The past few weeks I have been filled with a variety of emotions from disgust to outrage. A poor woman lies in a bed totally unable to care for herself, unresponsive in any cognitive way, and she is being used as a pawn by different groups of people to advocate their point of view and promote their agenda. Extremists are preaching hellfire and damnation, politicians are pandering for votes. The only group that seems to have the right perspective on this issue, if you watch the poles, is the American people. The majority by overwhelming margins believe that the issue of Terry Schiavo's fate is a private matter and that Congress has no business becoming involved. And a smaller but still clear majority feel that it is her husband's responsibility - not her parents and not the government - to make the final decision.

And yet, as headlines and features that pour out of newspaper and radio and television writers reveal, there is a minority making enough noise to cause one to think they are the majority.

Now I am not a lawyer and cannot speak to the legal issue of how the parents' point of view has overruled the husband's. And I certainly don't understand the basis on which the President and the Congress have gotten involved, especially when the Supreme Court has stayed out of it all these years. That's someone else's turf.

What I can and would like to address tonight is the moral and religious issue. Not just of Terry Schiavo, since I'm not a doctor and can't judge in her specific case the medical conditions that apply. I would like to talk about the issue of removing life support, under the care and supervision of competent, caring medical professionals. That is something I have experience with and knowledge of.

The first and most important thing I want to put forward is that, despite false rhetoric to the contrary, the religious principle that human life is sacred doesn't differ between fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists. What we disagree on is how to express our concern for that ultimate value. Those who claim that people like me, who believe that a Terry Schiavo can be removed from artificial life support, do not respect life as God's gift are misstating, probably intentionally, that point of view.

I referred in the beginning to a range of emotion I've been through. One of my emotions is resentment. Resentment that my position, which is based on respect for human life because it is sacred, has been demonized by others. Resentment that they are attempting to deligitimize me by claiming that if I think her husband should have the right to terminate artificial life-support based precisely on his love for her and his knowledge of what he believes in his heart she would want, then I am denying God's will.

Not only I, but many in Jewish tradition would take great exception to that statement. And it is this I would like to spend a few minutes on with you. Most of the people I know agree with my point of view, but don't necessarily know how grounded they are in Jewish tradition.

The Talmud, which is the source of our legal tradition, in discussing this issue, makes it clear from the outset that whatever decision is made should be made with the sanctity of human life in mind. It is the very basis of all discussion on the subject of medical treatment.

But let me be clear about the fact that rabbis don't always agree about how to apply the principle. There are some who are more strict and some who are more liberal. All, though, are aware that it is a complicated issue and that there can be differing medical opinions. Like most other issues in the Talmud, there are differing points of view among people of faith who agree totally on principles but disagree on how to apply the principle to real life.

The basis of all discussion is the meaning of the word life. Is a person lying in a hospital totally unaware of his/her surroundings, unable to interact with his/her environment with no hope of recovery but whose heart is beating alive in a way that should be supported? And if so, how much support? Are blood-pressure-support medicine, a breathing machine and a feeding tube all in the same category?

There is no one Jewish point of view, other than that life is sacred. How to interpret that in the reality of a Terry Schiavo is open to discussion.

To that end, let me share with you an Orthodox rabbi's article recently published on this case. Rabbi David Feldman is Dean of the Jewish Institute of Bioethics. He writes that in Jewish law, life doesn't belong to the patient or the family. And in fact, in most instances, the family is the last person to be consulted. The decision belongs in the hands of the doctors, the professionals who can best determine whether to intervene or allow nature to take its course, based on whether intervention will do more harm than good. What is clearly not allowed is to do anything active which will cause death. Even the patient cannot ordain that, since, except in 3 cases, it is forbidden to take a life, whether someone else's or your own.

Rabbi Feldman's conclusion in this case is, "If the continuation of feeding by tube, or if intubation to begin with, could be seen to be causing infection or other untoward effects, the tube could be removed. But it cannot be removed because we want her to die." He concludes that since she is not brain dead or being kept alive by artificial or mechanical means, removing the tube would "actively and prematurely end her life."

Now I personally don't come down where Rabbi Feldman does. But he certainly presents his point clearly and logically, and in some ways even convincingly.

What it clearly limits, though, if not avoids, is the issue of quality of life. His is the point of view that a living person is a life. End of statement.

I take the point of view that if you really respect life as sacred, then the quality of that life is an issue to be taken into account. I agree with him wholeheartedly that one shouldn't take life. To use an image from the Talmud, one should not be allowed to blow out the candle, but one may allow it to go out on its own. I believe a feeding tube is an artificial means no less than other steps taken to keep someone alive. The thought of allowing me to remain alive in the condition I understand Terry Schiavo to be in is repulsive to me. While I don't believe in suicide or euthanasia, unlike Rabbi Feldman I do believe that a person's wishes should be taken into account when extreme medical measures are involved and quality of life is on the table. Clearly the doctors, who are sworn to preserve life, would have to be the ones to determine that there is no hope for improvement before a decision can be made. But once that determination has been made, it is not disrespectful of the sanctity of life to allow the flame to go out by removing life support.

No doubt this points up one of the defining differences between being Orthodox and being Reform. We turn to the Talmud for advice, not for authority. our interpretation is likely to be more liberal.

Whatever the conclusion in Shiavo's case, there is one thing I do pray for earnestly: that this entire incident be brought to a conclusion, so that whatever is decided a family that has been torn apart can get on with life. Whether the tube is in or the tube is out, it is time to cease making this poor woman a cause celebre for factions whose fate is not tied up with her life or death, but whose family is.
Ken y'hi ratson.