brain-stem death constitutes halachic death; our rabbis don't have the necessary background to understand it. Scientific ignorance can be dangerous, especially when people with inadequate knowledge are faced with and decide upon questions that demand expertise... Our rabbis enter the field at its most advanced stage, without the background necessary to understand it. The idea that greatness in Torah is adequate to make up with this deficit in education, is erroneous. Lo bashamaim hi – the Torah is down on the earth. Therefore, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein waited two years before he could answer the question [on whether brain-stem death qualifies as death], During this time, in addition to info I provided him, he had personal contact with leaders in the scientific field. After seeing patient after patient who were brain dead, and the protocol according to which the death was determined, [Feinstein] was confident to say that breathing by machine was no evidence of life, nor was a beating heart.
When people die, they all become haredim.
-- Rabbi Dr. Moshe Tendler
I dont understand what this means: "When people die, they all become haredim."
ReplyDeleteIs that a political statement? im missing the point there.
that was me, by the way, browser wasnt working right.
ReplyDeleteYou have to read the whole article to get the context of that particular quote. He was referring, specifically, to the case of Avi Cohen. He was a famous soccer player in Israel died in a motorcycle accident. Even though he had an organ donor card and it was well known that he believed in organ donation, his family, secular, opted to go against his wishes and not donate his organs.
ReplyDeleteWhat Rabbi Tendler was saying was that even secular become very "machmir" in death on this issue.
I can't believe Rabbi Tendler is still claiming he has a private teshuva from Rav Moshe on that.
ReplyDeletemenachem,
ReplyDeleteiirc the article ascribed the family's decision to another soccer player who became a bt (and his rabbi) who told the family they would be murdering their loved one
KT
Joel Rich
1) I think it's a hilarious quote, very R. Tendlerish, thanx Rafi for posting it, I was hoping you would.
ReplyDelete2) Of course R. Tendler would have private Teshuvas from R. Moshe, he was his son-in-law. Brain stem death is an issue very much dear to R. Tendler's heart, I'm sure that R. Tendler would've had many discussions w/ R. Moshe concerning this.
the article ascribed the family's decision to another soccer player who became a bt
ReplyDeleteI know, but there was another article where his wife was quoted as saying that it was her decision and nobody pressured her.
Rabbi Tendler does not have the necessary temperament to acknowledge the legitimacy of opinions other than his own.
ReplyDeleteNor does he have the necessary temperament to know that it is a disgraceful thing to publicly disparage other Rabbonim -- and the halachic system in general.
...the brain-dead rabbi strikes again...
ReplyDeletesuch a level of arrogance can only stem from one lacking a stem.
His latest statemnt, a QOTD on par with such past QOTD from the likes of Abbas for bambasticity and sheker in which he so easily and w/o any hesitance, and glibly dismisses all rabbonim who 'dare' disagree with the ALL KNOWING BIOLOGY PROFESSOR WE ARE NOT WORTHY, UFFUR ANU TACHAS HIS TACHAS as incompetent just highlights his own incompetence.
BTW, Tendon is not the only person around who "knows' biology "AND" halackha, Despite his pompous and bombastic remarks designed to make you think that.
I personlly know a practicing doctor, a Yale Med School graduate (not some acamdemic moron like tendler who would not know a scalpel from a kitchen knife) who is frum and has studied the subject who is also orthodox and has told me that that whole brain dead busniess is in fact brain dead. There are cases where thoeretically such a thing might exist accroding to some poskim but it is not practical for various reasons. Ain kan makom to be lenghty. b'kitzur in most cases doctors who, and those who grant them persmission, to take off life support w/o cpnsulting non-arrogant self-promoting seductive tendlers are murderers k'pshuto.
Unscrupulous and arrogant morons like tendon who just like to feel important by saying wacky stuff work on the assumption that doctors decsions are based solely on what is best for the patient and are always entirely ethical. Well, tendon is not a practicing doctor nor has he ever worked in an emergency room and his naivete in following the latest fashion in academic BS is as usual his guiding light.
ReplyDeleteWoe to us when knaves and scoundrels i.e. tendlers take it upon themslves to make life and death decisions based on nothing but there own blown up sense of self.
If you have ever met or heard tendler you know exactly what I mean by his unique embodiment and expression of the concept of self-importance.
Such a person has no business rendering halachic decisios. He can give a shiur or a class in university for thoe who can bear his overbearing self, but that is it.
To all who want clarity on Rabbi Moshe Feinstein's opinion, below is a letter to the editor from Dr. Frank J. Veith, which was printed in the Jewish Week and available online here: http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial_opinion/letters/spoke_rabbi_feinstein
ReplyDeleteSpoke With Rabbi Feinstein
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Frank J. Veith
Although I am not Jewish, I met with Rabbi Moshe Feinstein in 1976 to discuss brain death and organ donation with him (“RCA Backs Off Stand On Brain Death For Transplants,” Dec. 3). He told me that brain death was death according to the Talmud, and I reported his opinion in an article I wrote that was published on Oct. 10, 1977 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
It is a pity the RCA’s document omitted mentioning my testimony that appears in video form on the website of the Halachic Organ Donor Society (www.hods.org).
More than 7,000 Americans die every year on the waiting list for organs. It will be a tragedy if the efforts of the RCA cause more Americans to die. Moreover, I am shocked that the RCA rabbis concluded that brain-dead people are alive so Jews should not donate organs, but they don’t mind Jews taking critical organs from other non-Jewish people like me who are dying “anyway.”
Professor of Surgery
New York University Medical Center
Garfeild, aside from being in gross violation of the issur of being "mezalzel talmidei chachomim" I hope you have the integrity of conviction never to "murder" an organ donor by receiving an organ to save the life of yourself or C"V a family member.
ReplyDeleteI think all people who hold this way should be required to sign a organ non-recipient card.
sigh
ReplyDeleterafi when are you getting back on the computer? how did you do?
Garfield speaks like the rav of a local shul we all know.
ReplyDeleteRidicule, name call rather than writing dissent like a mensh.
He chooses to raise his "voice" rather than his point.
To Anonymous 5:38
ReplyDeleteFrank J. Veith does not speak or understand Yiddish.
Everything he thinks he heard was through Moshe Tendler, who may or may not have been conveying Rav Moshe's words accurately.
Similarly, everything said TO Rav Moshe was through Rabbi Tendler.
R. Moshe understood English.
ReplyDeleteTo Anon 101 AM:
ReplyDeleteDr. Veith indicated that all communication went through Rav Tendler.
Michael - what Garfield writes is relatively quite tame to what he could say.
ReplyDeleteOn this specific topic, it's quite extreme for one shul Rabbi to be a loud and outspoken daas yachid on the issue, whose only religious (rather than academic-medical) claims to say brain death equals real death are (A) unverifiable private communications from Rav Moshe that went exclusively through him and (B) his statements that Rabbis don't really know what they're talking about anyway.
Frankly (B) comes much closer to mezalzel talmidei chochomim in Rabbi Tendler's effort to negate any living Gadol who would weigh in on the matter.
For the sake of objectivity: R. Tendler's position in the name of his f-i-l is well known. However, there are those who don't believe him and claim thet R' Moshe Feinstein held that brain-stem death is not halachik death.
ReplyDeleteR. J. david Bleich rules against R. Tendler. He has never been accused of being part of the charedi camp.
R. Aharon Soloveichik [another person not from the charedi camp] clearly ruled that brain-stem death is not halachik death. Even so he unequivocally ruled that one may accept organs from someone declared brain dead.
No one has ever satisfactorily answered the following question for me: Murder is 1 of the 3 most serious aveiros that one can't transgress even if his life depends on it. If so how can one rely on a minority opinion to commit murder [to harvest organs] to save his life?