Deracheha darchei no’am – her ways are pleasant ways
Some of the most difficult questions in life as well as in Jewish law (halacha) — questions that are practically, psychologically, emotionally, and legally fraught — deal with end-of-life issues. Sharon and I have agonized over them, in moments of despair and sadness, in very real and practical ways, as have most of our friends. Death is an inescapable part of life, and being an older adult means facing these complex challenges with eyes and hearts wide open, though tear-filled and broken.
In Canada, end-of-life issues now include grappling with its Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program. MAiD allows someone with a grievous and irremediable medical condition to be able to receive a doctor’s assistance in ending their life under very specific legal criteria. In Ontario, where MAiD has been available for more than a decade, MAiD deaths have skyrocketed from 625 in 2017 to 4944 in 2024.
Rabbis in Toronto, home to nearly half of Canada’s Jews, have been jolted by this sharp increase, causing them to confront how MAiD impacts their own community. The strict halachic question is not the issue; there is little disagreement across denominations that utilizing MAiD is impermissible. That, however, is where consensus ends.
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The first to speak publicly was the Orthodox Vaad HaRabbanim of Toronto. It recently issued a statement declaring that “availing oneself of MAiD violates Halachah blatantly, and one who does so is considered … one who commits willful suicide.” Consequently, the Vaad proclaimed: “We … hereby declare that we shall not officiate at funerals for MAiD patients. In addition … burial plots in our synagogues’ sections shall be refused … for said patients.”
This statement also “strongly encourage[s] those in such situations to seek out the counsel and direction of rabbis and professionals for both spiritual and practical guidance,” while noting that “we understand that this is a deeply emotional and challenging subject, and we extend our heartfelt compassion to those facing end-of-life decisions and to their families.”
In response, the Toronto Board of Rabbis, a multidenominational organization, issued a letter explicitly stating that it “does not endorse choosing MAiD.” The board explained that “our tradition draws a careful line: we do not hasten death, and we do not extend suffering needlessly.”
It diverged sharply from the vaad, however, regarding “pastoral commitment.” “Jewish law is clear, yet human life is not always so,” the letter noted. “When a person — after suffering and deep reflection — chooses MAiD, the Torah does not release us from our obligations to them…. Just as God visits the sick, so must you visit the sick (Sotah 14a). That obligation does not end when we disagree with a choice. The mitzvot of bikkur cholim (visiting the sick), gemilut chasadim (acts of lovingkindness), k’vod habriyot (human dignity), and nichum aveilim (comforting mourners) are the sacred acts that bind us to one another across the hardest moments of life. We are committed to providing pastoral and ritual care to families and individuals navigating this decision and its aftermath.”
Interviewed by the Canadian Jewish News for an article on the controversy, Rabbi Jennifer Gorman, president of the board, expanded upon this commitment. “We will bury them. We will attend shivah. We will do whatever we would do for any human being, for any Jew, any member of our community. We will continue to do all of those things,” including full funeral and burial rites. As one of its members beautifully wrote in a blog post, “We Do Not Abandon the Dying”: “Halacha and chesed cannot be separated…. The law and the lovingkindness are not in tension. They are inseparable…. When a grieving family calls a rabbi after a MAiD death, they are not asking for a halachic endorsement. They are asking what every grieving family asks: Will you come? Will you help us bury our dead? Will you sit with us in the dark? My answer is yes. It will always be yes.”
This debate brought to mind Rav Chayyim Brisker’s understanding that a rabbi’s primary function is doing chesed. In “Halakhic Man” (p.91; trans. Lawrence Kaplan), the Rav, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, writes in his grandfather’s name that a rabbi’s role is “to redress the grievances of those who are abandoned and alone, to protect the dignity of the poor, to save the oppressed from the hands of his oppressor” — not simply to issue ritual decisions or provide political leadership.
In defense of the vaad’s position, one of its members, Rabbi Daniel Green, told CJN that MAiD has “provoked a ‘crisis’ for the Jewish community’s life and values.” He argued that “there have been crisis moments in Jewish history when rabbinic leaders felt that a practice posed such a serious threat to Jewish life or Jewish values that painful communal boundaries had to be drawn, including at times through funeral and burial practices…. I believe we are living through such a moment, not only in the Jewish community but in society at large…. Whatever compassion we must have for the terrible suffering that can bring a person to consider MAiD, we also have to be deeply concerned about a society becoming increasingly comfortable with intentionally ending human life.”
And he added: “The denial of burial is tragic. If that painful position is taken, the imperative to respond with kindness and compassion becomes even more important. Supporting and embracing the grieving family is essential in those circumstances, provided that support is welcomed by the family.” He does not explain, however, what that support looks like after denying burial and funeral privileges. Indeed, his final clause indicates, at least to me, that he understands that families denied such basic religious services are unlikely to welcome even well-meaning advances by the very rabbis who denied them.
As I weighed these two opposing rabbinic approaches, leaning heavily toward the board’s view, I came across a magnificent 1965 Rosh Hashanah sermon delivered by Rabbi Norman Lamm, titled “If I Were a Prophet.” This sermon may be 60 years old, but its ideas, as is so often true of a R. Lamm sermon, remain eternally relevant.
(Let me be absolutely clear. I don’t know what R. Lamm would say about MAiD, and nothing I write implies otherwise. Rather, I’m applying ideas expressed by R. Lamm to the MAiD debate, and thus I’m the one, and not R. Lamm, who is fully responsible for that application.)
Rabbi Lamm contrasted the roles of the kohen (priest) and the navi (prophet). The prophet, a man of din (justice), is one who “holds fast to his root-ideals, and insists upon the complete and immediate application of his pure principles without compromise.” The kohen, though, “as the bearer of rachamim [love, compassion, and forgiveness], is a realist;… he knows the conditions in which his ideals are to be lived, he appreciates the stubbornness of circumstances, the failings of flesh, and the frailty of human nature.” In short, “the prophet is the angry critic, while the priest is the tolerant teacher. The prophet summons man to God, while the priest pleads with God for patience with man.”
R. Lamm then turns to himself and his calling. “The Rabbinate is heir to both traditions…; it has historically been expected to combine both functions: that of … Navi and Kohen. The rabbi … was expected to reproach his people and encourage them; criticize them and inspire them; judge them and love them.” And while R. Lamm notes that most of the time “rabbis have usually allowed the prophetic dimension of their vocations to be muted,” and they thus “teach, encourage, socialize, visit,” there are still moments for them to “raise their voices in harsh criticism or indignant protest.”
And then, in a brilliant example of praeteritio — an oratorical technique of saying something while claiming to pass over it (h/t to my friend, Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Sinensky) — R. Lamm gives several examples of what he would do “if [he] were a prophet.” He would tell those misbehaving exactly what they are doing wrong; he would, “accuse,” “thunder against,” “be indignant toward,” and “castigate” them, all without mincing words or pulling punches.
Yet looking closely at the prophetic voice as Rabbi Lamm so eloquently described it, two verbs are entirely absent — threaten and coerce. He never, even while bearing “the courage of an Isaiah and the fearlessness of a Jeremiah,” argues that rabbis should threaten or attempt to coerce their followers by withholding anything from them; he never implies that an act is so wrong, so heinous, so evil, so unforgiveable that rabbis should exile the wrongdoer to michutz la-machaneh — outside the camp of Israel — either figuratively, or in the case of a cemetery, literally.
A similar lesson is found in the life of Rabbi Meir Simcha Cohen of Divinsk (the Meshech Chochmah), as I learned from a recent Lehrhaus article. Rav Meir Simcha “understood that a Rabbinate defined by coercion or dismissiveness would only hasten the drift toward secularization and total assimilation.” As with R. Lamm, I don’t presume to know what R. Cohen would say about MAiD. My takeaway, though, is that the coercion he believed wouldn’t work in the 19th century would certainly not work in the 21st.
Leadership isn’t easy, and as R. Lamm teaches, deciding when to be a prophet and when a priest, and how to mix the qualities and skill sets of those two paradigms of leadership, are especially difficult. Nonetheless, those who wrap themselves in the mantle of leadership must make their decisions with great care and wisdom, always remembering Proverb’s words, deracheha darchei no’am, vechol netivoteha shalom (her ways are pleasant ways/and all her paths, peaceful) (Prov. 3:17). True leadership requires a dash of humility, a teaspoon of compassion, a tablespoon of chesed, and a cup of love. In this tragic instance, I believe the board found the far more nourishing recipe.
Joseph C. Kaplan of Teaneck, a regular columnist for the Jewish Standard and the New Jersey Jewish News and a Rockower Award recipient, is the author of “A Passionate Writing Life: From ‘In my Opinion’ to ‘I’ve Been Thinking.’” He is a retired lawyer; he and his wife, Sharon, have been blessed with four wonderful daughters and six delicious grandchildren.