Mark Washofsky

that“as a matter of principle the spirit of the Torah is not utterly indifferent to the plea of the suffering; Rabinovitz’s invocation of“artificiality” as the common denominator between the woodchopper and the respirator; Levy’s citation of his own medical expertise to justify his rejection of the woodchopper analogy; Waldenberg’s conclusion that“to extend such a life[i.e., of the patient who has lost the capacity for“independent vitality] is contrary to the will of God ”; Feinstein’s declaration that“it is obvious” that the impediments to the death of a goses may be removed precisely but only because she is suffering great pain; and the CCAR Responsa Committee’s rhetorical questions(“Does there not come a point in a patient's condition when, despite their obvious life-saving powers, the sophisticated technologies of modern medicine... become nothing more than mere‘salt on the tongue’...?“To this argument we would simply ask: is this truly‘medicine’ as we conceive it?”). On the other hand, not all our halakhic authors fare as well with Newman’s second requirement. In particular, Rabbis Waldenberg and Feinstein are satisfied to state their own interpretive positions and do not explicitly “defend” those views and assumptions against alternative understandings of the texts. Newman, perhaps, would see this as a weakness in the halakhic discourse on this issue, similar to the one he finds in Jewish bioethical writing. We should keep in mind, however, the influence of legal genre upon these writings. Waldenberg and Feinstein write here not as bioethicists or as academic legal scholars but as poskim, decisors handing down definitive rulings. Their function is akin to that of judges, and judges, too, are often silent as to alternative interpretive possibilities. The judicial opinion, it has been noted, is often characterized by the“rhetoric of inevitability,” in which the judge assumes a“monologic voice” or a“declarative tone” as a means of persuading the reader that he could not reasonably have come to a different conclusion. The judge may see this, in fact, as a requirement of the judicial role and hence of the opinion as a literary genre: the task of the judge, after all, is to tell us what the law is, which places a premium upon stating the law with finality and certitude.'” By contrast,