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Ancient Answers To Modern Questions: Death, Dying, And Organ Transplants - A Jewish Law Perspective, Stephen J. Werber

Journal of Law and Health

To understand the application of Jewish Law to issues of death and the dying process one must first be aware of the importance of life, and saving life (pikuach nefesh), in Jewish thought. Judaism "attribut[es] . . . infinite value to human life. Infinity being indivisible, any fraction of life, however limited its expectancy or its health, remains equally infinite in value." The Mishnah teaches that creation began with a single human being to "teach you that to destroy a single human soul is equivalent to destroying an entire world; and that to sustain a single soul is …