20 Mark Washofsky

evaluation simply because analogy is so vital to halakhic and ethical thinking. If the analogies work, then halakhists and Jewish bioethicists can claim a degree of success for their approach to the material. Conversely, to the extent that analogical thinking cannot overcome the gaps, technological or otherwise, between the traditional sources of Jewish law and the bioethical questions we face today, it will become correspondingly harder to defend“Jewish bioethics,” of either the Orthodox or the Progressive variety, as a coherent discipline that has much of a future.

We begin with a consideration of three texts that have tended to serve as the basepoint or source cases for these analogies. The first of these is Shulchan Arukh Yoreh Deah 339:1:*

The goses is like a living person in all legal respects. It is forbidden to bind his cheeks, or to anoint him or to cleanse his body or stop up his orifices. It is forbidden to remove the mattress from beneath him or to place him upon sand, clay, or earth. It is forbidden to place vessels of water or a grain of salt upon his abdomen. It is forbidden to announce his death or to hire musicians or wailers for his funeral. It is forbidden to close his eyelids until his soul has departed. Indeed, whoever closes the eyelids of the goses as his soul is departing is a shedder of blood....

From here we learn that the dying person is still alive and therefore must not be treated as though he is dead. Some of these forbidden acts describe measures taken to prepare a corpse for burial.” Others relate directly to our issue: to touch a goses, to move his body, or even to close his eyelids at the moment of death is tantamount to an act of murder. The tanaitic sources for this rule cite the following analogy: the goses is like a dripping candle, which will extinguish at the slightest touch.“Likewise, one who closes the eyelids of the goses is considered as having released his soul[i.e., killed him].””?