I am a Canadian Jew with deep roots in Canada. My grandfathers, one from Winnipeg and the other from Toronto, helped build two of Vancouver’s prominent synagogues in the postwar era. I married a Canadian, also the descendent of Canadian Jewish leaders. Now that my wife and I are raising children south of the border, we frequently hear from my relatives in British Columbia about how much more enlightened Canadian society is. We often agree.
However, my perspective on Canada has been shifting as I’ve learned more about Canada’s ever-expanding Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program. Recent international media attention has focused on the fact that Canadians are choosing MAID at rates far beyond expectations, particularly as Canada has expanded eligibility to include non-terminal cases (“Track 2”). I am deeply concerned about this direction.
My message to Canadians, especially Canadian Jews, is this: please be more critical of your government. (Notice I said “please” – can’t shake those Canadian manners.) Just because MAID is legal does not mean it’s ethical. We Jews know all too painfully that the actions of Western, enlightened governments can be immoral.
Since I’m a rabbi, I’ll start with the ways I believe that MAID violates the most basic Jewish tenets. The Talmud teaches that three partners are involved in the creation of every human being: the two parents, and the Holy One. (Kiddushin 30b, Niddah 31a) This ancient teaching captures something profound about the limits of human authority over life and death – we are partners in creation, not owners of life itself.
Our tradition also teaches that “One who saves one life, it is as if he saved a whole world.” (Sanhedrin 37a) One of the most important theologians of our time, Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, recently published Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism. In this book, a culmination of lifelong philosophical inquiry, Greenberg presents a theologically grounded vision of a world moving toward deeper recognition of the infinite value, equality and uniqueness of every person. I recommend reading it.
Judaism values protecting and supporting the vulnerable, not offering them death as a solution. Even Track 1 MAID presents complex questions within Jewish tradition. While Judaism prohibits hastening death, there is also a tradition against unnecessarily prolonging the dying process. Some Jewish authorities might find space within this framework for passive euthanasia for Track 1 cases; others maintain that any hastening of death crosses a fundamental line. But Track 2 MAID represents something categorically different and far more troubling from any Jewish perspective on the sanctity of life.
The Toronto Board of Rabbis wrote to Canadian senators in 2021 about MAID, expressing concern about “pressure, both subtle and overt” on vulnerable people to choose death. While this letter represented important rabbinic concern, it wasn’t enough. Canadian Jewish leaders from every denomination should articulate clearly that MAID’s existence and expansion fundamentally contradict Jewish values about infinite human worth.
Dr. Arielle Berger, a Toronto geriatrician studying for the rabbinate, writes about “fundamental ideas necessary for aging such as the centrality of gratitude to living a meaningful life, and the truth of interdependence, which allows us to both give and receive with generosity.” She notes the “transformative impact these counter-cultural ideas can have” on understanding worth beyond productivity. Berger uses a Jewish lens and Jewish texts to express that human worth isn’t contingent on productivity, independence or the absence of suffering. Dependence, weakness and need of others are universal features of being human.
I want to amplify voices like Berger’s and Greenberg’s, and urge more Canadian rabbis and other Jewish leaders in Canada to take a clear stance: MAID needs to be questioned on both societal and individual levels. Individual citizens should reject MAID. Rabbis and religious leaders should call on the Canadian government to repeal MAID, while also guiding congregants to choose life. Choosing to live, even when life is diminished or difficult, even when we might feel like “a burden,” remains sacred and valid.
Even non-religious people have good reasons for concern. When the government anticipates almost $150 million in annual savings from MAID, we’ve created a system where death becomes financially advantageous. The possibility of coercion is impossible to avoid.
It’s also deeply troubling for a government to play a role in killing citizens. Decriminalizing suicide is one thing; making death easily accessible through state systems is categorically different. And, if you wouldn’t end your own life directly, asking someone else to do it for you isn’t ethical either. It’s also unethical to be a doctor providing MAID; perhaps the people who do so need a new professional title – “euthanists” – since they’re no longer practising medicine in any traditional sense.
Additionally, MAID represents ageism and ableism dressed up in the language of autonomy and choice.
When my great-aunt Mona Winberg was born with cerebral palsy in Toronto in the 1930s, doctors told her mother to institutionalize her and forget her. The medical consensus was that her life would have no value. Her mother refused. Mona became a pioneering journalist and disability rights activist, receiving the Order of Canada, among other honours. But, even if Mona had never won awards or achieved public recognition, her life would have been important and worthwhile, just like my own.
If any of these more secular arguments speak to you, or if MAID just makes you uneasy, or if recent headlines feel like a dystopian novel, rest assured that you have support from Jewish wisdom that has guided our people for thousands of years.
The Canada my grandparents helped build was founded on the principle that society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members. Today’s Canada seems to have forgotten that value, bent on helping vulnerable members access easy death rather than better care. I’m not saying we in the United States have society all figured out; far from it. But Canadian Jews have an obligation to think and act critically, and to engage in this public conversation before MAID unravels in even more alarming ways.
Seth Winberg is executive director of Hillel at Brandeis and senior chaplain of Brandeis University. This article was originally published by the CJN. For more national Jewish news, go to thecjn.ca.
