Following RCA, England's Chief Rabbi, Caving In To Haredim, Bans Organ Donations

Robby Berman, the head of the Halachic Organ Donor Society and a critic of the chief rabbi's action, slammed Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s “declaration that encourages Jews not to donate organs upon brain death but not forbid Jews from taking organs from gentiles who are brain dead” as being “morally reprehensible. Are the lives of gentiles in the UK worth less than those of Jews? If Rabbi Sacks thinks a Jew who is brain dead is alive, is not a gentile who is brain dead similarly alive?,” he demanded on Friday.

US rabbis avoid clear stance on brain-stem death
UK Chief Rabbi and London Beth Din also issue statement implying brain-stem death does not meet ‘Halachic criterion’ for organ donation.
By JONAH MANDEL • Jerusalem Post

After recently publishing a highly controversial study that reversed a long-time policy of accepting brain-stem death as halachic death so as to facilitate organ donations, the Rabbinical Council of America on Friday issued a clarification that in effect shied away from taking a position on the topic, instead allowing each rabbi to determine his stance “in this extraordinarily difficult and important area of Jewish law.”

A few months ago, the RCA disseminated a 110-page study penned by its Halacha Committee (Va’ad Halacha) which dealt with “the halachic and medical issues relating to organ transplantation... and the determination of death in Halacha.”

The team of rabbis, led by Rabbi Asher Bush, attempted to disprove the scientific and halachic grounds for the RCA’s stance on those issues, as developed for the organization in the early 1990s by Rabbi Dr.

Moshe D. Tendler, a biology professor and Jewish medical ethics expert at Yeshiva University, and rosh yeshiva at its Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary.

Based on his scientific expertise and the halachic rulings of leading rabbis, including that of his father-in-law, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, one of the greatest adjudicators of the 20th century, Tendler determined that brain-stem death constituted halachic death.

This is also the stance of Israel’s Chief Rabbinate, as it ruled in 1986.

In its Friday announcement signed by Rabbi Moshe Kletenik, president and Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, first vice president, the RCA explained its “unusual step” of issuing clarifications due to the “strong reactions from many quarters” the recent release of the Va’ad Halacha’s study engendered.

“The RCA takes no official position as an organization on the issue of whether or not brain stem death meets the halachic criteria of death,” the announcement read. “The study disseminated by the Va’ad Halacha was the product of many years of exploration by that committee and was meant to serve as an informational guide to our membership.”

The announcement states that “many halachic authorities of our day, including Rav Hershel Schachter, Rav Mordechai Willig, Rav J. David Bleich and others maintain that brain stem death does not satisfy the halachic criteria for the determination of death. It is also true, however, that many other halachic authorities, including Rav Gedalia Schwartz, Rav Moshe Tendler, and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel maintain that brain-stem death does qualify for the determination of death in Jewish law.”

Hence, the “RCA maintains that its membership is best served by allowing each Rabbi to determine for himself, based upon his own study, consultation with halachic authorities and his own conscience, which halachic position he will adopt in this extraordinarily difficult and important area of Jewish law.”

The RCA clarification, however, was far from satisfying the critics of its recent Va’ad Halacha paper, and stems from the fact that for unknown reasons, the organization, which serves nearly 1,000 Orthodox rabbis, primarily in North America, “went ahead and let individuals who are not knowledgeable about the topic” write the new report, Tendler told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

The newfound direction of the RCA “had to be some kind of decision,” Tendler said, noting that the inaccuracies in the recent Va’ad Halacha paper had to be intentional, “since it is not possible to make those errors.”

“In the text itself, they referred to those who correctly support brain stem death as a halachically approved indicia of death in derogatory terms,” he said of the report’s authors.

“Their attempt to restate opinions of the supporters, such as Feinstein and the [Israeli] Chief Rabbinate can only have been an intentional effort to retract what was the standard of the RCA ... and a violation of what has always been the RCA policy of supporting the Chief Rabbinate,” he continued.

The mystery of why the RCA sought to change its stance on brain-stem death remains unsolved, Tendler said.

“What is needed is not a clarification of the RCA position, but a simple apology,” he said.

Tendler reiterated the danger to human lives such a stance could pose, as it would prevent Jews from donating life-saving organs. He mentioned the recent case of soccer star Avi Cohen, whose family decided to not donate his organs even though he had signed an ADI organ donor card, reportedly due to comments made to the late man’s son by a former soccer player who turned haredi and his rabbi – that they would be murdering his father if they donated his organs.

“The sense of tragedy on Avi Cohen is that an individual,” Tendler said of the unidentified rabbi, “decided that he could be an adjudicator on the lives of seven-eight people,” who might have been able to receive Cohen’s organs, “and decided that they can die, because he wanted to support a minority opinion on this issue.”

Cohen’s wife and son denied that they had refused to donate the organs because of pressures from any rabbi, but sources in the know insist that the family had planned to donate the organs before their encounter with the religious elements.

Robert Berman of the Halachic Organ Donor Society also slammed the recent RCA paper that “contains medical mistakes, citation errors, historical distortions of piskei halacha, and morally reprehensible halachic positions,” and in a Friday statement said that the new clarification was not enough.

“The RCA needs to retract the document, fix its flaws, and reissue it. That would be the right thing to do,” he said.

In related news, the Chief Rabbi of the UK Lord Jonathan Sacks and the London Beth Din recently issued a statement rejecting brain-stem death as meeting the halachic definition of death.

“There is a view that brainstem death is an acceptable Halachic criterion in the determination of death. This is the view of some Poskim,” they wrote. “However it is the considered opinion of the London Beth Din, in line with most Poskim, worldwide, that in Halacha cardio-respiratory death is definitive.

“Hence, in view of this, and of the significant Halachic issues relating to the procedure of the donation process itself, we believe that it is imperative that a competent Halachic authority should be consulted by families who find themselves involved in such discussions,” the statement reads.

Sacks and the Beth Din note that they “are already in consultation with the UK medical profession about the possibility of devising a method whereby the number of organs donated by Jews can be increased in accordance with Halacha...

“At this point, however, since the National Registry system is not set up to accommodate Halachic requirements, donor cards (even those purporting to be Halachic) are unacceptable.”

Berman slammed Sacks’s “declaration that encourages Jews not to donate organs upon brain death but not forbid Jews from taking organs from gentiles who are brain dead” as being “morally reprehensible.”

“Are the lives of gentiles in the UK worth less than those of Jews? If Rabbi Sacks thinks a Jew who is brain dead is alive, is not a gentile who is brain dead similarly alive?,” he demanded on Friday.

“It is curious that Rabbi Sacks discourages people from getting organ-donor cards that ‘purport’ to be halachic when Rabbi Nachum Rabinovitch, the person who gave Rabbi Sacks his smicha [rabbinic ordination], has just such a card from the Halachic Organ Donor Society,” Berman noted.

The Jerusalem Post shouldn't be confused about the motivation for these recent ahalakhic moves by centrist rabbis.

Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the 100-year-old head of Ashkenazi haredi Jewry, is a thug who has surrounded himself with thugs. Elyashiv uses bans, the threat of bans, and infammatory language to intimidate opposing halakhic decisors, and will stop at nothing, it seems, in his quest to undermine Israel's Zionist rabbis and its chief rabbinate.

Elyashiv has been fighting with the Israeli chief rabbinate since the early 1970s. The fight is personal and ego-based, and Elyashiv uses halakhic issues – often issues he manufactures – as clubs to attack it.

Compare Elyashiv's thuggery and his ego to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who commanded no less loyalty from his followers but who was a man who did not enforce his will on others and who not only allowed halakhic dissent, but who cultivated it.

Elyashiv's moves are also an attack on Feinstein, and are meant as such, I believe, because Feinstein very publicly respected Israel's chief rabbinate and its halakhic decisions at a time when the ego-driven Elyashiv was furiously campaigning against it.

In the same way, doing the bidding of Elyashiv holds the tantalizing promise of being "accepted" as a "real" rabbi, or even as a "gadol," and rabbis like YU's Schachter, Willig and Bleich are, to say the least,  tantalized by the thought.

London's Beth Din is run by haredim who are followers of Elyashiv and who are similarly tantalized by what a word from Elyashiv could do to their standing in the worldwide Ashkenzi haredi community.

Elyashiv considers organ donation to be murder (although he allows he followers to accept donated organs) and the chief rabbis who allow it to be actual murderers. Indeed, his position may in part – or even in whole – be based on his hatred for the chief rabbinate and not on the halakhic details of organ donation itself. Elyashiv considers any questioning of his ruling, at how he arrived at it, or of his tactics to be out of bounds, and the people who question him to be legitimate targets of not just his disagreement, but of his hate.

That is the truth behind the move to end organ donation.

Comments

[dlz]

I would certainly hope that brain donations would not be permitted.

[A. Nuran]

No brain donations? What will Dr. Frankenstein do?

[YbM]

Rabbi Johnny Sachs is an empty, pompous, arrogant, presumptuous, pretentious, puffed up and egotistic person who is good at speaking english, and at producing meaningless and endless platitudes, designated to mislead and delude, his audience into thinking that he is so educated and open minded.
Actually, he is preoccupied with his status and image and seems not to care at all at the bigoted direction english judaism is taking under his - often erroneously believed to be enlightened- leadership.
In fact, I suspect that he himself is as bigotted as chabad whom he proffesses to admire.

[Menachem Mendel lll]

Why stop there?

Time for civilized societies to stop donating blood as well.

Frumkite & Jehovah's Witness Uber Alles.

[Paul]

YBM,

Jonny Sacks is officially Av Beis Din of the London Beis Din which is held ex-officio by the Chief Rabbi.

The fact that he officially signs something which is totally decided by his hareidi beis din is not linked whatsoever to his worldview.

For at least 80 years - ever since Hertz took Abramsky onto the Beis Din - the Chief Rabbi has given over total responsibility over halachik matters to the dayonim and never openly challenged the Beis Din on a halachik matter.

You could argue that its about time he did but that would blow the whole structure of the United Synagogue apart.

Let me give you an analogy. Queen Elisabeth II has to sign every legislation passed by parliament for it to become law. Technically, she can refuse to sign but if she ever did that, the next piece of legislation would abolish the monarchy. Nobody presumes that she supports every bit of paper she signs and the same is true with Sacks.

Nobody who knows Sacks presumes to believe he is chareidi and the whole Chareidi rabbinical world don't even think he's a proper rabbi.

You can attack him for lack of backbone but calling him chareidi is just ignorant.

[YbM]

" Nobody who knows Sacks presumes to believe he is chareidi and the whole Chareidi rabbinical world don't even think he's a proper rabbi. "
Paul,
I don't think that he is chareidi, neither did I say anything to that effect.
I said that he is a crypto bigot and that he proffesses to admire chabad (whom i wouldn't describe as chareidi either).
they don't think much of him. it's true and i know it, neither does chabad for that matter.
essentially, one could be chareidi without being a bigot. (though it's a rather rare phenomenon).
it is possible as u mention that he would be lacking a backbone, but if really there is no substance to back his verbosity, that would only make it more irrelevant and more subject to ridicule.

[who knows]

Paul, assuming that your logic is true, What it makes Rav Saks?

I'd give him more respect if he is a closeted bigot and supporter of evil haredis then if he actually believes that they are wrong, but keeps doing their bidding not to lose his position as chief rabbi.

If he actually does believe that haredis are wrong and stands by doing nothing as they destroy Judaism to keep his post (like Elisabeth no less), he has blood of yet unborn Jews on his hands.

[Garnel Ironheart]

> Bans Brains Organ Donations

You do realize, don't you, that we can't transplant brains yet, right?

[YbM]

You do realize, don't you, etc...

the subject discussed here, is the permissibility of harvesting organs from
brain stem dead patients and or the recognition of brain stem death as death.

[What kind of goyishe name is Harold z"l?]

IMHO, They are all brain dead.

[WoolSilkCotton]

Brain Death and Brain Stem Death are the same term.
Doctors do not keep two separate such categories.

[Bassy the Haredi Slayer]

The fact that he officially signs something which is totally decided by his hareidi beis din is not linked whatsoever to his worldview.

Paul,

If he is only a puppet of the haredi beis din why his position is needed ?

I remember he was pet of Tropper too, few years ago Lord Sucks refused to accept an Israel Orthodox conversion because he did not like the rabbi of the Israeli municipality the couple lived.

[Adam Neira]

Robert Berman is being disingenuous. Just because a halakhic ruling is lagging behind the National Register does not mean that Rabbi Sacks is promoting the idea of accepting the donation of goyim organs but not Jewish ones. Instead of everyone focusing on the pathology of organ donations and disease, perhaps everyone should be accommodating the idea of healing and accident mitigation in their frame of reference. It is fascinating to witness how people and society prioritise. It would have been better if Avi Cohen had not had the accident in the first place. Some people are obsesses with drama, pain and death. Rabbi Berman may need to step out of his sphere of concern slightly. What is urgent is different to what is important. Rabbi Jonathon Sacks is taking on a much wider view of things I'm sure.

[YbM]

Rabbi Jonathon ?

he calls himself Jonathan

[Chicago Sam]

Rabbi Sachs is too fearful of the other rabbanim of his Beth Din. Despite his eloquent writing style, and love of liberal thought--R. Sachs lacks the halachic backbone that is necessary for a man of his stature.

He is not the kind of rabbinic leader I can respect.

[chaim moshe]

scuse me but there is no responsa from rav Moshe Feinstein accepting brain stem death
as the criteria for death.either your writer was misinformed or was manipulated,the story is as follows. Rav Tendler took his saintly father-in-law to a hospital and showed him the result of the dye test where a person had no brain activity. He reported that Reb Moshe agreed that the person was dead.However,since there was never such a written opinion and all other responsa indicated opposition to brain stem inactivity as equal to death,Rav Yaakov Bleich attacked Rav Tendler's position,emphatically stating that a heart beating, breathing patient with such a condition is considered totally alive and his wife an eishes ish!
in detroit the 2 venerable sages Rav Bakst and Rav Grubner ZTL argued the same.
i am not capable of determining who is right in Halacha so most Rabbonim take the safe view of calling it a sofek chai and being stringent.this isn't thuggery it is a very difficult call. Rav Tendler likens the brain stem death to a decapitation which it is hardly like. for there may e other factors that keep body and soul together.readers' digest promoted a medical opinion that there was a total intercell communication outside of the nervous system that works when the nerves shut down.this was a major medical opinion.
for the record,one has to prove beyond the shaddow of a doubt that this is decapitation and one cannot prove that.
regardind harvested parts-as they cannot go back-the donor id dead or even murdered-they aren't forbidden to be used.should they be welcomed?no,but they aren't idolatry prohibited from deriving benefit,either.

[Shmarya]

scuse me but there is no responsa from rav Moshe Feinstein accepting brain stem death
as the criteria for death.either your writer was misinformed or was manipulated,the story is as follows. Rav Tendler took his saintly father-in-law to a hospital and showed him the result of the dye test where a person had no brain activity. He reported that Reb Moshe agreed that the person was dead.However,since there was never such a written opinion and all other responsa indicated opposition to brain stem inactivity as equal to death,Rav Yaakov Bleich attacked Rav Tendler's position,emphatically stating that a heart beating, breathing patient with such a condition is considered totally alive and his wife an eishes ish!…

You're either an idiot or liar – or, quite probably, both.

Rav Moshe did rule.

That ruling is documented, plus he spoke to several doctors about it, along with his own family – all of whom affirm that Rav Moshe ruled exactly as Rabbi Tendler says he did.

As for Rabbi J. David "Yaakov" Bleich, he is not really qualified to rule on this issue. He is not a posek, he is not particularly talented, and he has no scientific or medical background. He's lawyer, not scientist or a doctor.

At least Rabbi Tendler has a PhD in biology and has worked hand-inhand with doctors for 50 years.

Now toddle off to the pus filled hole you call your life.