Human geneticists who also take into account the spiritual and psychosocial dimension of this issue and who also understand halacha are rarely found but needed. For instance, Mediterranean fever is particularly common among people from Asia Minor and the Christian peoples of the Caucasus. Among Jews, Tay-Sachs syndrome is widespread, a disease with terrible consequences, affecting children and causing severe emotional and spiritual distress to families. For almost always the affected children die of their Tay-Sachs. To this day, there is no cure for the disease. Doctors can only alleviate the symptoms.
So it makes sense to have the risk checked before having children. But is this morally right, and at what point does social pressure dominate over ethics derived from one s own faith? From a technical point of view, a lot is possible today in the field of diagnostics. Blood samples can be used to determine how probable hereditary diseases are. But should one do everything that is technically feasible?
The Tay-Sachs risk is particularly high among Orthodox Jewish New Yorkers: around 18.5% are carriers. If both are carriers, Orthodox rabbis often advise against marriage. This is because marriage without children is not an option in Orthodoxy – but is faith allowed to interfere so much in medical decisions? Pre-birth genetic diagnostics is becoming more common, but research into therapies is lagging behind. From now on, the Jewish University of Colorado will work on these problem areas in cooperation with medical schools.
What is more, the ethical questions of the various Jewish movements are clearly different. In this context, the messianic conception of life plays a major role. For the Messianics, the embryo is already a human being immediately after fertilization. According to the Talmud, on the other hand, it is „mere water“ – until the 40th day after fertilization. The task here is to „pragmatically increase medical knowledge with a lot of mutual understanding,“ says Professor Schuster, who heads a team of two other professors and a dozen researchers and lecturers. “ We will do both: keep medicine and faith in mind at the same time.”