Israel – Rabbi Ratzon Arusi, municipal rabbi of Kiryat Ono and a member of the Council of the Chief Rabbinate, has proposed a radical new approach to the issue of organ donation.
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Instead of requiring the consent of a potential donor or their family, the decision would be put in the hands of rabbinical courts which would establish whether or not the potential donor has died and thereby permit a hospital when to remove the useable organs.
Arusi laid out his ideas in Tchumin, an annual publication produced by Machon Tzomet, on issues concerning Jewish law in conjunction with contemporary matters of science, state and society.
According to Arusi’s proposals, the rabbinate would establish rabbinical courts in every hospital, which would deal with every case of potential organ donors.
The court would establish when “irreversible damage” to the brain stem has occurred, a status accepted by many rabbis as the halachic definition of death, and the hospital would then recommend whether or not to remove the organs for transplant to patients.
The state of Israel considers brain-stem death to be actual death for all legal and other purposes. Most rabbis agree that this definition is in accordance with Jewish law, although some in the ultra-Orthodox community, including Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv the leading figure of the haredi community, argue that cardiac death is the defining criteria.
Israel has a low rate of organ donation compared to other Western countries, although numbers have been increasing of late.
The rabbinical courts would be able to remove organs for donation even if the deceased had never signed a organ donor card regardless of whether or not their family objects. They would also ensure that the organ removal be conducted respectfully and that the deceased be taken for burial immediately, Arusi said.
According to the rabbi, who also serves as the representative of the Chief Rabbinate on the strategic planning committee of the National Transplant Center, when a patient’s life is in danger, it is halachically permissible to transplant organs from a deceased person in order to save the endangered patient’s life, and a rabbinical court has the ability and authority to rule on the issue.
“One must be extremely careful about the commonly held view that a man is the owner of his own body,” Arusi said. “Using this kind of view point, people permit many things which are forbidden by Jewish law, like suicide, self-harm, high-risk sports and activities, and euthanasia.”
“The assumption that a man is master of his own life is problematic, because in fact it is a gift from the Creator and He is the one who decides how and when life ends.”
Founder and director of the Halachic Organ Donor Society Robby Berman said however that despite the positive intentions of Rabbi Arusi to deal with the low level of organ donation in Israel, he would not encourage a rabbinical court to overrule a family’s wishes for dealing with a loved one.
He added that an opt-out system, whereby a presumption is made that someone is an organ-donor unless they specifically state they do not want to do so, has similar problems as Arusi’s scheme.
Several countries such as Spain, Austria and Sweden, have instituted opt-out policies assuming consent for organ donation by every citizen unless they declare otherwise.
“If someone has signed an organ donor card then in the overwhelming number of cases, a family will respect that decision, even if they’re uncomfortable with it,” Berman said. “But without that kind of agreement families can argue against the decision to use their loved one’s organs.”
Berman stressed that the best way to improve organ donor figures in Israel was for better education and for public officials, political and religious, to speak out on the issue.
He added that, in his opinion, MKs, ministers and prime ministers should all be required to sign donor cards.
“If public officials don’t have basic sense of civil duty to become organ donors then they shouldn’t be running for office,” Berman said.
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
Nothing inspires me more than rabbinical boards making judgements on whose organs are worthy of being harvested no matter what that person did in their lifetime. I am glad to know that in Israel, I might be an organ donor even after I have decided I did not wish to be one myself. Good for our era.
I am sorry but we have here in america many rabinical courts who can not even decide a din torah about who should own schools and camps etc and you want to put them in charge of dinei nefoshos?
Until someone’s heart stops beating, they are not dead.
If removing organs from a brain-dead person causes them to die for real, it is murder!
Retzicha!
Even if the organ can potentially save another yid’s life….it’s still assur.
Source: I asked this shayla to Rav Matisyahu last week. This is what he told me.
While there is a strong need for organ donations min Israel it should remain the decision of the patient or his/hers gurdians not a religious court or Rabbi.
Sorry, but what if the person wants to be buried intact? Don’t their wishes count at all? It is their body!!
Second law!
Give the family the right to kill the doctor, staff, and the rabbi who authorizes it. What is fair is fair!
Our gedolim all throughout the years gave one definition of death – and some jerky rabbi decides they were Wong?
Apikorsim, with the Halacha of Moridin Velo Maalin!
Only in Israel can you get such a ridiculous ruling that violates basic rights. The pendulum is way, way to Marxist in our holy land right now.
This is in my view a dangerous leap. I think that from a Halachic standpoint there may not be all that much of a problem with brain death being the operative standard for purposes of discontinuing life support because for that decision you are still considering to a large extent the person who is lying in a hopeless vegetative state who is perhaps suffering unconsciously to some degree. However, when the consideration becomes saving the life of another, you end up in murky waters because of the fact that it is not clear cut halachically that what the definition of death really is. If you are coming from a purely rachmanadik perspective you can probably get away with relying on the brain death standard, because after all there is no quality of life left. But to terminate one life for another is something which is such a strict prohibition halachically that I don’t think that we can risk even to appear coming close to trespassing it.
Never mind retziach. Aren’t we suppose to return our body and soul to the Creator the with all the pieces Intact, isn’t that the reason misaskim came to be. So every part even blood stains with pieces of concrete are buried along with the niftar? What’s next open coffin viewing?!
There is no posik necessary a Jew MUST come to k’veiras yisreol and not in section’s, what is happening to us? Y r they still pursuing Eitan Patz. Because this pure neshama never had a burial, y did they go down to Mumbai and make sure no one messed with the 4 Kedoshim? For a trip to India no its called kovid hames!
Eitan Patz. Because this pure neshama never had a burial,
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I know the Patz family. The boy’s mother is not even a proper convert and I doubt she knows what a neshomo is. His uncle is a left-wing reform clergyman.Law enforcement is pursuing the case for closure and justice and to keep animals off our streets.
Why aren’t the surgeons wearing gloves? Since when is surgery done ungloved?
1. It is osur to harvest organs from Jews.
2. There are many goyim willing, in exchange for a sufficient remuneration, to become organ donors. My guess would be there is enough of them in Eretz Yisroel these days. If not, the organs can be extracted from dying patients in other countries and flown to Eretz Yisroel rapidly.
3. Ergo, the obvious solution.