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.

Internal organs are most successfully transplanted when “harvested” from a ventilated patient, whose blood remains oxygenated and circulating. From the perspective of halacha, or Jewish religious law, that raises a serious question and, in its wake, ethical dilemmas.

A diagnosis of “brain death” – when tests indicate that a person has suffered irreversible cessation of all brain function – is considered by contemporary medicine and secular law to be sufficient to constitute death, thereby permitting the removal of organs.

In cases involving medical matters, scientific realities play an important role in the deciding of halacha. But Jewish law’s rules, judgments and definitions do not necessarily parallel those either of medical science or society.

If someone who is brain dead is halachically alive, a matter of significant halachic debate, secular adoption of the brain death standard could, in a number of ways, lead to the murder of Jews and non-Jews. A goses is someone who is dying and is imminently terminal. His life is likened to the flame of a flickering candle. It is forbidden to touch or move such a person for any purpose other than to help the goses, lest such touching or movement extinguish the flame. According to some rabbinic decisors, including R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, people on respirators who are believed to be brain dead have the halachic status of safek goses, to whom these prohibitions would apply. Nevertheless, upon a finding of brain death, secular law would allow a hospital certain rights such as to cease treatment or to extract organs.

Rabbis, doctors and lawyers continue discussing the important issues of brain death and organ donation in an ongoing online symposium. On Wednesday, two leading rabbis published their views on the brain death debate in the TorahMusings.com symposium on the ethics of brain death and organ donation. Rabbi Basil Herring, Executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Council of America, commented on the recent controversy regarding organ donation in the Orthodox Jewish community and Rabbi Michael J. Broyde, Professor of Law at Emory Law School and member of the Beth Din of America, issued his own ruling on the complex subject.

Note: In what follows I speak only for myself, not in my capacity as Executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Council of America. I also do so as the author of a halachic textbook that includes an extensive discussion of Brain Death in Halacha that pointedly did not take a position on the issue.

Few would reasonably deny that when it comes to our dealings with each other, we Jews are a particularly passionate people. Of course, holding strong convictions is a good thing – and might even be a sine qua non to survival when other nations have disappeared – to the extent that it generates uncompromising commitment to our deeply held beliefs and moral principles.