asia.
The Jewish scripture, as is well known, authorizes the death penalty. Consequently the crime of homicide with malice aforethought, murder, cannot be derived from the axiom "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," but must hang on the first and great commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy spirit. The law of homicide is centered upon the thesis that the human life is sacred to God, and therefore any curtailment of it is wrongful.
Thus Jewish law surrounded the death penalty with numerous necessary conditions, including hatra'ah (formal, not presumed, warning). So stringent was the law that the death penalty was exacted only by a "bloody Sanhedrin."
Correspondingly, suicide was held to be wrongful, unless prompted by the prospect of being forced to renounce the true religion, and the same prohibition was extended to selfmutilation.
However, at the same time the law demanded, not only that a Jew go to the aid of a neighbor who has been attacked, but also that he assist one who has been afflicted by misfortune, what the gentiles would call an "act of God." Thus a Jew may be called upon to prevent another succumbing to death, even if this requires him to breach the Sabbath.
Thus there arose the question, whether one's duty to one's die more neighbor could extend to helping him to die, or at least speedily, perhaps under persecution. Since the dying person, goses, was not allowed to opt for suicide, his consent did not constitute a defense for killing him. The conclusion was agreed that one could not expedite death in any degree; but this solution was construed as narrowly as could well be--while one could not accelerate death, one could actively "remove an impediment to death."
A fortiori, one was allowed to merely refrain from taking measures to prolong life. Herring cites R. Moshe Dov Wollner and R. Barukh Rabinowitz; the latter ...