[Avodah] Brain Death

[David Riceman]

In a previous post I cited a gemara in Nidda but mistakenly said it was 
in Gittin.

RMB:
> Rather than my leaving both questions vague by not even suggesting the
> start of answers, let's deal with what the Torah implies is human life.
>
> Hashem takes some mud, "breathes" into it a soul, "vayehi adam lenefesh
> chayah". So, what would I conclude? That chayim, in a halachic-chalos
> sense of the word, implies some kind of relationshio between body and
> soul. One that an unconscious person in a coma has (who is not brain
> dead in any sense and whose heart and lungs operate on their own),
> and yet someone who was recently niftar and still experiencing chibut
> haqever does not.
The problem with this argument in that Hazal draw analogies between 
human death and animal death.  See the discussion of decapitation in the 
tshuvah of RMF which RAM cited.  You, IIUYC, ought to claim that all 
such analogies are irrelevant.  This passuk is cited by several rishonim 
as evidence of the unique nature of the human soul.  So how can it be 
relevant to death, which is analogous to what happens to animals?

David Riceman