Q&A: Captivity
Captivity
Question
According to Jewish law, in captivity (where there is concern about torture), is a captive permitted to take his own life into his hands?
And more generally, what is your view on euthanasia?
Answer
There are halakhic decisors who claim that he is. Some have brought proof for this from King Saul, who fell on his sword. Euthanasia in order to prevent terrible suffering seems to me similar, although when someone else does it, that is murder, and there would be room to distinguish between a person doing it to himself and someone else doing it to him. It seems to me that there are places set up for this where they leave the act itself to the patient.
Discussion on Answer
The proof is certainly not very strong. The dispute remains as it was even after it. But here we are talking about Jewish law, not insights or values. As for Jewish law, I did not write that one cannot learn from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).
Perhaps even in Jewish law, the one trying to prove it cannot actually prove anything, since one could say that Saul acted wrongly?
*Perhaps even in Jewish law, the one trying to prove it cannot prove anything, since one could say that Saul acted wrongly?
Rashba, Ketubot 33a:
"Had they flogged Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, they would have worshiped the image." Rashi explained this rhetorically, meaning: God forbid—would they really have worshiped the image even if they had been beaten? And some explained it straightforwardly, as an exaggeration. And some explained (Rabbeinu Tam in Tosafot): that they would indeed have worshiped it, because it was not actually idol worship; rather, it was a monument of Nebuchadnezzar, and they were bowing to it in honor of Nebuchadnezzar. And when they said to him, "We do not worship your god" (Daniel 3:18), they meant: the one whom you make into a god. And this is what we say there (Pesachim 53b): "What did Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah see that they cast themselves into the fiery furnace?" If it had been actual idol worship, how could we ask, "What did they see?" Even the wicked among Israel must be killed rather than transgress—how much more so Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Rather, it was only because of sanctification of God's name, since some people were mistaken about it and thought it was idol worship, that they gave their lives for it. And so it is proven in Midrash Hazit (Song of Songs Rabbah 7:8), where it says that they asked Ezekiel, and he said to them: "I have received from my teacher Isaiah: 'Go, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourself for a little moment, until the wrath passes by'" (Isaiah 26:20). They said to him: What, do you want people to say, 'All the nations worship this image'? He said to them: And what do you want? They said to him: That people should say, 'All the nations worship the image except for Israel.' And therefore they said, 'What did they see, that they cast themselves into the fiery furnace?' For they could have slipped away from there, but instead they gave themselves over for sanctification of God's name."
A. Does this prove that one can indeed learn something from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) here, from Saul?
B. Perhaps we cannot learn it from Saul, and could say that what he did was forbidden?