MARK WASHOFSKY

Finally, there is a third decision, one that comes at the end of this second responsum.® Here, Rabbi Feinstein states simply that an elderly patient(zaken muflag) is entitled to treatment on an equal basis with a younger person. The same is true on the question of priorities: the doctor should not consider age as a factor in determining which patient to treat first.

From these decisions, we learn two things. First, there is a clear and precise order of priorities, a system of rules by which Jewish law would have us make the difficult decisions about allocat­ing medical resources. Second, a person’s age is irrelevant to setting this allocation. The elderly have an equal right to the community’s life-sustaining resources that cannot be denied or limited to them for the simple reason that they are older than other legitimate claimants.

ON RESPONSA AS LITERATURE

Before we evaluate the specifics of Rabbi Feinstein’s posi­tion, we ought to consider the grounds on which we make that eval­uation. By what means do we ascertain that these decisions are “right” or“wrong”? How do we determine that they represent the correct interpretation of Jewish law or that other answers offer a better interpretation? Indeed, are these at all legitimate questions to ask? Is it possible to sit in judgment on the work of an eminent halakhic authority whose rulings are treated with enormous respect, and even reverence, by the religious community, which looks to him for authoritative instruction?

These questions do not, of course, admit of easy answers.

But we might begin our thinking by noting that a rabbinic respon­sum is a text, a literary creation, and that like all literary

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