This Talmudic passage underscores Judaism's valuation of every human being as a reflection of God. It has inspired a new Park Ridge Center project, funded by the Michael Reese Health Trust.

What do ancient precepts such as this mean in the complex world of modern biomedicine? Let's consider one example. The Hebrew term P'ru U'r'vu (to be fruitful and multiply) is a central precept of Judaism. Existing technology holds the promise of creating offspring when natural means fail. Yet high-tech forms of assisted reproduction are expensive and are only partially reimbursed through insurance mandates in thirteen states. Some techniques involve physically and/or emotionally stressful procedures. Others rely on donated gametes, either ovum or sperm, or on surrogacy. Considering these factors, how far should Jews go to try to fulfill the commandment?

Such are questions typically posed by contemporary health care. Although Judaism's great texts and traditions provide ethical insights, they have not been tapped sufficiently in contemporary bioethics debates. The Jewish tradition can offer a method of thinking about questions, provide a source of comfort in tragic circumstances, and connect Jewish patients, their families, and their health care providers both geographically and historically with a larger community.

To bring Jewish ethical thinking into mainstream conversations about health care ethics, the project seeks to galvanize Jewish and non-Jewish health care professionals, family members, clergy, and policy makers. The Center will create resources to guide decision makers through complex health care issues and to help protect vulnerable populations.

The project's objectives are to:

• make useful to health care practitioners critical Jewish cultural resources, specifically those relevant to problems in contemporary biomedicine;
• enable professionals to use less familiar methods to form reasoned positions about health and ethics;
• help health care practitioners, families, and religious leaders redefine the clinical situations and policy problems they encounter, by asking new questions about biomedical problems.

At the core of our project are four working groups, focused on specific clinical and policy questions at the intersection of Judaism and health care ethics:

• beginning-of-life issues (including assisted reproduction);
• genetics issues (genetic counseling, gene therapy, and behavioral genetics);
• long-term quality-of-life issues for frail neonates and children with special needs;
• aging, life extension, and our obligations to the elderly.

Each working group will consist of an interdisciplinary mix of physicians and other health care professionals, rabbis and scholars of Judaic studies, social workers, policy experts, sociologists, anthropologists, and others. Working groups should generate a rich, multivoiced Jewish perspective, giving practitioners an opportunity to discuss significant themes and creating an interested community of scholars and practitioners that can become an important resource.

Among the outcomes will be community presentations and our second annual conference (April 24), which is cosponsored with Beth Emet The Free Synagogue, Evanston, Ill.; the Chicago Center for Jewish Genetic Disorders; and the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago.

The project will also set the institutional foundations for a center on Judaism and health care ethics that can provide a stable resource for information, research, and clinical consultations. This represents ideas generated during a planning phase supported by a grant from the Michael Reese Health Trust. An advisory group of Jewish scholars, rabbis, community representatives and health care practitioners (chaired by Rabbi Peter Knobel of Beth Emet) guided the development phase and will guide the implementation of the Judaism program's agenda for future research and consultation. Rabbi Gail Glicksman will direct the project and the Judaism program; Martha Holstein, the coordinator of the successful planning phase, will work closely with Rabbi Glicksman.