Sacred Endings: Halachic Guidance for End-of-Life Care

Halachic guidance for end-of-life medical decisions

Scientific and technological advances have created increasingly complex questions about medical care at the end of life. Sacred Endings, by Rabbi Professor Avraham Steinberg, MD, and Ari Judah Ciment, MD, FCCP, offers a compassionate and practical guide to those questions from a halachic perspective.

Drawing on Biblical and Talmudic sources, halachic rulings, and real-life case studies, the authors address palliative care, DNR decisions, and other medical-ethics dilemmas that arise during life’s final chapter. Written for patients, families, healthcare professionals, rabbis, and readers seeking to understand the Torah perspective, this book provides a clear framework for confronting difficult decisions. Individual medical and halachic questions should be discussed with qualified professionals.

About the authors

Rabbi Professor Avraham Steinberg, MD, is a pediatric neurologist, rabbi, and ethicist, director of the Medical Ethics Unit and chairman of the IRB at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, and head of the Editorial Board of the Talmudic Encyclopedia.

Ari Judah Ciment, MD, FCCP, is a pulmonary and critical care physician, Fellowship Director of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, and a clinical professor.

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