The Jerusalem Post reports:
…Ninety of the Knessets 120 members were persuaded over several months by Knesset Labor, Social Affairs and Health Committee chairman MK Shaul Yahalom to sign a potential organ donor card distributed by the ADI organization. The other 30, most of them secular, refused for "personal or family" reasons, while haredi and other religious MKs declined mostly for "religious reasons." …
Health Minister Dan Naveh said that only 4 percent of the population, or 270,000 Israelis, bear an ADI organ donor card. Every year, an average of 100 patients die for lack of a donor organ, and 100 more suffer a deterioration in their health while waiting in the queue.
Tel Aviv University biomedical ethics expert Prof. Amos Shapira said he opposed compensation for live organ donors because it would be "unjustified and unethical as long as organ donations from cadavers did not reach their potential. It would give legitimacy to people to harm themselves. It is clear that these donations would come from the poor." Shapira added that such compensation would not wipe out the black market in organs. "I am in favor of incentives for organ donation from cadavers. Families who donated their loved one’s organs should have priority in receiving organs, and money can be given in the form of participation in funeral expenses or a discount in health taxes," he said.
But Shmuel Yelenick, a Hebrew University legal expert, said that he favored compensation to live donors as well as families of deceased donors because of the many people who die waiting for an organ donation.
Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Halperin, the Health Ministry’s chief medical ethics adviser and a physician, said that while saving lives was a major commandment, one may not kill someone to save a life. He added that the Chief Rabbinate was unwilling to encourage the signing of ADI cards as long as proper supervision and setting down conditions for removing organs was not agreed upon. Halperin said that the Chief Rabbinate took this position when Prof. Avinoam Reches, a senior Hadassah University Medical Center neurologist, withdrew his consent for a representative of the rabbinate to be involved in this supervision.
Of course, what Rabbi Dr. Halperin fails to mention is the original dispute goes back to the halakhic definition of death. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein considered brain stem death to be halakhic death. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Aurebach, influenced by ‘medical advisors’ (Rabbi Halperin among them?) who misrepresented brain stem death and the procedures necessary to confirm it, originally ruled against accepting brain stem death as halakhic death. When confronted with evidence of his ‘medical advisors’ malfeasance, Rabbi Auerbach retracted. That retraction was not published by Rabbi Auerbach before his death and was not published by his handlers after it. However, a copy of Rabbi Auerbach’s retraction was published by Rabbi Feinstein’s family.
So more people will die waiting for organs. What a holy man.
Rabbi Fenstein never ruled that brain stem death is considered death. Where do you get your information from? If you are so adamant in presenting the truth why do you do so in such a bias fashion?
Doctor Who- Don’t try. You can point out page numbers. He’ll just raise his voice and restate his earlier lies and filth. If you argue, he’ll do the same. I think he uses an auto-reply system sometimes.
Of course, this issue is extremely complicated. Not to Shmarya. No no no. Any chance to humiliate the Haredi community, he’ll take.
Here are more problems with Haredim:
-They smell
-They’re not nice
-They don’t agree with Shmarya
-They learn Torah instead of write weblogs about all of the people they hate.
Shmarya, you take it from here. I ran out of ideas.
Dr. Who – Look in Rabbi Moshe Tendler’s sefer on Rabbi Feinstein’s medical teshuvot.
Shmarya- Your site is too big to search. My question is, do you have a section relating the the Rebbe’s insistence that the Sun orbits the Earth. It’s so preposterous the way he attempts to use “relativity” to explain it! He had NO CLUE what he was talking about. He was way ahead of these gedolts. Please put something up about it, because I’ve had two different run-ins with otherwise intelligent chabad-influenced folks who insist the Rebbe was right about this!
http://www.torahscience.org/torahsci/rebbeletter.html
There is something very dangerous about people who will accept anything just to be frum, especially BT’s who, incidently, couldn’t possibly believe this Ptolemaic nonsense otherwise. Thanks.
No, I don’t have anything up about it. I’ll read it again and perhaps post soon. Keep in mind that the Rebbe’s ‘Sorbonne education” turns out to be an engineering degree from a small tech school in Paris. The Rebbe got bad grades, had poor class attendance and was threatened with expilsion as a result. No wonder his ‘science’ makes no sense.
I’d also point out that the Rebbe’s knowlege of Rishonim seems more than a little weak.
All of your baseless slander notwithstanding… I find it too hard not to post the following observation: How could you know if the Rebbe’s knowledge of Rishonim is weak or strong? It doesn’t appear, based on the amount of time you dedicate to spreading hate on the web, that you learn at all.
That having been said- many Torah giants, including R’ Moshe, stood in awe of the Rebbe’s knowledge and were not afraid to say so. Some Talmudic pipsqueak with a website and an axe to grind can hardly say otherwise with a straight face and be taken seriously.
As for the Rebbe’s assertions having to do with science: they, as well, have been taken quite seriously by competent scientists and theoretical physicists (not people like Shmarya who got lost somewhere in the middle of “The Elegant Universe” and fancies himself a scientist).
I looked at the link… I don’t know what you were referring to in your post, buddy, but that link is to a very generally worded letter having to do with scientific hypothesis and the inability for some scientists to be (scientifically) open minded enough to allow for the Truth of the Torah in a literal sense.
The letter referred to the Uncertainy Principal, which has nothing to do with relativity. Quite the opposite: it is a cornerstone of the Quantum theory – a theory that Einstein, the founder of relativity, rejected. Perhaps you sent the wrong link. Or perhaps you don’t know what you’re doing. I won’t try to apply Okkam’s Razor…
I don’t take back anything I said, but I noticed the section dealing with relativity. I had skipped it earlier because I hadn’t expected it to be discussed so briefly. The Rebbe deals with this elsewhere are greater length. B’pashtus it is correct, even according to General Relativity. But, we’re not scientists here, so our (your) agendas are going to make this conversation less than productive.
I looked up what Rabbi Feinstein wrote in Igros Moshe. No where does he rule that brain stem death is death. Rabbi Tendler can attest whatever he wants to, you can also check Rabbi J.D. Bleich’s book on the subject. It may be easier for you since it is in English and I don’t suppose you have the background to be able to look up the original Teshuvas (Responsa).
I take it you do not have volume 8.
Dr. Who, you were just owned. Thank you for playing.
I am glad you think this is a game. However, even the Chief Rabbinate Council of Israel that accepts “brain death” does not quote as a source Igros Moshe Volume 8! There is controversy with that volume and you should really know better. What the Chief Rabbinate Council of Israel relies on is a letter written in English by Rabbi Moshe Tendler. Again, no where does Rabbi Feinstein rule that brain stem death is death. Have you been reading the materials all these years? What has been written by Dr. Rosner, Rabbi Bleich, Rabbi Tendler? Shmarya, read Rabbi Bleich’s book “Time of Death in Jewish Law”.
I’m familiar with Rabbi Bleich’s work. He often takes positions of Rav Moshe and others and interperates them in a stricter fashion than originally intended. As one example I was personally involved in, Rabbi Bleich presents the issue of the status of Ethiopian Jews in a stricter way than Rav Moshe intended. How do I know that? I know what Rav Moshe told me to do, and I know what he personally did. Neither of which are in agreement with how JD Bleich and his chevra spin Rav Moshe.
The letter in English you refer to is a TRANSLATION of Hebrew correspondence between Rabbi Tendler and Rabbi SZ Auerbach.
Also keep in mind JD Bleich’s infamous comment regarding metzitzah b’peh: Have the mohelim rinse their mouths out with whiskey just before the bris. That will sove any transference of disease issues. That is a) FALSE and b) a clear indication of JD Bleich’s lack of honesty.
Please do not confuse the issue by dragging in other elements. I know to what I refer to when I write about the letter that the Chief Rabbinate Council of Israel relied on. It is a letter written by Rabb Moshe Tendler to the Director of the Hadassah Medical Center-Jerusalem. You are allowed to have your opinion. However, your opinion does not make it true. And the seal of G-d is truth. By the way, who is your Rav?
Are there really multiple bizarre people posting garbage that refuse to carefully read Shamarya’s posts, or is there just one person using multiple names?
Dr. Who –
The correspondence I refer to was published. It proves that Rabbi Auerbach was mislead by his medical advisors (including, it would seem, Rabbi Dr. Halperin). Rabbi Auerbach is quite clear – if, as Rabbi Tendler contends, the tests needed to ascertain brain stem death do not violate halakhot regarding moving or touching a gosses, then he would have no objection to the tests or their results. Brain stem death would then equal halakhic death.
Kanoim in the haredi community do much damage. Rabbi Auerbach realized this and was not afraid to reverse a ruling if he relized that kanoim had misled him.
But, unlike Rabbi Auerbach, Rabbi Elyashiv does not correct mistaken rulings and he does not distance himself from kanoim. That is my point.
As for “confusing the issue by dragging in other elements,” telling me to refer to JD Bleich’s work but eliminating that work’s context – Rabbi Bleich’s propensity to mislead and distort rulings from Rav Moshe and others and his clear dishonesty (metzitzah b’peh) – is in itself dishonest.
“Are there really multiple bizarre people posting garbage that refuse to carefully read Shamarya’s posts, or is there just one person using multiple names?”
Both.
There you go again Scott! I was referring to Rabbi Feinstein and you start up with your fetish about mouth to genital contact. You were wrong about the Tendler letter. Who is your Rav?
No, I was not wrong.
Rabbi Tendler published the following: a) Rabbi Feinstein’s ruling on brain stem death, b) Rabbi Auerbach’s objection to that ruling, c) a letter to Rabbi Auerbach from Rabbi Tendler supporting Rabbi Feinstein’s ruling and showing Rabbi Auerbach how his medical advisors had misled him, and d) Rabbi Auerbach’s response to Rabbi Tendler’s letter in which Rabbi Auerbach clearly retracts his opposition to Rabbi Feinstein’s ruling – if the medical information Rabbi Tendler provided on testing and the status of a goses is correct.
As Rabbi Tendler notes, the medical information he provided Rabbi Auerbach is true, the testing required to determine brain stem death does not disturb the goses, and therefore Rabbi Auerbach agree’s with Rabbi Feinstein’s position.
Who is my rav? Coming as it does from an anonymous commentator who hides behind that anonymity, the question is especially laughable.
Still wrong. Read what I referred to. Dr. Tendler can testify on his late father-in-laws conversations, but it needs to be related as such. Remember the seal of truth? You are the one hell bent on exposing everyone else, this is the nature of your blog, why do you not shine the light on yourself and let everyone know who your Rav is? What are you afraid of? What is good for the goose is good for the gander, you demand truth for everyone else, but you don’t have the courage to announce who your Rav is. Instead you attack the person who asks the question. Same old Scott.
To Avodas Avodah,
You are yet another example of a brainwashed, unscientific.
You said: “The Rebbe deals with this [Sun orbiting Earth] elsewhere are greater length. B’pashtus it is correct, even according to General Relativity.” Posted by: Avodas Avoda | June 1, 2005 02:12 AM
How do you know it is correct, since you are not a scientist and clearly haven’t read up on physics? Let me guess, because “the rebbe said it!”
Sorry, my friend, not only was the Rebbe impotent, he was also dead wrong about a lot of things, this being the most obvious.
If he were correct, your cell phone wouldn’t work, GPS wouldn’t work. They both rely on formulae based on the theory of General Relativity and compensate for the relative motion of satellites and earth and yes, even the Sun (solar wind can be very damaging to satelites, so they tend use the earth as a shield against the brunt of the x-rays, gamma rays, etc. contained in solar wind) in order to accurate relay signals from to/from earth. Ask a physicist to explain in terms you can understand why relativity does not lead to the conclusion that the sun orbits the earth! I have.
Read books on general relativity- I have. Your Rebbe completely ignores the fact that one can observe the earth’s orbit around the Sun from a position other than that of the Sun or Earth, thus taking general relativity out of the equation!
When in fact, one could readily observe the earth orbiting the sun from the perspective of any other planet in the solar system, or the moon, for starters. By the way, consider a diagram of the orbits of the planets of our solar system and the Sun if you and the Rebbe were correct! It’s absurd! The Sun orbits the earth, while the other planents do what exactly?
Perhaps you and the rebbe use occam’s razor (hopefully a kosher electric model) far too readily. It’s apropos that it was Einstein who said: Everything should be made as simple as possible in order to understand, but no simpler.
Get your head out of your tanya and try getting a real education. By the way, I notice your first post, which failed to acknowledge that the rebbe based his opinion on relativity, was followed up only 3 minutes later, saying your mind was not changed whatsoever. What level of proof of the utter foolishness of the rebbe’s reasoning would be enough for you? clearly nothing- because you are neither a scientist nor scientific in your approach. In short, you are an idol worshiper of a fuzzy old idol named the Rebbe.