Ask The Rabbis | Should We Edit Our Children’s Genes?

INDEPENDENT Maybe not edit. Maybe just proofread and add a comma or a few comments in the margin. If circumstances require, perhaps add an exclamation mark, or in a dire situation, all caps and in bold. Run-on sentences can muddle our intent, although you might get away with a semicolon. Editing was built into our creation. Even Leah edited her male fetus and turned him into a female (Talmud Bavli, Berachot 60a). And although God made men with foreskins, we were instructed to edit them. The Word of God itself has been through more editorial changes since the beginning of time than the number of base pairs in a human genome. “For the Torah is like wheat from which to derive flour; flax from which to derive cloth” (Midrash Tana D'Bei Eliyahu Zuta, Ch. 2). But...

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