"The other is the neighbor who is not kin but who can be."

Jewish tradition is rich in texts that can serve as important sources of guidance for bioethics. The Hebrew Bible, the primary Jewish literary source, is filled with moments of ethical concern that profoundly articulate a notion of the good, the search for which constitutes a fundamental element of the tradition. Likewise, the texts teach ethical behavior. From the opening pages, in story and law, the texts teach ethical behavior. Likewise, the later prophetic writings are packed with demands for moral behavior.

The Midrashic tradition, a varied literature containing extensive rabbinic commentary, is also shot through with ethical images, in stories that have become woven into the fabric of Jewish consciousness.

The Talmud, which is at the center of Jewish law, halakha, and the extensive literature it has inspired over the centuries, is a rich repository of ethical concern usually articulated in the form of legal discussions. The Talmudic tradition represents the oral component of the revelation on Mount Sinai and, as such, its unfolding represents the unfolding of the divine will. This view of the Talmudic tradition is maintained by Orthodox Judaism, but it is controversial within the liberal streams of the Jewish community. However, much debate on bioethical matters within the Jewish tradition proceeds from legal analysis and thus points to the Talmud as its source, whether the perspective is Orthodox or liberal.

The Jewish philosophical tradition is also a critically important source for ethical discussion. For example, Moses Maimonides concludes The Guide of the Perplexed with a lengthy discussion of ethics, focusing on imitatio Dei as the highest goal of human existence. Hermann Cohen's Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism is a deep philosophical reading of ethics as mediated by the Jewish tradition. Emmanuel Levinas's work, especially from the late 1940s on, is an investigation of ethical relationships between individuals, between the self and the other, both arising from a philosophical climate and Jewish tradition.

What specifically is Jewish ethics? Is there a body of literature that articulates an incontestable body of Jewish moral rules? Here things become complex, because it isn't easy to find unanimity in particulars or in methodology. In the case of euthanasia, for example, scholars often cite Talmudic and extra-Talmudic sources to arrive at contradictory conclusions. How then can we say there is one Jewish voice in ethical matters?

This lack of unanimity is not surprising. Any tradition as ancient and diverse as the Jewish tradition will necessarily provoke a wide variety of opinions over the centuries. The tradition does not speak with one voice.

The issue is further complicated by the rise of liberal branches—Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist—which branches which came into existence in part out of a broad dissatisfaction with the traditional legal framework. These movements do not reject tradition outright, but they claim the right to reinterpret it and reject elements of it. The Reconstructionist movement, for example, is fond of proclaiming that "the past has a voice but not a veto," that is, the Jewish tradition carries critical weight in contemporary Jewish decision making, but does not possess the absolute voice Jewish Orthodoxy grants it. This is not to say that each liberal movement speaks with the same voice, but certainly the process of consulting the Jewish tradition is accomplished very differently from within liberal Judaism than from within Orthodoxy. One disagreement between liberal and Orthodox Judaism illustrates the issue.

Orthodoxy understands the sexes to have explicitly defined roles within the life of the community. Thus, women are not counted in the prayer quorum (minyan), are prohibited from becoming rabbis, and are placed in roles different from men's.

The liberal streams of Judaism, influenced by feminism, believe that women ought to be granted full rights within the life of the community. All three liberal movements, despite differing approaches to implementation of the issue, diverge from tradition for their belief in a greater good raised by sources other than traditional Jewish ones.

Orthodoxy holds that the greater good is fealty to the law as traditionally interpreted, while liberal Judaism claims to hear an ethical imperative that breaks with tradition. The implications of the divide between liberal and Orthodox include disagreement not only about the authority of the texts, but over how to read them as well. How to do Jewish ethics within a Jewish framework is therefore a complex question, leading to the inevitable conclusion that there can be no such thing as the Jewish opinion on any specific ethical matter, but rather a range of Jewish opinions. What then makes a Jewish opinion Jewish? Can we identify Jewish ethical values that inform decision making?

The answer is a tentative "yes." Louis Newman, in his essay "Jewish Theology and Bioethics," identifies five principles of Jewish ethics particularly important for bioethics: (1) human life possesses intrinsic value; (2) the preservation of life is the highest moral imperative; (3) all human lives are equal; (4) our lives are not really our own—they belong to God; and (5) the sacredness of human life inheres in the human being as a whole. I would add a sixth: the imitation of God is manifested through my actions toward the other.

Even these principles may be in dispute among Jewish ethicists, though it is likely that there is wide agreement. How to move from these principles to rules that can be acted upon is the source of controversy. Finally, the Jewishness of Jewish ethics is assured simply by virtue of the fact that those engaged in Jewish ethics do so out of high regard for the texts that form the tradition. There may always be a dynamic tension within the Jewish ethics community over method and meaning; however, the Jewish ethicist's commitment to Jewish texts will root Jewish ethics substantially in the tradition and give voice to authentic Jewish concerns.

Philip Cohen, PhD, is the Executive Director of the Hillel Jewish Student Center in Lansing, Michigan, and is an adjunct professor at Michigan State University.