Respectful service and reverent obedience. A Jewish view on making decisions for incompetent parents.

Too often, caregivers and ethicists misunderstand the motivations of adult children who are involved in the care of their parents. They sometimes fail to appreciate the ways in which adult children may be trying to carry out their filial obligations toward a parent, obligations dictated by their religious commitments. Exploring these obligations within the Jewish tradition can help illuminate these issues and provide an alternative to a rights-based framework in which to reason about them.