way.

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EXOD703 As Maimonides notes, a particularly high level of tzedaka is making an interest-free loan to a person in need [this verse and Deuteronomy 23:20-21]. Throughout Jewish history, Jewish communities have set up Free Loan Societies (known as Gemach, from the Hebrew term gemilut chesed, "acts of kindness"), in which loans are given to help people cover basic needs (Such as rent, food, school tuition), and larger sums are extended for broader purposes, such as to help a person start a small business. Such loans "spare the poor embarrassment" (Rashi's commentary on Shabbat 60a).

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