This is frankly a tough question.  On one hand, Jewish law requires us to guard our own safety by, among other things, avoiding unnecessary risks.  On the other, the Jewish tradition has had a virtual love affair with medicine for the last two thousand years, including not only clinical practice but also research.  If the question were instead whether a person affected with a disease may participate in a research trial that might produce a way to cure or at least alleviate that person's disease, then it would be easier to justify taking part in the research protocol, despite the risks involved, for the person already is suffering from the disease and the research may produce results that will benefit him/her. 

 

The questioner, however, asks whether a healthy person may participate in a phase 1 study or permit his or her healthy child to do so.  If no healthy people participate in research studies, then scientists can never know whether the intervention they are testing is safe, and then we all become guinnea pigs. That is exactly what happens with most interventions -- especially drugs -- for children and pregnant women because drug companies do not want to take the liability for testing the drugs on those especially vulnerable populations.  As a result, pediatricians use drugs approved for adults and, at least at the beginning of a given drug's use, they guess what the appropriate dose would be for children until experience with the drug (that is, trial and error on all children who take it) gives them guidance as to how much to use -- or whether the drug is safe for children altogether. 

 

At the same time, I was on a federal government commission -- the National Human Resoruces Protections Advisory Commission -- from 2000-2002, which President Clinton appointed in the waning months of his term of office to review and revise the federal guidelines on research on human subjects after two young people in their twenties died as a result of research experiements at top-notch hospitals -- Jesse Gelsinger at the University of Pennsylvania and Ellen Roache at Johns Hopkins.   As a result of the work of governmental commissions such as that from the end of World War II to our own time, there are quite strict guidelines in place to regulate medical reserach. This includes the requirement that an Institutional Review Board approve the protocol and the stipulation that subjects may withdraw from a study at any time without pressure or penalty.  The legal requirements for medical research do not guarantee that subjects will be safe, of course, for by definition in phase 1 studies we are talking about testing some drug or intervention that we do not yet know to be safe.  Still, there are considerable precautions that researchers must take to satisfy the legal and funding requirements to do their research.  

 

Given that we all have a vested interest in having drugs available that prevent, cure, or alleviate diseases, and given that Judaism is committed to medical research and is communtarian in emphasis as well, I would balance these concerns of preserving one's own health and that of one's child but also advancing the ability of medicine to prevent and cure diseases by saying that yes, a healthy Jew may volunteer to be a reserach subject or allow his/her healthy child to be one once or twice, especially if there is some family reason to do this (e.g., a family member with a disease that may be cured by the drug or intervention being tested).  Beyond that, however, I think that one should not volunteer to do this because your own health -- and that of your child -- is also an important consideration, and there is a limit to how often and how much one should put that at risk.  Clearly, the degree of risk, to the extent that that is known, should also be a factor in deciding whether to participate in a research protocol or not.   

 

Rabbi Elliot Dorff

The Conservative Movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards ruled in 1997 that it is the bearing mother who determines the religious identity of the child.  (See Rabbi Aaron L. Mackler, "Maternal Identity and the Religious Status of Children Born to a Surrogate Mother, "http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/public/halakhah/teshuvot/19912000/mackler_maternal.pdf).  Thus if the bearing mother is Jewish, the child is Jewish regardless of the religious identity of the source of the sperm or egg.  Conversely, if the bearing mother is not Jewish, the child needs to go through the rites of conversion, even if the sperm and egg providers are Jewish.  That is not onerous: it involves brit milah (ritual circumcision) for a boy, as is required for every Jewish boy, and immersion in a natural body of water or a mikveh for both a boy or a girl, usually several months after the baby is born when he or she is used to a bath.  The same would be true if two eggs were combined; the Jewish identity of the child would still depend on the bearing mother.

 

This position has been the accepted position in the Reform and Orthodox world as well until some Orthodox rabbis, primarily in Israel, have raised questions about it.  So the answer depends on the religious affiliation of the person asking.  If the person is Orthodox, he or she should ask his/her local rabbi; otherwise, Rabbi Mackler's position -- and the cogent reasons he gives for it -- is the accepted position among Conservative, Reform, and most Orthodox rabbis.

 

The identity of the "real" mother, of course, brings in many psychological issues as well as biological ones.  This is true for children born with sperm donation as well as with egg donation.  For most purposes, the adults who raise the child are the "real" parents of the child.  So, for example, when the child is called to the Torah or marries, he or she would be identified by his/her Hebrew name, son/daughter of the Hebrew names of the people who raised him/her.   Similarly, the filial duties of honoring and respecting one's parents (Exodus 20:12; Leviticus 19:3) would apply to them as well.  That said, biology does play an important role in who we are; it continues to be "nature and nurture."  For a discussion of the halakhic and psychological issues involved in this, see Elliot N. Dorff, Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics, Chapter Four.

When my wife and I were married in 1966, one of the gifts we received was a Bauer camera, made in West Gernany.  Because it was made there, my wife would have nothing to do with it and insisted that I take it back to the store to exchange it for someothing else.  As it happens, I had a Jewish clerk, and he pointed out to me that West Germany had full diplomatic relations with Israel and was paying reparations to Holocaust victims.  I told him that I understood that, but I just did not want this to be the first argument that I had with my wife!  We ended up with a Canon camera, made in Japan, which was also America's enemy in World War II !!!

 

There undoubedly is a sense of responsibility that we all have for what our ancestors have done, including the pride that we have for some of the things they did and the shame for other things.  (Brad Paisley's new album, Wheelhouse, has a poignant song on this theme named Incidental Racist, in which he says that he is proud to be a Southerner but not proud of everything that we Southerners have done. L. L. Cool J sings a rap in the middle of it, in which he talks about the current African American tendency to look at all Southerners as slaveholders, so the prejudice goes in both directions.)  It is precisely this sense of  linkage to our ancestors that I discuss in my book, To Do the Right and the Good: A Jewish Approach to Modern Social Ethics  with regard to a request by the priests on the Los Angeles Priest-Rabbi Dialogue who asked us rabbis what it would take for the Jewish community to forgive what the Catholics did and failed to do during the Holocaust.  None of us around the table was an adult during the Holocaust, and many were not even born then, so they really did not have standing to ask for forgiveness (they themselves did not act badly), and we rabbis did not have the moral standing to forgive them, given that we were not the ones directly affected -- and yet both sides felt some responsibility to set things right.  You can read in that chapter of that book how I explore the Jewish tradiition to resolve this issue.

 

Now to your specific question.  Henry Ford was also an anti-Semite, and very public about it, so will you not buy a Ford now because of that?  As the clerk said to me back in 1966, the German government has done everything it can do to make amends, and it is the staunchest supporter of Israel in Europe.  In fact, the education curriculum in German schools requires young Germans to confront their country's crimes during the Holocaust, which is not true in Poland or Austria, for example.  So I would say that if you are not going to buy an American car, then a German car is probably a better ethical choice for a Jew than cars from some other countries that have not done what the Germans have done to combat anti-Semitism, including anti-Israel propoganda. 

 

Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff

Sin can indeed make you more aware of Hashem, for it shows you how far you are from what Hashem stands for and demands of us.  Still, even though we all sin, the Jewish tradition, unlike Calvinism, does not want us to dwell on that or to see ourselves without worth.  On the contrary, we are, as God's creatures created in the Divine image, both able and required to try to imitate God as much as we can. 

So the direct answer to your question is this: It depends on the nature of the sin.  If you are hurting others -- physically, financially, psychologically, socially, or otherwise -- then you indeed need to stop the behavior immediately, for someone else's welfare is at stake.  Furthermore, you must, as according to the steps of teshuvah, recognize that what you did constitutes a sin, have remorse, apologize, compensate the victim to the extent that you can, and take steps to make sure that you do not do what you did again.  Again, depending on the nature of the sin and the harm it caused, these steps might include getting therapy to learn how to avoid this harmful behavior in the future.  Therapy may give you insight not only in how far you are from what Hashem wants of you, but also how to diminish that gap.  If the sin is between you and God, then, again, the steps of teshuvah are what is required, but here talking with a rabbi is probably advisable about how to avoid the temptation that is prompting you to sin in this way.  You might also look at Rambam's Hilkhot Teshuvah (Laws of Return) and Rav Soloveitchik's book on Teshuvah or my own treatment of this subject in Elliot N. Dorff, Love Your Neighbor and Yourself: A Jewish Approach to Modern Personal Ethics, Chapter Six, to understand the process of teshuvah better and to get the strength to do it effectively so that you do not sin in this way again.    

My mother was an English teacher, and I am afraid that reading this question immediately raised in my mind a distinction she taught me between "can" and "may."  Whether a non-Jew can read those prayers, especially in Hebrew, depends on that person's knowledge of the language and of the prayers.  I presume, though, that the questioner intended to ask whether a non-Jew may read those prayers without insulting Jews or violating some aspect of the Jewish tradition. The answer to that question depends, I think, on the purpose that the non-Jew has in mind.  If that person is studying these prayers as part of a process of converting to Judaism, then surely it is permissible -- even desirable -- for him or her to learn these prayers as part of preparing to do that.  If the non-Jew is not thinking of converting but simply wants to learn more about Judaism, I find nothing wrong with that, unless his or her ultimate goal is to learn more about Judaism in order to convert Jews to another religion.  If the non-Jew wants to use these prayers simply because they express what he or she believes, then I find no reason to object to that, but I do wonder what he or she finds meaningful in speaking about specifically Jewish practices like the fringes described in the third paragraph of the Shema and the Jewish Messianic hope articulated as part of the Amidah.  Maybe this person is on the way to converting to Judaism after all -- in which case, welcome!  

 

Rabbi Elliot Dorff

There are several reasons why davening with a minyan is preferable to davening on your own:

 

There are several reasons why davening with a minyan is preferable to davening on your own:

1) There are some parts of the service -- Barkhu, Kedushah, Kaddish -- that you may say only in the presence of a minyan.

2) Because of this, mourners and those who have yahrzeit need a minyan to say Kaddish, and so attending a minyan makes it possible for them to do this.  It also makes it possible for those who do not know the service to fulfill their obligations to pray three times daily by answering "Amen" to the leader's blessings -- and probably eventually to learn the service.  For that matter, you yourself may learn the words and proper melodies of the various times of the year when davening in a minyan if you do not already know them.  Fulfilling the Rabbinic enactment to hear the Torah read on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings as well as Saturday afternoon also may take place only in a minyan. The failure to take these communal needs into account makes you a "bad neighbor," according to Maimonides.

3)  Davening in a minyan will make it less likely for you to make mistakes, especially on days when the litrugy we are supposed to say is different in some way from the ordinary liturgy.

4) We are by nature people who need people, and davening together helps to bond us to the davening community both religiously and socially. 

There are undoubtedly other reasons to daven in a minyan beyond those noted above.  These factors make it desirably that one's regular regimen includes davening with a minyan.  That said, if on occasion one cannot do so, it is clearly better to daven on one's own , skipping the parts that you may not say without a minyan, rather than not daven at all.

Rabbi Elliot Dorff

 

I am reproducing here a section of my book, Love Your Neighbor and Yourself: A Jewish Approach to Modern Personal Ethics (Philadelphia:Jewish Publication Society, 2003), the chapter on Family Violence.  See that chapter for more on this subject.  This began as a rabbinic ruling (teshuvah) for the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Conservative Movement, and  it was approved by that committee, so it is the official understanding of Jewish law in the Conservative Movement .  Elliot Dorff

 

Traditional Jewish law forbids mesirah, turning Jews over to non-Jewish courts for judgment.[i]  This prohibition undoubtedly arose out of two concerns.  First, rampant discrimination against Jews in society generally made it unlikely that Jewish litigants would get a fair hearing.  On the contrary, a dispute among Jews aired in a gentile court might provide the excuse for punishing both Jewish litigants and perhaps the entire Jewish community.  Better that we Jews not call attention to ourselves altogether. 

            Moreover, rabbis over the generations wanted to make sure that Jewish law remained authoritative.  In some times and places and for some purposes, Jews were forced to use non-Jewish law and courts.  Specifically, if Jews were to engage in business with non-Jews, they had to use non-Jewish law, and it then became too cumbersome and too confusing to switch to Jewish law for their inter-Jewish trade.  Moreover, doing so might well be unfair if all other business was regularly conducted according to the norms of another legal system, leading Jews to assume that the same rules applied to their trade with other Jews. For these political and moral reasons, Samuel, a rabbi of the early third century, already announced the principle of dina de'malkhuta dina, the law of the land is the law.  That was restricted, though, to civil matters, and until the Enlightenment, Jews did, in fact, use Jewish courts to adjudicate even their own civil disputes, although often by the generally accepted, non-Jewish laws of commerce in force at the time.  Since the permission to use non-Jewish courts embedded in the principle of dina d’malkhuta dina only applies to commercial affairs, how, then, can a Jew in good conscience inform civil authorities about another Jew who is apparently abusing his or her family member, a child, or someone else?

            Since the advent of the Enlightenment, a number of rabbis have ruled that the laws of mesirah no longer apply.  Some, like the Arukh Ha-Shulhan, have maintained that using non-Jewish courts was prohibited only when they were unfair to Jews (and perhaps to others as well), and when the prosecution of a Jew in a non-Jewish court would be the occasion for persecution of the entire Jewish community.  Since neither of these factors characterizes courts in Western democracies nowadays, Jews may use non-Jewish courts.[ii] 

            Even if one maintains that the prohibition of using non-Jewish courts still holds, it would not apply to criminal matters, where Jewish courts have no jurisdiction or power to punish.  Thus Rabbi Moses Isserles, who lived in a pre-Enlightenment society (sixteenth-century Poland), cites others who lived even earlier who hold that “if a person is struck by another, he may go to complain before the non-Jewish court even though he will thereby cause great harm to the assailant."[iii]  Since Jewish courts in our day have even less power and authority to handle such matters than they did in pre-Enlightenment times, Ashkenazi Jews, those whose ancestors came from Central and Eastern Europe, can rely on that ruling.

            Sephardic Jews generally follow Rabbi Joseph Karo, author of the Shulhan Arukh on which Rabbi Isserles commented.  Rabbi Karo asserts that the prohibition of mesirah continues to his day, making it illegal for a Jew who is being harassed to report that to the civil authorities.  Even Karo, though, maintained that when there is a meitzar ha-tzibbur, a menace to the community as a whole, mesirah is permissible.[iv]  He was probably talking about non-Jews attacking the Jewish community as a whole for the reprehensible action of one of its members.  Legal authorities in Western democracies in our day are unlikely to inflict penalties on the Jewish community as a group on the excuse that there are some Jews who are batterers;  governments in the Americas, Europe, and other places are much more likely to prosecute such people as individuals, just as they would any other citizen who violated the law. 

            In our time, though, abuse of spouses, elderly parents, and especially, children has unfortunately reached the extent of a meitzar ha-tzibbur in three other senses.  First, those who abuse others constitute a physical threat not just to the ones they have already abused, but to all potential, future victims as well -- and therefore to the entire community.  Second, abusers pose a threat to the sense of well-being of the community as a whole by making it an unsafe place to live.  Third, abusers within our community defame us as a community and God whom we worship, and the desecration of the divine Name (hillul ha-Shem) involved is also a source of pain and suffering for the community as a whole. 

            Consequently, it is certainly within the spirit of these precedents, if not their letter, to assert that for both Sephardic as well as Ashkenazi Jews, witnesses to abuse may, and indeed should, enlist the help of governmental agencies to stop the abuse.  The Conservative Movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards has accordingly ruled that witnesses to abuse should inform the police so that victims can avail themselves of the remedies and protections that civil law affords.[v]

            Rabbis who are witness to abuse present a special case, for  American law recognizes a clergy-client (usually called "priest-penitent") privilege.  Thus if a Jew in the course of counseling with his/her rabbi disclosed that s/he had engaged in spousal or child abuse, American law would protect the confidentiality of that disclosure unless the counselee waived that right or indicated his/her intention to engage in future abuse of the same kind.  Absent either of those conditions, the rabbi might be successfully sued for breaching the counselee’s  privacy by reporting the past abuse to civil authorities -- although some states interpret the immunity of clergy to the child abuse reporting laws very narrowly.[vi]  Suffice it to say, then, that the provisions in Jewish law demanding that we save life and limb would require those who know about an abusive situation to report it to the civil authorities so that it might end, and, from the perspective of Jewish law, that would apply to rabbis no less than to any other Jew.  Rabbis who become aware of an abusive situation in a counseling setting, however, should consult with an attorney to determine whether civil law in their jurisdiction grants them the right to report the matter in the specific case before them; if not, they should seek to end the abusive situation in some other way.[vii]

 

Your question presumes that you do not use electricity on Shabbat, and for such people the prevalence of such devices that turn on and off lights automatically has become a real problem.  One might take refuge in the talmudic principle of lo neikha lei, it is not what you want, and therefore if it happens against (or, in this case, beyond the control) of your will, you are not responsible for it.  The problem is that the Talmud restricts that principle to cases where you cannot know ahead of time that it will happen, for, as it says, p'sik reishai v'al yamut, can you cut off the head of a chicken and it will not die?  In this case, you know full well that if you enter the hallway, the lights will go on.  Given the prevalence of these devices, though, it seems to me that one simply cannot live in modern society if one follows the p'ski reishei limitation, and so we all must simply recognize that one cannot be held responsible for what one cannot avoid.

 

This affects not only lights.  Every time you enter a building these days you are being recorded on tape or some other digital device -- and that happens even when you walk on the street.  Does that violate the Shabbat prohibition against writing or making other permanent images?  Clearly, Jewish law cannot be reasonably interpreted to prevent us from leaving our homes or dorm rooms on Shabbat. 

 

So no, in my view, entering the hallway to your dorm room on Shabbat is permissible even though you know that that will automatically turn on the hallway lights.  So too is it permissible to walk into buildings and on the street on Shabbat even though you know now that you will be recorded doing so. 

 

Rabbi Elliot Dorff  

I have dealt with this question at some length in my responsum for the Conservative Movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards entitled "Family Violence."  You can find that material on pp. 798-800 of the responsum, the entirety of which is available at http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/public/halakhah/teshuvot/19912000/dorff_violence.pdf?phpMyAdmin=G0Is7ZE%2CH7O%2Ct%2CZ1sDHpI8UAVD6 -- or, alternatively, on pp. 185-187 of my book, Love Your Neighbor and Yourself: A Jewish Approach to Modern Personal Ethics  (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003), where the responsum is Chapter Five. 

 

The short answer to the question is that mesirah (turning over Jews to civil authorities for prosecution) does not apply to modern, democratic societies in which Jews are full citizens and are treated fairly at law (that is the thrust of modern Ashkenazic authorities) or still applies but not when the person is accused of doing something that causes the Jewish community much pain (how Sephardic authorities rule). 

 

So no, Jews may not claim that Judaism prohibits them from turning over to civil authorities those Jews who are accused of breaking the law -- let alone those who have been convicted of doing so and have escaped from custody.

 

Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff

Yes, your husband should definitely have told you about this before marriage, but understand that impotence is a major embarrassment for a man, and he may have hoped that marriage would somehow have magically resolved his problem, so do not assume that he was deliberately trying to deceive you.  Yes, to answer your question directly , there is such a thing as annulment in Jewish law (haf'qa'at kiddushin) on the grounds of "a mistaken acquisition" (meqah ta'ut).  Orthodox rabbis are generally reticent to use this remedy in Jewish law, but the Conservative rabbinate will do this through the National Bet Din.  See your local Conservative rabbi to initiate the process.  

 

That said, if you loved your husband enough to marry him, you may want to work with him to overcome the problem.  There are, after all, medications and other means available to respond to erectile dysfunction.  Furthermore, if children is your primary objective, even if the means to respond to erectile dysfunction do not work in his case, there are means to retrieve sperm from him for use in artificial insemination or, if necessary, in in vitro fertilization.  The lattter, of course, may address the problem of having children, but it would not  address your needs for sexual satisfaction.  I would recommend talking with your husband about all of this openly, honestly, and sympathetically in order to try to overcome his problem so that you can stay married to the man you loved enough to marry him.  Only if nothing works to meet your needs (and his) should you contemplate annulment.   

The tradition of saying kadish for one's parent for eleven (not twelve) months (in contrast to only thirty days for a sibling, child, or spouse) comes from the commandment "Honor your father and mother."  Thus even though one may have been personally closer to one's spouse, child, or sibling, one is obligated to say kadish for them for only thirty days after their burial -- although one may say kadish for a longer period, if one wishes -- while the command to honor parents requires kadish for eleven months.  Ideally, one is supposed to fulfill the commandment oneself, but there is precedent in Jewish law for fulfilling this commandment through the use of your agent if you cannot do it yourself.  So, for example, the commandment to honor parents also entails, according to the Talmud, the requirement to care for them in their old age, but if the adult child cannot do so (either because of work duties or because the parent and child continually get on one's nerves), then the child may pay for a caregiver (or, in our day, an assisted living facility) to carry out this obligation.  Still, even if one hires someone to say kadish for one's parent each day because one cannot make it to the synagogue to do so oneself, one should try to say kadish for one's deceased parent in a minyan as often as possible during the eleven months following his or her burial, at least, say, on the Sabbath.  Furthermore, on the days when one cannot recite the kadish oneself in the synagogue, it is appropriate to recite a psalm or other reading at home in memory of one's parent in addition to having someone else saying kadish in the synagogue.  (You need a minyan to say kadish.)

Elliot Dorff 

Your instincts are correct.  If the Bible reading the Jew is asked to read is from the Hebrew Bible, that is fine, but if the reading is from the New Testament, the Jew should not read it as part of the wedding service.  Even if the passage is about love and is theologically neutral, many of the Christians in attendance will recognize it as part of their sacred Scripture, and thus a Jew would be participating in a Christian rite in a way that is distinctly Christian.  The same happens in the reverse direction: most non-Orthodox rabbis allow the non-Jewish parent of a Bar or Bat Mitzvah to say a prayer for the country or for peace, but not any other part of our liturgy, for that would be misrepresenting the beliefs of the person saying the prayer. 

The vast majority of religious Jews -- Conserative, Orthodox, and Reform -- value modernity as well as the Jewish tradition.  That said, the mixture of tradition with modernity varies in degree and method among the movements.  Reform Jews tend to value modernity most but can also be very serious about the moral commitments that Judaism teaches and even, in recent times, of some of the ritual elements of Judaism.  Modern Orthodox Jews, on the other end of the spectrum, value Judaism most, but many of them go to college and engage in other aspects of modernity, including the ones you mentioned -- taking music lessons and traveling.  Conservative Jews, in the middle of the spectrum, not only value both Jewish tradition and modernity, but try to integrate them in their lives (rather than seeing them as entirely separate entities, which is common in the thinking and actions of many Reform and Orthodox Jews, although often not true of their rabbis).  Along with this interest in, and valuing of, modernity, Reform and Conservative Jews, and, to a lesser extent, Modern Orthodox Jews, also value their relations with non-Jews.  I, for one, am Co-Chair of the Priest-Rabbi Dialogue sponsored by the Los Angeles Archdiocese and the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, and I am Immediate Past President of the Academy of Judaic, Christian, and Islamic Studies headquartered at UCLA, and I have a number of non-Jewish friends, including some close ones. 

 

It is only the ultra-Orthodox (haredi) Jews -- the ones whose men usually wear black and white clothing and whose women are very modestly dressed -- who fit the description that you suggest.  They tend to be very insular and suspicious of both modernity and non-Jews -- and, for that matter, even of Jews who are not like them. In North America, they constitute about 2% of the Jewish community; in Israel, they are a much larger minority (maybe as many as 15%), and because they often have very large families, Israel is now grappling with the implications of a increasingly large population who do not serve in the army or earn a living.   All other Jews have as many problems with this group as it sounds like you are having.      

 

Decades ago the Reform rabbinate decided that a civil divorce decree is sufficient to dissolve a marriage, and so Reform rabbis have not used a traditional Jewish divorce document (a get).  In recent years, though, the Reform rabbinate has become interested in creating some form of Jewish writ of divorce and a ceremony to accompany it.  Given that you are affiliated with the Reform movement, you may want to check with your local Reform rabbi whether a recommended document and ceremony are already in use.

 

Jewish law, though, requires that a couple dissolve their marriage not only in civil law, but also in Jewish law through the the delivery of a get by the husband or the husband's agent to the wife or her agent.  Conservative as well as Orthodox rabbis handle these matters.  If the husband is willing to issue the get, all he need do is sign a letter of appointment of the local Conservative rabbi as his agent to write and deliver the get to his wife.  That rabbi will then, in turn, appoint a rabbi who is certified by the national Bet Din of the Conservative Movement to write the document according to the many stipulations of Jewish law about the get.   (Unlike marriage documents, which can be made in bulk with spaces to fill in the names of the bride and groom, the date, place, etc., a get must be written specifically for the couple being divorced in a particular way.)  Then, if the couple resides in the same city, the rabbi, together with two other rabbis, will act as the bet din to witness the delivery of the get from the husband or his agent to the wife or her agent.  If the couple resides in different cities, the husband's rabbi will appoint a local rabbi in the wife's city of residence to deliver the get in front of a Bet Din to her or her agent.  The whole process costs several hundred dollars, which either party (or both together) may pay.   After this has occurred, Conservative rabbis will be willing to officiate at the wedding of either the husband or the wife to another Jewish person.  

 

Orthodox rabbis tend to accept only writs of divorce supervised by Orthodox courts, but in recent years there have been some Orthodox rabbis who have refused to accept the documents written by other Orthodox rabbis, and so even an Orthodox get is no guarantee that everyone will accept the validity of the get.  Furthermore, Orthodox rabbis may prefer to see the original marriage as invalid, given that it was preformed by a Reform rabbi and the witnesses were probably not Sabbath observant to their standards, so they may tell you that you do not need a get -- but at the cost of seeing your original marriage as invalid.  So unless you or your future children plan on joining the Orthodox community, I would recommend that you consult a Conservative rabbi for your get.    

Yes, indeed, Judaism has a lot to say about privacy, and it is as directly relevant to contemporary uses of Facebook and Twitter as it was to private conversations and letters in times past.  In sum, Judaism requires not only that we take steps to preserve other people's privacy, but our own.  For a thorough discussion of the import of Judaism for privacy on the internet, see Elliot N. Dorff, Love Your Neighbor and Yourself: A Jewish Approach to Modern Personal Ethics (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003), Chapter Two.

 

Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff 

I completely understand your upset at watching non-Jews take on Jewish practices.  In fact, Jewish law would not allow non-Jews to do certain things -- to say the blessings surrounding the Torah reading, for example, to count as part of a minyan, or to lead Jews in prayer.  With regard to other Jewish practices, the law is less clear.  May Jews legitimately object to non-Jews who, for example, decide to wear a kippah, or wear a Star of David around their necks, or who decide to eat bagels and lox on Sunday mornings?  Probably not.  In some cases, what we see as Jewish practices are also the practices of another religion -- keeping Sabbath restrictions on Saturday, for example, as Seventh Day Adventists do, or dividing men from women in prayer, as Orthodox Jews do and as Muslims do.  So one has to be careful in deciding which Jewish practices are objectionable, and which are not.  

 

I do a lot of interfaith work with Catholics, and many Catholic schools schedule mock Passover sedarim.  I tell them that that is fine if a knowledgeable Jew is running the seder, for then that person can explain the Jewish meanings involved.  If a Cathoic is running it, however, students are all too likely going to see the Last Supper in the seder and give it a completely Christian meaning, thus distorting Judaism badly.  Catholics who schedule such sedarim are genuinely trying to teach their students about Judaism, and that is a good thing, but they need to know how to do it so that authentically Jewish messages are conveyed.  

 

Another arena where we often see Jewish practices taken on by non-Jews is in the media.  My wife, a Jewish educator, cringes every time a movie or television show portrays a Jewish ritual or theme because they often get it wrong.  Here again, the (probably Jewish) writers are probably trying to say something positive about Judaism,but they need to get it right.

 

In sum, then, there are those Jewish practices that non-Jews take on as a mark of real love and respect for Judaism, and Jews need to appreciate that love and respect.  On the other end of the spectrum, some anti-Semites pretend to do something Jewish to mock Judaism and Jews.  To that we must object with all the force at our disposal.  In between are a host of practices that non-Jews may do with good intentions but with distorted forms or meanings, and then we need to thank them for their interest in Judaism but teach them what is, and what is not, appropriate as a symbol of that interest and respect for our tradition.

 

Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff

 

There are some topics regarding which I have expertise and experience, but here, I am afraid, I have experience but no real expertise.  So what I write below is indeed my opinion, but simply one that others might take into consideration but not necessarily weigh as any more authoritative than their own.

 

I think that one has to draw an important line between those Israeli policies that affect Diaspora Jews directly and those that do not.  Issues of Jewish identity, conversion, marriage, and divorce clearly affect us all, and so when Israeli authorities propose or enact laws or policies that disenfranchise many of the world's Jews, that has to be protested as loudly and as politically effectively as possible.  

 

When, however,  Israel is taking positions on its own internal affairs -- e.g., what it requires of its high school graduates, what its health care system will look like, how it will treat domestic violence, etc., -- or its external affairs related to its security -- e.g., the Wall, the settlements, Gaza, etc. -- then I am willing to express my opinion and to join organizations that do so more thoughtfully than I would, but I always have this nagging feeling that my family and I are not risking our lives by living there and so I have a limited right, if any at all, to try to shape such decisions.  That said, friends of mine who are indeed experts in everything from education and social welfare to military and political matters do indeed have a right and even a duty to try to help Israel with these matters, and many of them do -- but that is at the invitation of the Israelis.

 

Elliot Dorff   

It probably is not surprising that rabbis differ about what appropriate treatment of people in a vegetative state from a Jewish point ov view.  Not only is it commonly the case that rabbis differ, but in this kind of case we are now able to keep bodily functions going in ways that our parents could not even have imagined, let alone our ancestors, long after the person would have died without modern medical interventions.  This is one example of the Kantian problem that we face often in modern medical practice.  As Kant pointed out, when one cannot do something, one does not need to ask if one should; once one can do something, though, one does need to ask whether one should, for there are all kinds of things that people can do that they should not do (e.g., smoke, eat a half-gallon of ice cream every day, etc.).  The machines and tubes that keep a vegetative patient alive were not invented for that purpose; they were invented to keep a person alive for a few hours or possibly a day or two so that the person could successfully undergo surgery.  These interventions were not intended for long-term support, but now that we have them, we must ask when we should use them -- and when not.

 

Given that our ancestors could never have even contemplated a situation like this, let alone deal with it, any rabbi trying to apply the tradition will not find a case or precedent directly on point.  He must rather apply some of the principles of the tradition to this new case.  Yes, the tradition asks us to preserve life whenever we can, but it did not even imagine that we could do so for patients in a vegetative state, and one passage in the Talmud asserts that "we do not worry about the life of an hour" (l'hayyei sha'ah lo hashinan) -- that is, we do not seek to preserve life when it is clearly and irreversably ending.  Furthermore, Tosafot on Avodah Zarah 27b states that the underlying principle that we should use in judging these cases is the welfare of the patient.  Tosafot assumed, of course, that the patient's welfare was always in sustaining life as much as possible, but even if that was true in the 12th century, it probably is not true in ours.  So based on the principles that the Talmud and Tosafot announce, I have ruled that we may remove life support from a patient in a vegetative state after due examination to make sure that he or she is actually in such a state.  See Elliot N. Dorff, Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1998), pp. 213-217. 

 

Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, Ph.D., Rector and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, American Jewish University, and Chair, Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly.

If the questioner is asking from the point of view of Jewish law, then there would be no capital case against the defendant, although s/he may be convicted of a lesser crime such as assault.  That is because the Rabbis were skittish about applying the death penalty and therefore crafted the evidentiary procedures such that each of the witnesses, who may not be related either to the defendant, the victim, or each other, must separately warn the defendant not only that what s/he is about to do violates Jewish law, but that it carries the death penalty, and then, because the witness may not have heard these warnings, s/he must respond, "Even so, I am going to do this."  Furthermore, if more time elapses between each of his/her responses to the witnesses and the time it takes one to say "Shalom alekha rabi mori" (Peace be upon you, my rabbi, my teacher), then we presume that the defendant has forgotten the warnings, and the case is thrown out of court!  Clearly, in approaching capital cases in this way, the Rabbis knew that they were effectively making a death penalty all but impossible, as they themselves attest in Mishnah Makkot 1:10.  Having taken the death penalty off the table, however, they might well convict the culprit of a lesser crime, for which the evidentiary requirements would be less stringent. 

 

If the questioner is asking about a Jew witnessing this case in an American court, however, then American legal rules would apply, and the defendant, in all likelihood, would be condemned to death or to life without parole, depending on the state's law.  That said, many years ago there was an episode of the television show "Bananza" in which a Jew moved to town, while sitting on a hil witnessed one man chasing another with knife in hand, both disappear in front of a building at the foot of the hill, he hears a scream, and then a man dressed in the same clothes as the pursuer emerges from the other side of the building, with knife in hand.  When pressed to testify against the culprit, he refuses for most of the hour-long show, much to the consternation of the townspeople, on the grounds that Jewish law would classify this as indirect evidence at best and therefore inadmissible in court, especially for a capital conviction.  By the end of the show, everyone is thanking him because it turns out that someone else dressed in similar clothing was in the building, and it was that person rather than the culprit who committed the crime.  Jewish writers!

 

Rabbi Elliot Dorff

No, employers do not have a right to oppress their employees in any way -- physically, verbally, psychologically, or in the working conditions they provide.  Jews, in fact, were in the forefront in the early twentieth century in forming unions precisely to combat oppressive working conditions.  The general rule in the Torah that governs this is "Do not wrong (oppress) one another, but fear your God; for I the Lord am your God" (Leviticus 25:17, and see v. 14 as well).  The Rabbis apply this broadly to many different kinds of working conditions and to family violence as well.  For a thorough explanation of these laws, see the rabbinic ruling that I wrote on Family Violence for the Conservative Movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards at

http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/teshuvot/docs/19912000/dorff_violence.pdf, and see Rabbi Jill Jacobs' rabbinic ruling on worker conditions and unions for the same Committee at

http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/teshuvot/docs/20052010/jacobs-living-wage.pdf.

Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff

 

Spending time in prison is not the equivalent of the Jewish process of teshuvah, of return to the good graces of God and the community.  In fact, I know of a man who had sexually abused some of the Cub Scouts in his care, went to prison for it, and when released maintained that he was wrongly convicted.  To fulfill the process of teshuvah, people must (1) acknowledge that they have done something wrong; (2) have remorse for it; (3) apologize to the people they have wronged; (4) compensate the people they have wronged to the best of their ability; and (5) act differently when the opportunity to sin again in the same way presents itself again.  As harsh as prison is, the Jewish requirements are more demanding, requiring as they do a real change in character.

 

On the other hand, in many American states convicts must note that they committed a felony and served time in prison for it on every job application they fill out for the rest of their lives, and they are ineligible for many government jobs.  Jewish law maintains that once a person has completed the process of teshuvah, nobody may even mention it again.  They are fully reinstated in the community.  In fact, those who mention their past history themselves violate Jewish law, for they have engaged in an act of ona’at devarim, oppression done by means of words. 

 

There is one exception to this.  If the felon applies for a job that will tempt him or her to repeat his or her crime, then anyone writing a letter of recommendation for such a person not only may, but must, mention that this person acted criminally in this situation in the past, and potential employers must refuse to hire such a person again lest they violate the Jewish law that requires us not to put a stumbling block before the blind (Leviticus 19:14), which the Rabbis understood to mean not only the physically blind, but morally blind as well. 

 

For more on this general topic, see Elliot N. Dorff, Love Your Neighbor and Yourself: A Jewish Approach to Modern Personal Ethics (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003), especially chapters 5 and 6.

Jews were undoubtedly involved in some business over the course of the centuries that one could describe as "cutthroat," but I frankly doubt that they were as cutthroat as the ones that we encounter today, with instant communications and knowlege of what competitors are doing and with similarly instantaneous ability to counter-offer.  Moreover, we no longer conduct business in the small communities in which our ancestors lived and earned their living, where everyone knew each other and thus had a stake in making sure that their reputations were not sullied.  After all, they had to live with the people who were their clients and competitors.  Thus I do not know of anything directly on point in answer to your question. 

 

Still, as you probably guessed in posing the question as you did, the Jewish tradition places great emphasis on personal integrity, on fair dealing, and on fair competition.  One Rabbinic law (hasagat g'vul) prohibits businesspeople from setting up the same kind of business that already exists in a particular location.  The presumption of this law is that both businesses are owned by Jews, and this is one way in which the Jewish community tried to protect all of its members.  This clearly would not work today, but the idea was that we need to look out not only for our own ability to earn a living, but also for other Jews' ability to do so.  More broadly, we are supposed to be "a kingdom of priests and a holy people" (Exodus 19:6), which certainly does not mean that we must abandon business altogether as a way to earn a living, but it does mean that we need to keep our tradition's aspirations for our character in mind in deciding how we conduct our business.  The Talmud (Shabbat 31a) goes so far as to say that the very first question one will be asked by God after one's death is this: Did you conduct your business in a trustworthy manner (be-emunah)?  So as you suspected, Judaism would say that you need to worry about your own integrity in conducting your business affairs even if others are behaving in a cutthroat manner.

 

Rabbi Elliot Dorff

Jewish law sees the fetus during the first forty days of gestation as "simply water" and during the rest of gestation "like the thigh of its mother."  It does not become a full human being until birth -- specifically, until the head emerges from the vaginal canal or, if a breach birth, when "the majority of the body" or the shoulders emerge.  Nevertheless, abortion is generally prohibited, not as an act of murder (for the fetus is not a human being, and murder only applies to human beings), but as an act of self-injury.  As Jews, our bodies belong to God, not ourselves, and we have a fiduciary responsibility to avoid danger to our bodies and to take positive steps to take care of them.

 

However, if the mother's life or health is at stake, then an abortion is required.  The Mishnah says that even at the moment of childbirth, if the mother cannot deliver the child, we must go into the womb and dismember the fetus in order to save the life of the mother.  (This assumes that a Caesarian section cannot be safely performed while preserving the life of the mother , for it was not until the late 1940s that that was possible.) 

 

Then there is a middle ground, when an abortion is permitted but not required.  That occurs when there is an elevated risk to the mother beyond that of normal pregnancy but not so much as to constitute a clear and present danger for her (e.g., when the mother has diabetes).  Under those circumstances the mother may choose to accept the risk and go through with the pregnancy, presumably with extra supervision by her physician, or she may choose not to accept the risk and abort the embryo.  Conservative and some Orthodox rabbis would also permit an abortion if the child is going to suffer from a lethal genetic disease or would be otherwise severely malformed. 

 

For more on this, see my book, Elliot N. Dorff, Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics.

The vast majority of rabbis, from Reform to Orthodox, who have written about organ transplants would at least permit Jews to donate their organs upon their death.  In 1989, the Chief Rabbinate of the State of Israel approved even heart transplants, which is the hardest procedure to justify because it requires recognizing whole brain death as sufficient to define a person as dead instead of the more traditional criteria of cessation of heartbeat and breath. The Conservative Movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards has approved a rabbinic ruling by Rabbi Joseph Prouser that claims that it is not only permissible, but mandatory to donate your organs and tissues for transplantation, for the shortage of organs has meant not only that thousands of people die each year for lack of an organ, but also that living people are called on to donate kidneys and parts of their livers.  Jews may participate in such living donations, assuming that the physicians involved deem it safe for the potential donor to do so, but such operations always involve at least some risk, and so there is no requirement to do this.  On the other hand, cadaveric donations, of course, involve no risk to the donor, and so Rabbi Prouser ruled that it is mandatory to make your organs available for transplant upon your death.  You can see his responsum at www.rabbinicalassembly.org under the link "Contemporary Halakhah." 

 

In asserting that it is at least permissible to donate your organs for transplant, rabbis are simply applying a central principle in Jewish law -- namely, that pikkuah nefesh, saving a person's life -- takes precedence over all but three commandments in the Torah -- in this case, over kevod ha-met, honor due to the dead body.  The vast majority of rabbis would also include in this transplants that involve restoration of critical functions, such as corneas for people who would otherwise go blind or even lose sight in just one eye.  After the transplant, the remaining body parts must be buried in a closed casket as usual, and because transplants must take place very soon after death, there is usually no delay in burial procedures for the donor because of the transplantation. 

 

Most rabbis would also allow Jews to donate to an organ bank because the shortage of organs means that the organ will be used to help someone very soon even if not immediately.  Whether one may donate one's body to science for purposes of medical education or research is more controversial, with only a minority of rabbis permitting it, and then only when those purposes cannot be achieved by other means.  (Increasingly, first year anatomy classes in medical school are done on computer rather than on cadavers.)  

 

Some Jews believe that you must be buried whole to be resurrected and therefore refuse to make their bodies available for transplant, but you do not want to be resurrected in the body in which you died: that did not serve you very well in the end! God is going to have to do reconstructive surgery on you in any case and can certainly replace the organs that you donate.  In the meantime, it is absolutely crucial that Jews donate their organs for transplant so that we can save lives and critical bodily functions. 

 

For more on this, see my book, Elliot N. Dorff, Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1998).