Pikuach Nefesh (Saving a Life)

I have been feeling guilty since Yom Kippur. Rather than spend the day in synagogue, I was forced to rush a friend of mine to the emergency room and spend the day in the hospital. It was a true medical emergency, and I did fast, but I still feel bad that ...

“Stay home. Save lives.” These words blinked on the overhead electronic traffic sign as I sped down the highway. As a medical professional treating patients in the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, my work is considered “essential business.” In New York, th...

When dealing with a person whose life is in danger, we must "violate" the Shabbat. Learn the guidelines governing this Shabbat "override."

Should the death of a child be a strong enough motivator for change? Or does it require a lawsuit?

There's actually a clear ruling in Shulchan Aruch, the Torah's "Code of Law." This law does not even speak about the land of Israel -- it applies equally to Jerusalem and to Wellington, New Zealand

A patient has advanced metastatic cancer and the doctors believe she will succumb. There is one new experimental treatment which may possibly reverse the disease, but the treatment is dangerous, and if it does not succeed it will kill her.

Ethics professors often frame this conundrum as a battle between “utilitarianism” and “deontology.” What does Torah say?

To save a life, you go the extra mile. I saw this firsthand after learning that I had ALS.

Human life in Judaism is a value that takes precedence over almost every other commandment. This value serves as a foundational principle off of which many medical ethics discussions are built.

"You shall live by the commandments," the Talmud tells us, "and not die by them." Yet there are three cardinal sins that one must give one's life for rather than transgress. How did the Rabbi's reach this conclusion? A reading of Sanhedrin 74a.