[Avodah] R Avraham

[Eli Turkel via Avodah]

<<Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a good
probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) of the
patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is a rav
going to say "that's acceptable"? >>

We actually spent time in the shiur debating that point. I pointed out that
Rav Zilberstein
in his shiurim on medical halacha brings several achronim that define
things like
safek muat at 4-5%  rov gadol as 2/3 etc.
RMA disagreed and claimed just because some famous achron gives a number
doesn't mean that one can't have his own definition.

He brought a (unverified) story from the Catham. Some asked CS about the
order of people to say kaddish (assuming only one at a time). He gave some
answer and the questioner remarked that MA disagreed, CS answered, MA made
up his answer so I can make up my answer . (Someone told he actually heard
a similar conversation with RYBS).

RMA answer was that the Rav is certainly as qualified as the doctor to
decide what is the cut-off line. Again his claim is that the doctor can
only present the statistics. At what point is that enough pikuach nefesh to
override YK on its various levels is no longer a medical question.

Similarly the engineer can give a graph of fatalities/serious injuries vs
car speed. How one translates that into a maximum speed limit on the
highway is no longer an engineering question.
Someone has to make a decision what level of fatalities is "acceptable" .
One possibility is that one accepts absolutely no fatalities which
eliminates driving or at best allows a very low speed limit even on a
modern superhighway . There is no magic formula for this RMA only point is
that the traffic engineer is not more qualified than anyone else to make
the decision.

I note that the  Steipler Rav has a letter that if it were up to him he
would not allow anyone to drive except for emergency vehicles and perhaps
public transportation. Any private driving at all would inevitably entail
some fatalities and there was no halachic justification (in his opinion)
for this



-- 
Eli Turkel
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