By Rabbi Hillel Raskin
May I sign a card to allow for organ donation?
Even after someone is unequivocally deceased as determined by halacha, there are three potential issues with using their organs or parts of their body:
(1) Benefit from a deceased body:
The Torah prohibits having benefit from a meis, and neither relatives nor the person himself can forgo this right. The prohibition is of course overridden in cases of pikuach nefesh, danger to life, but poskim debate whether a liver transplant constitutes pikuach nefesh, and a skin transplant certainly isn’t.
Still, some poskim argue that transplants never transgress benefitting from the deceased, since upon installing the organ in a live body, it becomes part of the living body and loses its previous status. Thus, there is no benefit from a “deceased.”
However, others dispute this argument and hold that the organ retains its status, and the prohibition remains.
(2) Nivul hames, desecrating the deceased body:
Some poskim hold that a person can provide consent for his body to be desecrated after his passing, even in scenarios where there is no pikuach nefesh.
Some poskim posit that removing an organ to implant it in another body doesn’t constitute a desecration or disgrace in the first place.
(3) Failure to bury this part of the deceased:
There is debate whether the mitzva of kevurah is min haTorah or miderabanan.
According to the latter view, there is more room for leniency to forgo the mitzva for purposes of transplants, even when not pikuach nefesh.
When it comes to corneal transplants, there are additional grounds for leniency since the cornea is smaller than a kezayis, and many hold that the mitzvah min haTorah of kevurah only applies to a kezayis or larger.
In practice, poskim allowed a skin bank when the person consented during their lifetime, and Rav S. Z. Auerbach allowed taking skin from a deceased person only if there is someone with extensive burns who needs it here right now.
This complex shaila should be discussed with one’s rov for a psak.
Reprinted from the Parshat Shemos 5784 edition of The Weekly Farbrengen. Rabbi Raskin is Rov of Anash in Petach Tikva, Israel
And we will not know how we shall serve Hashem until our arrival there. (10:26) If a miracle is performed for a person the person is obligated to bring a Korban Todah - a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Moshe is telling Pharaoh that as of now we have no idea how many miracles Hashem will perform for us. Until we actually leave Mitzrayim and reach Har Sinai we will not know how many sacrifices we will be obligated to bring. (Ksav Sofer)
And Moshe said (to Pharaoh) “So said Hashem, ‘At midnight I shall go out in the midst of Mitzrayim. (11:4) Rashi says Moshe said at approximately midnight which means close to it either before it or after it, and he did not say at midnight lest Pharaoh’s astrologers err (as to when is exactly midnight) and say Moshe is a liar. But Hashem who knows his times and moments exactly said at midnight. When would Pharaoh’s astrologers say
Reprinted from the Parshat Bo 5784 email of R’ Yedidye Hirtenfeld’s whY I Matter parsha sheet for the Young Israel of Midwood in Brooklyn.
