MARK WASHOFSKY

will die, at least the one will not be a causative factor in the death of the other. R. Akiva, however, cites Leviticus 25:36 as the basis for declaring that“your own life takes precedence over the life of your fellow”; hence, the wanderer that holds the water may keep it all, allowing himself to reach the next settlement though his companion die. And this is the generally accepted halakhic view."

Although the practical outcomes of these two passages differ dramatically—in the first, I may not place my own life above my fellow’s: in the second, I am allowed to do just that—they are united by a commitment to the equal value of each human life. Thus, when we are faced with making a qualitative choice between two human lives, of deciding that one life is more deserving of be­ing saved than another, the only proper moral course of action is shev ve’al ta’aseh:“sit and do nothing.” When either action we take leads to the destruction of a human life, we are not entitled to choose either; we must respond passively, allowing nature, outside forces, or chance to make it for us.” We are not allowed to commit murder to save our own life; on the other hand, we may keep the water, because to do so is merely to maintain the existing situation, to refrain from taking a positive action that places one life before the other. Thus, says Rabbi Feinstein, when two patients are medically equivalent, when neither is a tereifah or obviously “terminal,” we are forbidden to make a qualitative choice between them. The physician must treat first the one who calls first, the one whom she can reach first, the one who wins the“treatment lottery.” In this way we avoid deciding“who shall live and who shall die.” Moreover, once a patient has begun to receive treatment, even though his is a terminal condition, we do not discontinue his treatment, even if by doing so we might save the life of another. The patient himself, writes Feinstein,“has no obligation to save

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