Mark Washofsky

it forbidden to introduce a factor that will unnecessarily delay death.® He asks why this is so, given that Jewish law generally teaches that it is a mitzvah to preserve life, even chayei shaah, the brief amount of life that remains for a dying person? Why then are we forbidden to introduce“impediments” into the situation? Why, indeed, are we not obligated to delay the death of the dying person for as long as possible? He locates the answer to this question in the common denominator running through Isserles ’s examples(the woodchopper, the salt, the feathers), namely, their externality. That is, it is forbidden to introduce these measures precisely because they do not contribute anything to the independent vitality(chayut atzmit) of the goses, his ability to maintain life on his own. Any factor that simply maintains the vital signs from outside the patient’s body but does not contribute to his recovery of independent vitality is by definition an impediment to death that should not be introduced ab initio and that, if introduced, may(and perhaps must) be removed.”

We do not conclude that this would be considered an act to hasten death, for such is contrary to the will of God . Indeed, the sort of life that he has now is entirely the product of human artifice, and we learn that to extend such a life is contrary to the will of God from Sefer Chasidim, chapter 234:“We do not cry out at the moment of the soul’s departure, lest it return and the person suffer terrible agony. Why did Kohelet write that‘there is a time to die’(Eccl. 3:2) if not to tell us that the goses should not be forced to endure another day or two of needless suffering?”.... Thus we learn that we should undertake no act to resuscitate the patient when it is clear to us that it is his“time to die.”... This is contrary to the will of God , who has declared that“man exercises no control over the day of his death,”' and it is not within human authority to continue to live in this state when it is obvious that“the time to die” has arrived.