This is my rabbinic thesis (file below) which I wrote to fulfill part of my ordination requirements from Hebrew Union College. In many ways, it represents a key part of why I am drawn to the rabbinate: to draw deeply on our Jewish tradition to make sense of the issues our modern world faces. I drew upon my background (specifically, my work in science education and Master’s degree in medical biochemistry) and my work at HUC in Jewish approaches to medical ethics to help create this synthesis.
In the thesis, I approach and tackle a novel upcoming issue (genetic editing done for non-medical purposes) and find a halachic (Jewish Ethics/Law) way to approach it from within the corpus of Jewish tradition.
I adapt the framework that Jewish law applies to cosmetic surgery, which comes with the added bonus of decades of research into the psychological motivations of people seeking that surgery. I explore that research to help understand who may seek out elective genetic editing, then create five plausible/illustrative cases of elective genetic modification using real genes and technologies.
