Where There's Life, There's Life. This item is unavailable.Where There's Life, There's Life

This book has been called "An Ode to the Sanctity of Life." In it, Rabbi Feldman makes the case for life's intrinsic preciousness, and does so, first, by guiding us through the details of pikkuach nefesh -- the principle in Jewish religious law that sets the saving of life and health above all else. He then illustrates this life-affirming perspective by means of a scholarly exploration into abortion, euthanasia and the right to die, martyrdom, the mandate to heal, the mind-body connection, embryonic stem-cell research, organ transplants -- including the controversial question of heart transplantation. He leads us with edifying expertise but popular style through an analysis of pro-natalism, new reproductive technology, even the writing of Living Wills. Drawing from Talmudic sources as well as contemporary issues, and offering personal accounts from his more than 40 years of experience as a congregational rabbi and a sought-after medical ethicist, Rabbi Feldman advances his theses with passion and verve.

Rabbi David M. Feldman is Dean of the Jewish Institute of Bioethics. He is the author of Birth Control in Jewish Law: Marital Relations, Contraception and Abortion, As Set Forth in the Classic Texts of Jewish Law, published by New York University Press in 1968. It then appeared in several paperback editions under the title Marital Relations, etc., and has now been republished in augmented form, updating its material on new fertility questions and returning to its original title plus “Third Edition — With Epilogue 1995”. He is also the author of The Jewish Family Relationship and Health and Medicine in the Jewish Tradition, the latter commissioned by the Lutheran Institute of Human Ecology and published by Crossroad. He is the Editor of the Compendium on Medical Ethics and has written several articles for the Encyclopedia Judaica and for both the original 1978 edition of the Encyclopedia of Bioethics and for its revised 1995 edition.Dr. Feldman pursued graduate studies at Columbia and at the University of Illinois, and holds degrees from Yeshiva University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, as well as semikhah from Rav Natalovitch. Having served as chaplain in the U.S. Air Force and then for many years as Rabbi of the Bay Ridge Jewish Center in Brooklyn, he is now Rabbi Emeritus of the Jewish Center of Teaneck, New Jersey. He was recently granted the “Rabbi of the Year” Award by the New York Board of Rabbis.Rabbi Feldman has served as Chairman of the Committee on Medical Ethics of UJA-Federation and as Chairman of its Committee on Marriage and the Family. A long-standing member of the Law Committee of the Rabbinical Assembly, he served on the faculty of the School for Chaplains of the New York Board of Rabbis and as Visiting Associate Professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is a Founding Fellow of the Hastings Institute of Society, Ethics, and the Life Sciences and a member of the Editorial Advisory of the Encyclopedia of Bioethics, sponsored by the Kennedy Institute. He also serves on the Bio-Medical Ethics Committee of Hackensack University Medical Center and on the Board of Trustees of the New York Society for the Deaf.Dr. Feldman has lectured widely before synagogue, university, and medical groups. He gave testimony in Albany and Washington on abortion and population issues. He was invited to Rome to address a Vatican-sponsored conference on the subject of his first book and delivered a series of lectures on Jewish law at the Law School of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.