Feldman Article Raises Questions Of Journalistic Standards

Ralph Lieberman writes:

Initially, Professor Noah Feldman’s “Orthodox Paradox,” an article appearing in the July 22 issue of The New York Times Magazine, may seem entertaining. But on further reading, a very disturbing message emerges – a message that calls into serious question the intent of the author and the judgment of The New York Times in publishing the piece.

If you remove the personal interest story and the extensive background, the thesis of the essay is quite damning: Feldman argues that the Modern Orthodox community has drawn inappropriate and even dangerous lines in matters of life and love:

… My Modern Orthodox synagogue is filled every Shabbat with doctors, and I routinely hear their beepers go off for patients who are, in most cases, non-Jews.

Feldman knows very well that not even the teacher he cites would even think a physician should deny treatment to non-Jews. It is, however, entirely natural in the halachic process to explore the underlying rationale, to debate these fine issues of law even when we know – on the basis of secular law, morals and religious obligations – that a Modern Orthodox physician must treat all patients in need – on Shabbat or even on Yom Kippur.