Selected Reform Responsa

TAHARAH AND AIDS QUESTION: At the present time the funeral director of

the local Jewish funeral home refuses to permit taharah for AIDS victims. Are there circumstances under which faharah may be withheld? For example, those who died of dangerous infectious disease or should we insist that he treat AIDS victims like all other dead?(Rabbi Norman M. Cohen, Hopkins, Minn.).

ANSWER: The fact that this question is asked at all

indicates the progress of modern medicine in removing the danger of most infectious diseases. Through most of our long history the grave danger of plagues and major epidemics was, of course, recognized even while the danger of infectious diseases was not. Special precautions were occasionally initiated during major epidemics, but those who died from any disease were treated alike and were provided with the same preparation before burial. In fact crises like epidemics and plagues led to the creation of new burial societies and to renewed devotion to proper burial.(I. Abrahams , Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, pp. 355 ff). Special burial preparations were made only for those who were murdered or those who died in childbirth(For a summary see J. Grunwald, Kol Bo al Avelut p 49 ff; and Sedei Hemed IV, Avelut#141).

There was, of course, considerable discussion in the rabbinic

literature about the reaction to plagues. Flight from the affected areas was encouraged(Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 116.5; and commentaries; see also J. Preuss, Biblical and Talmudic Medicine, pp. 151 ff. Solomon ben Simon Duran (Responsa Maharil#195) approached the whole matter from a philosophical point of view and asked whether flight would be successful if an individual had already been destined for death. Isaac Luria devoted an entire chapter to the question(Yam Shel Shelomo 6.26). A large number of responsa deal with contagious diseases and ways to escape epidemics(H.J. Zimmels, Magicians, Theologians, and Doctors, pp. 99 ff. 193 ff.). Flight was the principal remedy.

Those who were not fortunate enough to escape and died were to be buried in the appropriate manner. It might be possible to