Last week, the Vaad HaRabbanim of Toronto circulated a letter to the Jewish community. It declared that Orthodox rabbis will not officiate at funerals for patients who choose MAiD. Burial plots in their synagogues’ sections will be refused. The letter cites wilful suicide, invokes the prohibition on murder, and draws on serious halachic tradition.

I have read it carefully. I am responding as myself — as a rabbi, as a member of this community, and as someone who has sat at enough bedsides to know what this policy means when it lands on a real family in a real moment of grief.

I will not speak dismissively of the Vaad’s rabbis. They are my colleagues. Their position — that life belongs to God, that b’tzelem Elohim we are created and that image is not ours to extinguish on our own timeline — is serious, textually grounded, and one I share. I do not endorse MAiD. The Torah’s claim on human life is not a medieval relic. It is a living truth I affirm.

But MAiD is also the law of the land. Dina malkhuta dina — the law of the kingdom is the law. That principle is not a concession or a compromise. It is halakha. Canadian law has made MAiD a........

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