All politics are local. Whatever benefits us takes priority. The Talmud codifies this by putting local needs ahead of others

The Orthodox Union (OU) is supporting a scholarship bill in Trenton that will benefit other communities, but not Northern New Jersey. I support any legislation that will help ease the burden of rising day school costs, but I am committed to my community first. There is and has been a vehicle available to us which we should utilize, namely tuition tax credits.

Beginning with this issue, The Jewish Standard begins a weekly column on issues of Jewish education in our area. It is written by noted educator Dr. Wallace Greene. In this first column, he explains why we believe this column is necessary.

There are many multi-million dollar businesses in northern New Jersey. When one considers the total amount of tuition and salaries paid, the cost of bricks and mortar, infrastructure, and other ancillary costs, the enterprise known as Jewish education is one of the biggest industries in our community. We estimate it at somewhere around $80 million a year.

Jeff Levine has spent 40 years searching for a God he can believe in. He’s finally given up — but he’s not giving up on Judaism.

“I did a lot of studying, and I realized about a year ago that it’s OK to say I’m a Jew — I like everything it stands for, but I don’t like the concept of believing in a deity,” said Levine, 55, a member of a Reform congregation in Los Angeles for the past 25 years.

Levine doesn’t want to abandon religion. While he’s looking into Humanistic Judaism, a stream that disavows divine power, he’s not sure that’s the answer, either.

Last fall, 27-year-old Ohad Ben-Yaakov was injured in an accident at his part-time job, and he died after two weeks in a coma. Ben-Yaakov wasn’t married, nor was he in a relationship. No woman was pregnant with his child.

Nevertheless, his devastated parents believe it’s not too late for them to become the grandparents of his offspring. And because they live in Israel, the world capital of in-vitro fertilization and a country that regularly pushes the envelope on reproductive technologies, they might get their wish.

Mali and Dudi Ben-Yaakov, upon learning that their son was brain dead, had his sperm extracted. Now they are awaiting the decision of Israel’s attorney general on whether they will be permitted to find a woman to bear their grandchild.

Orthodox Jewish scholars came together in an online forum to respectfully discuss a life-and-death topic that has recently roiled the community. The most important issues are often the most contentious. Orthodox Jews are passionately concerned with both tradition and continuity, and therefore vigorously debate how to navigate from the past to the future. In the latest revival of the twenty-plus year controversy over brain death, sparked by a recent paper by the Rabbinical Council of America‘s Vaad Halakhah (link – PDF), lives are literally in the balance and emotional stakes are high as the definition of death and the viability of much of organ transplantation is decided.

Rabbi Richard Weiss is the rabbi of the Young Israel of Hillcrest in Flushing, NY. He is also an adjunct assistant professor of biology at Stern College for Women. As a licensed physician in New York, he has worked clinically in the field of hospice medicine.

The determination of death is one of the most challenging bioethics issues of the past several decades. Various aspects of brain death as the definitive determinant and definition of death have been extensively and intensely discussed and debated in a wide spectrum of literature. Recognizing this point—that Judaism is not unique in its continued deliberations regarding this matter—can be very useful for all who are actively engaged in analyzing the halachic view of brain death. One citation, for example, which presents a wide variety of opinions in the secular, medical and general philosophical arena, is an article by David DeGrazia in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, entitled “The Definition of Death”, published October, 2007.

As this symposium closes, I offer the following reflection on what I’ve learned from both behind the scenes and in front. If the medical facts are sometimes unclear, even less obvious is how different thinkers relate to them. In a subject so widely examined, which countless articles and lectures have discussed, the lack of dialogue between parties is both surprising and confusing. While one may claim that a medical fact disproves another’s approach, the other may see the question as so irrelevant as unworthy of discussion. One claims the other mistakes science while the other states that he was simply misunderstood.

Rabbis, doctors and lawyers continue discussing the controversial issues of brain death and organ donation in the TorahMusings.com symposium on the ethics of brain death and organ donation. On Sunday, two leading rabbis addressed ethical and legal issues in organ donation and receipt. Rabbi Avi Shafran, Director of Public Affairs of Agudath Israel of America, and Professor Steven H. Resnicoff, Professor at DePaul University College of Law and Co-Director of its Center for Jewish Law & Judaic Studies, explored the tangle of constitutional and religious issues at the core of donating and receiving an organ.