The Brain Death Debate: A Methodological Analysis (Part 3b—Rabbi Moshe Feinstein) by Daniel Reifman

[Click on these links for Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3a] Determining death in trauma victims In our last post, we saw that Rabbi Feinstein considers the interaction between different bodily functions central to the way we determine the moment of death.  This is a more nuanced and complicated approach than that proposed by [...]

The Brain Death Debate: A Methodological Analysis (Part 3a—Rabbi Moshe Feinstein) by Daniel Reifman

[Click on these links for Part 1 and Part 2] Rabbi Moshe Feinstein was one of the very few contemporary poskim with sufficient stature to potentially resolve the contemporary halakhic dispute over brainstem death.  That Rabbi Feinstein’s position on this issue has become the subject of intense debate is particularly unfortunate.  It is also highly uncharacteristic: [...]

The Brain Death Debate: A Methodological Analysis – Part 2 (Hatam Sofer)

The Enlightenment severely altered our conception of how the body functions, so it’s not surprising that the sources that figure prominently in the debate over brain death begin to accumulate only in the early modern period.  The teshuvah of Hakham Zevi that we cited in the previous post was largely a reaction to the way [...]

The Rabbi Linzer – Agudath Israel Debate on Brain Death: Methodological Considerations by Aryeh Klapper

 Introduction  Recently Rabbi Dov Linzer published a statement (Appendix A), cosigned by many other rabbis, on the subject of halakhah and braindeath.  Agudath Israel of America’s office subsequently issued an unsigned statement (Appendix B) that took very sharp issue with Rabbi Linzer’s statement.  I am party to neither statement, nor do I intend in this [...]

The Brain Death Debate: A Methodological Analysis – Part 1 (Yoma Passage) by Daniel Reifman

At the end of last year, the Halakha Committee (Vaad Halakha) of the Rabbinical Council of America released an educational paper which opposed the halakhic recognition of brain death, bringing the long-simmering debate over this issue to a boil once again.  The paper is most directly a belated response to the RCA Executive Committee’s acceptance [...]

From Our Archives: In Defense of Brain Death and Halakhic Organ Donation – Rabbi Dr. Edward Reichman

In the recent report  written by the head of the RCA halakhic committee on the halakhic issues of brain death, the article emphasizes that contemporary medicine now recognizes that even after “brain death” has occurred, there continues to be much neurological activity.  The report then utilizes this information to claim that the medical criterion established by [...]