Abortion and Traditonal judaism: Feticide in the MeAm Lo'ez

Human Life Review, Summer 2001 by Nadler, Richard

"Blessed are You 0 God, who sanctified the embryo in his mother's womb ... You clothed him with skin and flesh, and knit him together with nerves and bones. You provided him with nourishment and life, and You prepared two angels to guard him in his mother's womb, -as it is written, 'You granted me life and favor, and Your appointed ones watched my spirit"'-From a Ladino prayer offered by a cohen priest at the ceremony of Pidyon HaBen (redemption of the first born).

I. Jewish Teaching on Life and Death

American Jews generally support abortion. According to the 2000 Zogby Culture Polls, 61 % of respondents who identify themselves as Jews are "prochoice" without exceptions-roughly three times the rate of Christians, and five times that of Moslems. The same Zogby survey, however, found 10 percent of Jews opposing abortion except to preserve the life of the mother, and an additional 4 percent opposing it in all circumstances.

While some of these pro-life Jews may have arrived at that position by other routes, it is safe to say that most of them are traditional Jews whose pro-life views are derived from the Old Testament-particularly the Torah, or Five Books of Moses-and the exegetical writings of centuries of Jewish sages. The Orthodox Jew regards these latter writings not as "interpretations," but as a divinely guided tradition that forms an authoritative part of Revelation. In fact, the written Torah is considered a subset of the Oral Torah which God gave Moses on Mount Sinai.

The best source of this "guided tradition" in English is the 19-volume MeAm Lo'ez. First published in the 18th century, the MeAm Lo'ez is Orthodox Judaism's most popular adult education series. Its primary author, Rabbi Yaakov Culi, organized it around the weekly Torah readings of the Jewish liturgy. MeAm Lo'ez summarizes Jewish law, history, philosophy, customs, and mysticism, with a dash of illustrative parable. No other single work synthesizes so much Jewish tradition-Torah and Talmud; Mishnah and Kabala; Tosefoth, Mekhilta, Sifra and Sifri; and all the great orthodox sages, including Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Ramban, Rambam, Ralbag, Abarbanel, and Josef Caro. The work was originally published in Ladino, a SpanishHebrew dialect used by Sephardic Jews. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Rabbi Raphael Yitzchak Yerushalmi translated it into Hebrew, in which form its influence extended to the Ashkenazic Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. Starting in 1977, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's English translations, used herein, were issued by Maznaim Publishing Corporation as Yalkut MeAm Lo 'ez: The Torah Anthology.

The tradition enshrined in MeAm Lo'ez teaches that God actively creates human life. The material from which that life is crafted, the process by which it is formed, and the soul with which it is endowed are all sanctified; i.e., set aside for God's special use.

Genesis 1:27 states that God made man "in His image." This applies equally to the soul and to the body. The human form is spiritual as well as physical. Here is how Rabbi Culi describes Adam's creation:

"When dust was mixed with water to form Adam, even before God gave him a soul, he was already a spiritual being. Since he was God's own handiwork, even his clay was like a soul. He was not like other creatures, whose elements are purely physical."

The human being attains this sacred form while still in the womb, directly by God's hand. MeAm Lo'ez attributes to Moses the following lecture on the subject of God's creative powers:

"He is the One who spread out the heaven and made the earth firm. His very voice is like fire. He can uproot mountains and split the earth's crust. His bow is the clouds and His arrows lightning bolts. He created the mountains and the hills, and covered the plains with grass. He makes the wind blow and the rain fall. He forms the child in the womb, and brings it out into the light of the world. He is the One who crowns kings, and deposes them at his will."

The stuff of which humanity is composed is sanctified-set aside for God's use-in the womb, before it is fully formed. Indeed, it is He Who forms it. The MeAm Lo'ez is filled with references to God's formative involvement at all stages of human pregnancy. God is considered a partner with the mother and father in a child's creation-but as the senior partner. It is He who endows the child with life.

"When a person was in his mother's womb," Rabbi Culi wrote, "he was in a tight, narrow place... God cared for him and fed him and prepared everything he needed."

The fetus is no mere lump of flesh. It exhibits sentience and spirituality. MeAm Lo'ez quotes Job 10:12: "`Life and mercy You did with me, and Your Providence watched over my spirit." This, Rav Culi wrote, describes God's care of the human form and spirit in the womb. The unborn child receives not only God's formative care, but special powers of perception, and special learning. In an exposition of the Talmudic passage "Against your will you were born," Rabbi Culi describes the spiritual life of the pre-born child: "When a child is in its mother's womb, it has a lamp over its head, and can see from one end of the world to the other. All through his life, a person will not experience better days than these. Furthermore, during this time, a person is taught the entire Torah. When the time comes for him to leave the womb, he does not want to go, and he has to be taken by force."