Woodchopper Revisited 61

100. The responsum cites the opinions of Waldenberg, Halevy, and Rabinovitz discussed above.

101. See above at note 82. Unlike Jakobovits, the CCAR responsum does not base its conclusions upon the theoretical differences between Maimonides and Nachmanides , since“[b]oth approaches see the obligation to practice medicine as a subset of the more general commandment to save life.” According to either theory, goes the argument, that obligation ceases when life cannot be saved.

102. Thus, the language of Maimonides :“whoever is able to save another(ko! hayakhol lehatsil) and does not do so has violated the commandment: you shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor”; Yad, Rotzeach 1:14.

103. This refers to the classic distinction between“certain” and“unproven” medical treatments in R. Yaakov Emden’s Mor Uketzi’ah, ch. 328. See, in general, R. Moshe Raziel,“Kefiat Choleh Lekabel Tipul Refui,” Techumin 2(1981), at pp. 335­336.

104. Newman(note 1, above), p. 36.

105. The terminology cited is that of Robert A. Ferguson,“The Judicial Opinion as a Literary Genre, ” Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 2(1990), pp. 201-219, especially at p. 213ff. See also Paul Gewirtz ,“On‘I Know It When I See It’,” Yale Law Journal 105(1996), at p. 1042:“The typical judicial opinion is marked by a rhetoric of certainty, inevitability, and claimed objectivity, a rhetoric that denies the complexity of the problem and drives to its conclusion with a tone of self­assurance... This rhetoric of certainty seems connected to judges’ perceived need to preserve the institutional authority of the court.” See also Richard A. Posner , “Judges’ Writing Styles(and Do They Matter?),” University of Chicago Law Review 62(1995), at p. 1430.

106. The CCAR responsum is an exception to this observation, since it is a ruling on a specific question that yet takes pains to defend its position against the alternatives. The difference may lie in the nature of liberal halakhah, which tends to emphasize the plurality of views within the Jewish legal tradition over the need to locate the one correct answer to a question of Jewish law. On this subject in general, see Mark Washofsky,“Abortion and the Halakhic Conversation: A Liberal Perspective” and“Against Method: On Halakhah and Interpretive Communities”

(note 14, above).