Ethics

Dear Rabbi, I’ve been having a problem that’s been troubling me for the past year. An acquaintance of mine refused to get the COVID vaccine because of political disinformation he received. His family and friends begged him to get it, but he refused. Last year, he caught COVID and died. Had he gotten the vaccine, he probably would have survived or not even gotten it. He was only 44 years old and left behind a wife and children. He almost certainly got it from me. Several days before he got sick, he and I were at the same gathering. On that day, I was having a slightly runny nose. I did not want to miss the event, and I was in denial it was COVID, and I convinced myself and others it was allergies. My symptoms later worsened and I took a home test and it was positive. At least two people caught it from me, and he was one of them. From a Jewish moral standpoint, who is at fault for his death? Is it him, for failing to obtain a vaccine that would have prevented his death? Or is it me, who transmitted the disease to him. Does this make him a fool or me a murderer?

I have a neighbor several doors down who is disposing of his home exercise equipment into the trash. He has hired a professional trash collecting service to remove it from in front of his house later this week. I told him I am interested in having it if he doesn’t want it. I even offered to pay him for it. But he won’t allow that to happen. He says it is his wish that it go to the trash and no one else have it. The reason why he wants it in the trash is because he was injured on it, and he doesn’t want it to injure anyone else. I am willing to accept upon myself any responsibility of the risk of injury. I know the hazards of home exercise equipment, and I know how to prevent them. At the present time, it is sitting on a piece of land in front of his house that is considered the public domain. From a legal standpoint, it is now considered abandoned property and the secular law permits me to take it and it would not be considered theft. What does Jewish law say about this matter? Would taking what he has given up to the trash against his wishes be considered theft?

I know that one is forbidden to waste food. What are we supposed to do with food we have that no one in our household is interested in, no acquaintances are interested in, and no food banks will take?

Dear Rabbi, In Deuteronomy 7:2 the Jews are told to "doom to destruction" the 7 nations--Canaanites, etc. In the next verse, they are told not to intermarry with them. Don't these verses contradict each other? If those nations are to be destroyed, why tell us not to intermarry with them?  

I have a moral question. This almost happened to me recently. Suppose you are stopped at a red light with one or more cars in front of you. You look in the rearview mirror and a big runaway truck that has lost its brakes is heading toward you at a high rate of speed. It looks almost certain that the truck will hit your car very hard and kill you. The only way you can save yourself is to move to an empty space on the street to your right, out of the path of the truck. But if you do this, the truck will strike the car in front of you and probably kill its occupant(s). What is the proper thing to do in this scenario according to Jewish law? Let yourself be killed, or save yourself and let the occupant(s) in the car in front of you get killed?   Fortunately, when this almost happened to me, no one got killed. The truck driver who lost his brakes swerved to the right and hit the brick side wall of a building. He did a lot of damage to the building and the truck and had minor injuries, but he didn’t need to go to the hospital, and no one else was hurt. Really, it happened very suddenly and there was no time to think about my choices.

I used to work for a collection agency and therefore I know a lot about how they work that many people do not know. Also, I am Jewish and I wonder what a Jew’s obligation is toward paying a collection agency when slapped with a bill from one, considering what I know. The reality is, if one has a debt that has been sent to a collection agency, making a payment to the agency will hurt one’s credit rating even more than simply ignoring the debt. It is unusual for a collection agency to sue a debtor. After three years, the debtor cannot be sued, and after seven years, the debt cannot cause any further harm to one’s credit. In other words, it is usually to a debtor’s advantage to simply ignore the debt and the agency’s demands and repeated phone calls. And collection agencies don’t want debtors to know that. Most people who have a debt sent to collections cannot afford to make payments. The collection agency industry is lucrative between the minute amount of debt that is actually paid by debtors who think they are doing themselves a favor and the sale of the right to collect delinquent accounts between collection agencies. When a debtor makes a payment to a collection agency, they are not giving money to the original creditor at all. What they do not know has already happened is the original creditor sold their debt to the collection agency for a fraction of its original value and resigned itself to collecting only that amount. From then on, it is in the hands of the collection industry to try to collect on what remains of the balance. The collection industry really exists not to help creditors recoup money they are owed, but it’s a bunch of entrepreneurs exploiting the fact that some people just don’t or can’t pay their bills.

Dear Rabbi, I am a teacher with an ethics dilemma. I have a student in high school who desperately wants to go to college but needs a B average qualify for an academic scholarship. He is from a broken home and works after school to help his mother pay the bills - and claims that this doesn't allow enough study time to get the needed grades. But he is very close. I'd like to give him a B to help him have a better chance, but according to his tests he really should get a C+. Is there any guidance in Judaism to help me decide what to do in his case? Whatever decision I make could be the difference between him building a good life or really struggling to manage - both he and his mother. Thank you!

Hi, I am writing an assignment on different Jewish perspectives regarding reproductive cloning for my study of religion class and just had a few questions. What are some Jewish views on reproductive cloning? Are the views different in orthodox and reform on reproductive cloning? What scriptures and core beliefs mainly inform these views? Thank you!

Is it a requirement according to Halacha to wear masks in public these days? The reality I see is that most people, including most Orthodox Jews, don’t wear masks in crowded places like retail stores and the synagogue. Trouble is, the failure to wear a mask poses a risk that one might spread COVID to another person, and then there is a chance that the person who catches COVID could die? And of course it is forbidden to put another’s life at risk. Even if the person one catches COVID from does not die, they could spread it to another person who might die. What is the role of Halacha in mask usage?