Abstract: Levinas underscored that we must meet the other where he is…not where we might want him to be. Such a concept that embodies moral responsibility to the "other" can nourish the physician who struggles to muster compassion. For Levinas, the rules of the game were obvious: I owe the other everything, but this is not conditional upon what the other owes me. This narrative introduces the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and its potential to affect clinical practice.

Abstract: This article deals with the ethics of caring for people that are suffering intolerably and seeking help, yet we avoid helping them because of legal, ethical and emotional (or religious) reasons.

A definition of the purpose of medical care nowadays is suggested: To cure people from their diseases, relieve their suffering, beneficence, and avoid doing harm. Medical care is not aimed at prolonging life, at least not in all cases.

In caring for people that seek relief from their intolerable suffering, physical or existential, even by means of dying, palliative sedation, passive and active euthanasia and assisted suicide might be chosen. The intention of all these actions is not killing the person, but relieving his/her suffering. The death cause is the disease or the intolerable suffering even if death was precipitated by medication. Palliative sedation and passive euthanasia are legal in Israel, while active euthanasia and assisted suicide are not. This situation might not be ethically valid. However, one should consider effective use of palliative sedation and even recommending conscious patients who want to die to stop eating and drinking.

In all cases the patient must be consulted in all medical decisions as long as it is possible, living wills should be encouraged, and dialogic skills must be developed for caring teams, families and patients. Since no one knows better than the person himself what is best for him/her, the best should be done in order to clarify the patient's wish and act upon it. Yet this should be done with consideration for the feelings and values of doctors and caring teams and in cooperation with the patient's family. The article surveys various ethical tools that may help in specific end of life decisions that can give people a "good death".

Abstract: Religion and Moral in Emmanuel Levinas's Jewish philosophy. Religion is considered as referring to a person's relationship with God or the transcendental, while moral refers to inter-human relationships. These notions are often thought as indifferent or even conflicting with each other. But there are many Biblical and Rabbinic texts who show an essential and even an inter dependence between them.

Emmanuel Levinas's approach to the relationship between religion and moral continues this perspective of inter dependence between them. In this article I focus on his "Jewish" texts: I analyze part of his Talmudic Lecture "Towards the Other" ( Nine Talmudic readings ) and the way he defines the notion of sanctity, which is usually considered as essentially religious. For Levinas, thinking of moral that has no transcendental dimension is phenomenologically wrong and is week in its capacity to influence actual behaviour in the world. On the other hand, and as the fundamental essence of religion is to shape ethical relationships between people, religion actions that ignore their human ramifications is not only dangerous, as they might cause damage to other people, but are also religiously wrong.

I think that renewing this traditional view of inter dependence between moral and religion such as Levinas does might have important implications on contemporary Israeli life.