[Avodah] what is death- what is life?

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, May 06, 2012 at 03:53:46PM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: RCM seems to suggest that the main function of the head is to make
: breathing possible, and therefore a breathing machine might be an
: acceptable alternative. Or perhaps the importance of the head is because
: decapitation causes such a severe loss of blood that it was considered
: immediate death, and this too is perhaps something that your hypothetical
: machine might solve.

I must confess I got two different impressions of RMTendler's position
by hearing his different talks. He is either saying that Ohalos 1:6
and IM YD 3:132 are saying that brain death is inherently death. Another
approach I've heard in his words is that the definition of death is
the final loss of the ability to breathe on one's own. IOW, death
is still breathing, but the brain's role in breathing matters.

1- Ohalos 1:6 says that a headless animal is dead, and any motion is
pirchis be'alma, like the twitching of a sheretz's severed tail.

: But my view -- which I absolutely canNOT prove in any way -- is that
: the head is an "interface" between the body and the neshama, and the
: severing of that interface is the very definition of death.

That is intuitive, especially given that the ruach memalela refers to
the power of speech, the MC is among many who define the Tzelem E-lokim
as bechirah, and if not -- the Rambam's notion of da'as also requires
a brain.

OTOH, it would mean that people in comas are dead, or at least, not living
human beings, since there brain isn't doing any of these things. And
what about sleep when not dreaming?

It would seem that souls hang around bodies even when they can't implement
their thoughts on the brain's hardware.

And note that all our terminology for soul is tied to breathing,
"vayipach be'apav nishmas chayim". That neshamah was a Divine Neshimah,
it blew a ruach of ruchnius, until vayinafash as a nefesh within Adam.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 32nd day, which is
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