LimmudFest Nola 2023

Many bioethical issues that once seemed hypothetical were very real during the height of the pandemic. How do we distribute limited resources? When we run out of vital supplies, space, staff, or equipment, what criteria may we ethically use to distribute scarce resources? Do we assign a higher value to some lives? When we don’t have enough, do we use an algorithm based on medical criteria alone or a simple lottery ir consider social value? Add to this a variety of vaccine bioethical questions. How do we distribute vaccines when they are scarce?  How do we deal with the vaccine-resistant when they put the rest of us at risk? What do our sacred texts tell us about such decisions? We will look at how Jewish sources--biblical, rabbinic, and modern--would have us address ethically difficult decisions.