WHOSE LIFE COMES FIRST?

 Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.

 The topic of whose life comes first has exercised the imagination of many ancient Rabbis. One scenario was debated in a Jewish legal commentary called SIFRA (on the Book of Leviticus, 4^th cent. CE). Here, we find the following dilemma (See also a parallel discussion in the Babylonian Talmud,BM 62a, 6^th cent. CE).

 “The following was expounded by Ben-Petura (a 2nd cent. CE rabbinic scholar): Two men are traveling through the desert. One of them has a flask of water. If he alone drinks the water, he will reach the town but if both of them drink, they will both die. Ben-Petura expounded the biblical text (in Lev. 25:36) “That your brother may live with you” to mean that both should drink and die (rather than one should live while the other dies). But Rabbi Akiva (a 2^nd cen. CE scholar) said to him: “That you brother may live with you” means that he may live WITH YOU , not instead of you, namely that your life takes precedence over the life of your friend. Rabbinic law accepts this approach.

This dilemma sounds very much like “the Plank of Carneades,” namely , Carneades of Cyrene,  a Greek philosopher who lived in 2^nd cent. BCE. Here, instead of a desert, the event takes place in water:  There are two shipwrecked sailors. They see a plank that can support both of them. Sailor A gets to the plank first. Sailor B , who is about to drown, pushes A off and away from the plank and, thus causes A’s death. Sailor B is later saved by a rescue team. The question is whether B should be tried for murder?

The similarity between the two cases, though not completely parallel to one another, shows that the ancient Rabbis were aware of the popular ethical debates that took place in the Greco-Roman world.

Obviously, the tension here is between self-preservation and personal sacrifice. Many ancient Greek thinkers argued that one should die rather than deprive the other of his or her means of survival. The Rabbis, however, gave self-preservation the upper hand. (See, the detailed discussion by K. Berthelot, “A Classical Ethical Problem in Ancient Philosophy,” Harvard Theological Review 106/2, 2013, 1-29).

 I would argue that it depends on who is the “other”? If it is my child, I would be ready to give him/her a chance to survive. Otherwise, if it is a stranger or if the other has a lesser chance of survival, I will save myself.

Your opinion?