1. THREAD: We need to have a conversation on reductive Judaism. Specifically, when people reduce complicated halakhic issues to one aphorism in isolation of everything else, we wind up with an incomprehensible religion.

Today's example: Saving Lives

2. I missed @bethanyshondark's thread, but she managed to get "Grandma killer" trending. https://twitter.com/bethanyshondark/status/1258063687233003520

3. A bunch of people have been replying to her an elsewhere quoting the Talmudic passage, "He who saves one life saves the world"
https://twitter.com/search?q=save%20one%20life%20save%20world&src=typed_query

4. Now, this phrase has a fascinating history especially since the popular additions say "Whoever saves one life *of Israel* saves the world," but this was likely a later addition
https://web.archive.org/web/20190601064039/http://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/history-ideas/2016/10/the-origins-of-the-precept-whoever-saves-a-life-saves-the-world/

5. That aside, Jewish law places limits to saving someone's life. In particular, we cannot save one life at the expense of someone else's.

6. Or for another example:

7. The reason why this is important is not too long ago people were arguing for Zoom Seders on the grounds of pikuach nefesh - that social isolation is a life-threatening situation that requires halakhic intervention and when someone's life is at stake we can suspend any law.

8. But now we're stuck thanks to the rhetoric of sacred slogans: We're supposed to do whatever we can to save someone's life which means people need to stay home but staying at home is also life-threatening.

So whose life-threatening situation is more important?

9. In my opinion, this is what happens when we combine incompetent political leadership and sanctimonious hyperbole. We justify incomprehensible and contradictory policies (see NYC nursing homes) with moral principles without thinking how they all work together

10. Obviously, there are risks and probabilities to consider and weigh against costs/benefits and we just don't do this with any sort of consistency.

11. According to one report, there were approximately 14,611 gun deaths in 2018 not counting suicides. W/Suicides gun deaths in 2017 were just under 40k. And we find lots of advocacy for increased gun control https://www.thetrace.org/2019/01/gun-deaths-2018-america-mass-shootings-suicide/

12. In that same time period, around the same number of people died in fatal motor vehicle accidents. Yet we don't hear nearly the same call for increased regulation or banning of cars.
https://ohsonline.com/articles/2019/02/18/nsc-motor-vehicle-deaths.aspx

13. Now, one could argue cars provide more benefits to people than guns. But if we're playing the "whoever saves one life saves the world" card, there should be no distinction (Yes, guns have also been used to save lives, but that's too much of a tangent).

14. My point is, stop reducing Judaism to slogans and stop reducing policy to slogans. Doing so contributes nothing to the conversation other than discouraging people from critical thinking.

There's a reason why the Talmud is 2,711 pages long and not just 5 words.