Israel – The Chief Rabbinate is currently in the midst of resolving the last halachic quandaries surrounding organ donation.
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The debate was sparked following the approval of the Organ Donation Law in 2008: The law specifies brain death criteria, as well as the exact medical methods and instruments which must be used to determine brain and respiratory death; but many in the religious community still feel it fails to answer pivotal halachic questions.
In order to encourage organ donation among the religious public, the rabbinate decided to introduce a new organ donor card – different from the National Transplant and Organ Donations Center (ADI) card – which will stipulate that the potential donor’s organs can be harvested only if and after brain death is determined according to the strictest letter of the law.
Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger also wants the Chief Rabbinate’s Council to issue an official decree giving the law a halachic seal of approval.
The rabbinate will hold a special seminar on organ donation, meant to allow the 40 rabbis attending it to eventually be able to see families through the process.
The rabbis will be trained to offer the families answers to any medical or halachic questions they may have.
“The council approved organ donation 20 years ago, providing that the state of brain death was determined not only by a physician, but by electronic equipment as weel, but the medical community never agreed to that stipulation,” a source in the Chief Rabbinate told Yedioth Ahronoth.
“The new legal criteria seemingly took care of that and now the rabbinate is in the process of giving it a halachic seal of approval.”
While the majority of rabbis in the religious- Zionist, haredi and Sephardic communities – including Chief Sephardic Rabbi Shlomo Amar – agree that brain death is an indication of death-proper, some in the haredi community, especially followers of Rabbi Yosef Sholom Elyashiv, still oppose the correlation, claiming cardiac death should be the only criteria used.
a few points;
everyone wants to see a solution to ilness & suffering
from a logical point “organ donation” makes sense
HOWEVER we as avdei hashem must serve him as hashem sees fit & we have an obligation to heal within the parameters of his code of law
the gedolei haposkim of the previos generation that opposed organ donations were not an iota less concerned for their fellow jew we can be sure that after exhaustive research in the mekoros & teshuvos were mispalel “shelo yikoshel bedvar halacha
lastly; those rabbonim that felt it was mutar are also motivated by ahavas yisroel & a genuine understanding of the shulchan aruch BUT this shaaloh is ” out of their league” one that cannot be decided by rabbonim but must be left for the gedolei hador
Amazing how many misleading tidbits (at least two) can be packed into one statement:
“While the majority of rabbis in the religious- Zionist, haredi and Sephardic communities – including Chief Sephardic Rabbi Shlomo Amar – agree that brain death is an indication of death-proper, some in the haredi community, especially followers of Rabbi Yosef Sholom Elyashiv”
1. The majority of Rabbis (at least in the Haredi community) are of the opinion that brain death is not halachic death. Perhaps only a few (R’ Tendler) consider brain death to be real death.
2. What is meant by “followers of R’ Elyashiv” – R’ Elayshiv himself is of that opinion.
What’s the whole question here? A yid who’s a Mamin b’tchias hameisim, knows that we are not allowed to donate any other organ besides for a kidney or a liver-piece. The Halacha doesn’t allow for a yid to donate any organ that restricts him from functioning 100% normal. This is all in compliance of the known fact of T’chias Hameisim. A yid who believes in Hashem and in T’chias Hameisim has no question about the whole matter
Anonymous, you don’t know what you are talking about. Everyone, including R. Elyashiv, believes that it is a chiyuv to take organs from a dead person if it can save a human live. Techiyas hameisim has nothing to do with anything. Hashem will give you your organs again. Do you think that the kedoshim burnt in the Shoah won’t be given organs again?
Howeveer, Rav Elyashiv and many others claim that brain death is not real death, which means that you can’t use the organs, since they need to be removed while the hear tis still functioning but there is brain death. If the organs could be removed after heart death, all the poskim would be in agreement.
Yet despite Rav Elyashiv’s opinion, let’s not forget that R. Ovadiah Yosef and R. Zalman Nechemiah Goldberg and many other gedolim do support brain deah.
see
http://hods.org/English/h-issues/videos.asp
Does anyone know the halachic position (on organ donation) of Rabbi Firer of Ezra LeMarpeh in Israel? I’m sure his view on this issue would carry some weight in religious communities generally.
a few points;
#3 – i differ to say that brain death is in the league of mamzeirus & agunos & possibly more frequent a shaaloh secondly those two catagories are also based on precedance by prior poskim
the shaaloh of organ donation is not a new one –
and i suggest you do some research its amazing to see the connection from the gemara to the most modern shaalossee the nishmas avraham in hebrew or english /or rav bleichs sefer -which is a brilliant work with the most updated entries from the new england journal of med..lancet..(comment #5 )..( the single person today with the most halachic knowledge & shimush as it interfaces with medical halacha is rabbi dr. abraham “mechaber of nishmas avraham” not that he’s bigger but rather this is his specialty having spent 30 years as a doctor with unmatched access to every major posek alive -in addition his “bitul and anavah” to shulchan aruch is awesome
i am a cockroach next to the 2 gedolim you mentioned
however
you mentioned rav zalmen nechemia shlita- im sure you know that he is the son in law of rav shlomo zalmen zatzal – ask him what the shver zl held -furthermore the other talmidim of reb shloma zalmen those that lived & breathed his torah;
horav newirth , or rav neventzal shlita
if you are not sure what reb moshe held ask reb dovid ;lastly even if reb moshes opinion is not as clear cut or can possibly be interpeted differently ” ah safek bleibt ess” – i believe that the other roshei yeshiva of YU- did not follow rav tendlers psak ( double check with rav shechter & rav willig shlita who is a yedid nefesh with rav zalmen nechemia
yehi ratzon lekayem chachmei yisroel…
I’m suprised at the double standard in many of the “more modern” communities,you blast rav yosef all the time for his statements and politics .However when it comes to following his psak when it’s more lenient than rav elyashiv,you qoute him with such reverence.You even angirly rebuke the chareidim for not heeding such a great posik,and being stamm “extra” frum for nothing.
As far as i heard,Rav shlomo zalman zt’l signed against it.Rav elyshiv shlitah is clearly against it.
SD- point well made the comment “out of their league” was & is inappropiate”
my main point wasnot frumkeit or that there isa no second opinion but that the majority was certainly not lenient and “ah safek bleibt ess”
since you know your stuff think about this??
rav halperin & rav steinberg are both tremendous people, they both will agree that almost everything they have is from the great reb shloma zalmen zatzl (they might even say that reb shloma zalmens connection to the medical field was greater than reb moshe’s zatzl) they too will tell that reb shloma zalmen did not agree “:YET THEY KNOW BETTER”
#16- “not a safeik” ?????? conevnton please explain
The large majority of poskim oppose accepting ‘brain death’ as death in Jewish law. Those opposed include Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach ztl, and Rav Waldenberg ztl. These poskim were cited and accepted as authorities by the MDs who are rabbis and who now favor brain death. It is interesting that these doctors follow to the letter everything Rav Shlomo Zalman and the Tzitz Eliezer wrote and said–except when it comes to ‘brain death’!
Rav Elyashiv shilta is against accepting ‘brain death’ as halachic death.
The views of Rav Moshe Feinstein ztl are subject to debate. As far Rav Zalman Nechemiah Goldberg, shlita, he is accessible and his views have been distorted by an advocacy group with a clearcut agenda to foster organ donation–and funding from NY state government to do so.
In Y.U. circles, those who do not accept ‘brain death’ include Rav Hershel Shechter, Rav M Willig, Rav J David Bleich, and Rav Aharon Lichtenstein–following in the derech of Rav Joseph Ber Soloveitchik ztl and Rav Aaron Soloveitchik ztl.
The Rabbinical Council of America is in the midst of a large study of this topic and their report should be coming out one of these days.