Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and Alexander Raikin discuss euthanasia and eugenics. What has happened in the law and society in Canada since 2016 such that MAID has exploded, becoming one of the most common causes of death there? What is the relationship of national healthcare to this expansion? Alexander Raikin brings in a review of the statistics over the past decade or so.

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson then discusses the history of the euthanasia movement, beginning in the late nineteenth century with its connection to eugenics, through its fall into disfavor subsequent to its association with Nazism, through its rise again in the 1970s. What are the different kinds of arguments that have been used, and how can we think about those arguments?

Raikin and Thomson then discuss the relationship between voluntary and involuntary euthanasia, and Thomson discusses the particular vulnerability of disabled people to pressure to choose MAID.

Leah Libresco Sargeant writes about Grace Russo and her philosophy of mending clothes with beauty.

Zena Hitz on our time, its value, and how we might spend it if we had more of it.

Stephanie Saldaña writes that though the members of her church have been scattered by war, the church lives on.

Adam Nicolson has been rehabilitating his farm in Sussex for many years now, and he discusses the difficulties and rewards of this, and the piece that he wrote about it for Plough’s issue on repair.

They go on to discuss the topics of some of Nicolson’s books: Sissinghurst, the farm and garden owned by Nicolson’s grandmother, Vita Sackville-West; Homer; the pre-Socratic philosophers; and sailing. 

Norman Wirzba writes that our homes and workplaces should nurture and celebrate life.

Adam Nicolson tells of reversing the destructive agricultural damage done to his farm in the past.

Christian Wiman writes that the “if” is what any honest faith looks like in this life.

Zohar Atkins discusses the real meaning of tikkun olam. Susannah and Zohar discuss the contemporary progressive vision of this idea, which means (or does it?) “to repair the world.” Where did that contemporary interpretation come from? And what was the original meaning?

They go through the Rabbinic concept of Tikkun as equity, as a kind of emergency legal decree to be used when the law as written would lead to socially destructive outcomes. They discuss the mystery of how this legal concept became the contemporary vision of Tikkun olam as, essentially, a progressive vision of social justice.

Zohar gives a brief description of the development of Rabbinic Judaism after the fall of the Second Temple in 70 AD, and relates it to the later development of the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah.

Then they discuss the progress of the idea of Tikkun olam through the Kabbalistic tradition, when Tikkun becomes an endeavor to repair the shattered world.

Carlo Gébler writes that we should try to repair the lives of others, even if things in our own lives seem broken.