IS OLD AGE A DISEASE?
or less worthy to live than others. On the basis of this understanding, one quite naturally turns for guidance to those halakhic texts that speak most directly to the issue of the comparative valuation of human life. And as we have seen, those texts seem to require an attitude of radical passivity(shev ve-al taaseh) in the face of such an awesome conundrum: we are denied the right to choose which person is more worthy of being saved. True, as we read in the Bava Metzia passage, one may“hold on to the container of water,” saving oneself while one’s fellow dies. Yet this preference, too, is a product of the radical passivity with which we are to approach these life-and-death matters: since I am in possession of the water, I am under no obligation to alter(and perhaps am forbidden to alter) this ethical status quo by sharing it or giving it up to my companion. Even this exception to the“no choice” rule, writes one recent authority, is severely limited: the only reason one is entitled to enjoy the benefits of passivity and to keep the water is that a biblical verse—Leviticus 25:36, according to R. Akiva ’s midrash—allows one to conclude that“your own life takes precedence over the life of your fellow.” Without this verse, one would not be permitted to favor one’s own life over that of another.” It follows, therefore, that no third party is ever empowered to make this determination about two patients that come before it. No physician, no hospital, no community may favor one human life over another. And since the patient that is already receiving treatment, no matter how“terminal” his or her condition may be, is in possession of a legal claim to the“water,” the lifesustaining resources that are being administered, no physician, hospital, or community can interrupt that patient’s continued access to medical care, even if in doing so the resources might be redirected to aid a person who can recover from injury or disease.