[DOWNLOAD] "Medicine and Jewish Law" by Fred Rosner " Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Medicine and Jewish Law
- Author : Fred Rosner
- Release Date : January 01, 1993
- Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 2083 KB
Description
I was privileged to know Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, of blessed memory, personally for many years. He officiated at my wedding. He received my Torah-learning partner, Rabbi Dr. Melvin Zelefsky, and me every few weeks for a halachic discussion or farher. He was extremely gracious to me when I called him on the phone and interrupted his shiur (Talmud discourse) to ask him about an autopsy consent. He personally offered me halachic (Jewish law) guidance in many areas on many occasions. My task here is to describe Rabbi Feinstein’s influence on medical halachah as objectively and dispassionately as possible. I will concentrate on thirteen areas in medicine where he had a major influence, including the study and practice of medicine on the Sabbath, Tay Sachs screening and abortion, contraception, sterilization, artificial insemination, circumcision, dentistry, psychiatry, smoking and halachah, visiting the sick, and kohanim (priests) studying medicine.
One of my earliest contacts with Rabbi Feinstein was during my first week in medical school. Yeshiva University had just opened its Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The school building was not yet completed, the elevators were not running, the heating and air-conditioning systems were not yet functioning, and we had to walk up to the sixth floor to the anatomy and histology laboratories. Our initial activity was the dissection of a human cadaver. I was chosen by my fellow students to consult with Rabbi Feinstein on this matter. His ruling was that since most cadavers are non-Jewish, it is permissible to dissect a cadaver for the sake of studying anatomy as part of our medical training. Furthermore, since the prohibition of issur hanaah (deriving benefit from the dead) does not apply to non-Jewish bodies, it is permissible to perform autopsies on them. The text of Rabbi Feinstein’s responsum indicates that he did not arrive at this conclusion lightly and without considerable struggle to reconcile his ruling with the prohibition, enunciated by the author of Shulchan Aruch, of deriving benefit from a Gentile cadaver.