[Avodah] Lecture by Rav Moshe Tendler about Brain Stem Death

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 09:36:49AM -0500, cantorwolberg at COX.NET wrote:
: Contrary to popular belief, organ transplant is not only allowed al pi
: din, but it is meritorious...

According to RMT. It is unclear RMF actually did change his mind from
what was published earlier in IM. I don't think his sons remember his
final position the way his son-in-law does.

And as for other posqim, RSZA (e.g.) was very against. The Tzitz
Eliezer was also against -- and he no less an expert on medical ethics,
being the poseiq for Shaarei Tzedeq Medical Center, and a far more
broadly cited poseiq than RMT. R' Aharon Soloveitchik, R' Shemuel Wozner,
and RYSE also all rejected brain death. 

R Binyamin Walfish went to RYBS in 1983 or '84 to ask RYBS his opinion.
RBW reported that RYBS accepted brain death as a criterion, but RAS, R'
Isador Twersky (a son in law), and R/D Haym Soloveitchik said he did not,
and grandsons R' Mayer Twersky and R' Yichok Lichtenstein reported several
conversations in which RYBS said that he didn't and didn't understand
how anyone can accept it.

R' Avraham Shapira, R Mordechai Eliyahu, R' ZN Goldberg and R Shaul
Yisraeli established that the Rabbanut *does* hold of brain stem death
as a criterion for defining death halachically. The RCA had some concerns
with the responses they received from the rabbanim and doctors involved in
that pesaq: they relied on RMF (who we don't know what he really holds),
RME said he wasn't dealing with the matter on a lemaaseh level, according
to discussions RZNG's understanding of the medicine in question didn't
match the doctors'...

See the threads before, at, and after
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BRAIN%20DEATH
and the RCA report at
http://www.rabbis.org/pdfs/Halachi_%20Issues_the_Determination.pdf

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole
micha at aishdas.org        heart, your entire soul, and all you own."
http://www.aishdas.org   Love is not two who look at each other,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      It is two who look in the same direction.