Health and Medicine in the Jewish Tradition

L'Hayyim--To Life
DAVID M. FELDMAN

The connections between Jews and medicine have long been recognized, "My son the doctor..." being the first line of many a joke. This book's subtitle, "L'Hayyim--To Life," suggests one among several reasons for this connection, epitomizing as it does, Judaism's joyous affirmation of this-worldly life and well-being. To do so responsibly, says the author, is to fulfill God's command for one's self and for others, in the face of all challenges, human and natural.

This book provides a thematic development of inherited Jewish concerns about health, medicine, illness, and well-being through all the cycles of life. It sets forth the precepts affirmed and the stance taken, the principles and the value system reflected. In conformity with the concise perspective of the Health/ Medicine and the Faith Traditions series, it devotes particular attention to such timely and controverted questions as abortion and neonatal and terminal right to life. Elements of the book's fundamental thesis emerge with clarity: that in Jewish law and practice the pursuit of preventive and curative medicine is a religious obligation; that human life is to be revered for its own sake, above its apparent lack of quality or conflicting ritual demands; that health implies a respectful concern for body and soul, unhyphenated; and that these objectives are to be sought in the individual, social, sexual, and therapeutic dimensions of life.

DAVID M. FELDMAN is rabbi of Teaneck Jewish Center in Teaneck, New Jersey, and author of several books, including Birth Control in Jewish Law and The Jewish Family Relationship.



Contents

Foreword by Martin E. Marty			9
Preface			13
1.	The Mandate to Heal		15
2.	"Set Aside the Torah" to Protect Life and Health		23
3.	Prayer and Concern for the III		29
4.	Judaism and Health		35
5.	Jews and Medicine		41
6.	Mental as well as Physical Health		49
7.	Marriage and Marital Relations		55
8.	Procreation		69
9.	This Matter of Abortion		79
10.	Right to Life-Neonatal and Terminal		91
11.	Aging, Death, and Afterlife		97
12.	Moment of Death, Transplantation, and Autopsy		103
Notes			109
Glossary of Hebrew Terms			113

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