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February 10, 2012
Lisa M. Krieger: Man with defibrillator demands access to his own heart's information
David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
February 9, 2012
Laura McMullen: 10 Least Expensive Public Schools for Out-of-State Students
Kimberly Palmer: How to actually enjoy -- relaxing, financially -- your vacation
February 8, 2012
Warren Richey: Why momentous Prop. 8 ruling might not satisfy gay-rights groups
Menachem Wecker: Though Controversial, LL.M.'s Can Lead to Specialized Legal Jobs
The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
February 7, 2012
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Suzanne Bohan: Leaping lizards! Tiny reptiles advancing robot design
February 6, 2012
Jonathan Tobin: Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It
Jeffrey Fleishman: In newly democratic Egypt, tens of democracy activists jailed, to stand trial; their groups are 'threatening the stability of the homeland'
Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good
Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
April 1, 2005
/ 21 Adar II, 5765
If Michael Schiavo had met Yacov the Jerusalemite
By
Jonathan Rosenblum
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Michael Schiavo |
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I have been thinking a lot about Marsi Tabak recently. I first met Marsi about fifteen years ago, when she hired
me for my first major editing job.
Marsi was already something of a legend in the world of Jewish publishing for taking a manuscript about an
abandoned Chinese baby found in a train station by a completely assimilated Jewish professor, that had been
rejected by several publishers and fashioning it into "The Bamboo Cradle," one of the all-time best-sellers in
the Orthodox world. (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.)
Marsi was bright — intimidatingly so — and demanding.. But we hit it off. Though that initial project ended
abruptly, Marsi and I remained friendly, and I always felt that she took Pygmalion-like pride in the development
of my subsequent career.
I haven't seen Marsi since she suffered a heart attack seven years ago that left her in what has been diagnosed
as a persistent vegetative state (PVS). I do, however, run into her husband Yacov at the numerous family
simchas of another author whose career she did much to shape.
Invariably, Yacov responds to my inquiries about Marsi with expressions of thanks for the progress that has
been made and hope for future progress. Last week, Yacov was moved to write about Marsi to the Jerusalem
Post, in response to a series of articles about Terri Schiavo and the Jewish approach to such situations.
Subsequently, CNN picked up the story and interviewed the Tabaks and aired a three-minute segment on
them.
Over the last seven years, Marsi has learned again to swallow and to stand with the assistance of a walker.
Each of these achievements — i.e., the performance of the most routine, everyday actitivies — has been
hard-won, the result of months and even years of effort by each family member and various physiotherapists.
As a result of Marsi and her family's efforts, she accompanied her daughter to the chuppah, and on Purim her
son read the Megilla to her, as he does every year. Yacov describes communication as "very challenging, but
possible, and very rewarding."
Yacov hopes that the brilliant woman he married will again be able to converse freely with him, just as Sarah
Scantlin, a Kansas woman who had been in PVS for twenty years, began to speak well this past February. Whether or not
that happens, however, he will have no regrets about devoting himself to her improvement. "To witness my wife struggling
today with her challenging physiotherapy while standing in a walker is to understand what the will to live really means," he
writes.
I cite Yacov Tabak not as a club with which to figuratively beat a less devoted husband like Michael Schiavo. No one who has
not been in Michael Schiavo's situation is entitled to judge his actions, or to assume that he would act as Yacov Tabak. My
only question for Michael Schiavo is: Why insist on retaining the power to kill your wife while morally compromised by your
desire to remarry and your position as heir to the remainder of her $1.2 million malpractice judgment? Why not simply divorce
her?
But I would fear to live in a society that sets the procedural and evidentiary bar so low for the termination of life as the state of
Florida has done in the case of Terry Schiavo. And I'm proud to live in a religious Jewish society in which Yacov Tabak's
efforts on behalf of his beloved wife are the societal ideal.
Only a society that still believes in the human soul, in something ineffable that cannot be expressed in terms of EEG's, can
produce a Yacov Tabak, or for that matter a JewishWorldReview.com's Marianne Jennings, professor of Legal and Ethical Studies at Arizona State
University, who has lived for more than a decade with a daughter who depends on a feeding tube and who now has a mother
in the same state. "Eliminating them," she writes here, "would mean no more diaper changes,
no more feeding bags, and no more '1-2-3 lift!' as we struggle to rotate their positions. But if I lost my Claire or my mother, I
would spend a lifetime longing to be of service again, to have just one more time to feel the warmth of those neurologically
curled fingers."
And a society which defines life only in terms of the capacity to experience a certain set of pleasures is on the road towards
elimination of those who lack a certain societally determined "quality of life." Indeed the killing by starvation of a sentient,
responsive woman, who requires no more life support than an infant, is already well down the road.
That slippery slippery slope is rapidly traversed. In the Netherlands, where euthanasia is legal, there is growing evidence that
many elderly and infirm people feel pressured by their families to "consent" to their own killing so as not to constitute a burden
on them. By following the recommendation of Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer to jettison "doctrines about the sanctity of life,"
the Netherlands has, in just a few years, come close to Singer's own ideal of a society in which it is "the refusal to accept killing
that, in some cases, [will be seen] as horrific."
May we continue to be guided by the Biblical injunction: Choose life.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading."
Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Jonathan Rosenblum is Israeli director of Am Echad. Comment by clicking here.
© 2005, Jonathan Rosenblum
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