• “What is hateful to you, do not do unto your neighbor” is not, accurately speaking, Hillel’s “version of ‘the entire Torah.’” It is, in part, Hillel’s response to a proselyte’s rather impudent request that he teach all of Torah while the inquisitor stands on one foot—in other words, succinctly enough that Hillel can finish before the other gentleman loses either his balance or his strength. The remainder of Hillel’s response—“The rest is commentary; now, go and study”—is fully as important to an understanding of his teaching as is the first part.
   
• Once one undertakes to study “the rest” (which in this context, I would argue, includes all of Tanakh if not the Talmud and other teachings of chazal, our rabbinic sages), even a casual student would quickly discover that we best show our love for God by treating others with compassion and dignity, and that the ritual mitzvot have no value when performed by one who does not take the needs of others to heart. See, for example, Isaiah 58, which we read on Yom Kippur morning, where the prophet represents Israel crying out, “Why, when we fasted, did you not see?” and God replying, “Because on your fast day you see to your business and oppress all your laborers! …Is such the fast I desire?” (Is. 58: 3, 5).

Is there anything we can learn from high-profile Jews caught in scandals? If you were going to reference Anthony Weiner (for example) in a weekly sermon, what would you say?

In response to your more general question, is there anything we can learn from high-profile Jews caught in scandals, the answer is always yes.  What we learn, of course, varies with the circumstances.  Except for one lesson, which remains fairly consistent no matter what the scandal or who the high-profile Jew: one’s behavior reflects on one’s community.

I’m a little surprised to be the one to bring this up, because I usually lag behind other rabbis in raising an alarm about antisemitism.  While its history and impact is undeniable, I feel the charge or concern of antisemitism is often overblown, and sometimes an excuse for the Jewish community not tending to real failings or transgressions that we have committed, whether communally or individually.  Furthermore, I would always argue against anyone who tries to make negative generalizations about gay men, or Catholics, based on the behavior of a pedophilic gay priest, for example, or about Muslims based on the actions of a few terrorists.  People are complicated, and no one’s behavior or life choices can be reduced or attributed to a single aspect of her or his identity, whether religion, skin color, sexual orientation, or political allegiance.

Perhaps it’s because of the time I’ve spent in the South, in places where Jews are few and far between, in communities where children are raised by their parents to carry the reputation of the entire Jewish community on their shoulders, knowing that they are often the only Jewish person most of their associates will ever know.  Perhaps it is that, knowing how human nature tends toward the very prejudices and generalizations I eschew, I work all the harder to protect myself and those I care about from such unjust associations.  I hesitate to say what I’m about to say, because I shrink from the kind of reductive thinking that leads to statements like this, but: It’s bad for the Jews.

I did not hear a single mention of Senator Weiner’s religious affiliation in all the mainstream media coverage of his political and personal fall from grace; I do not believe that there is a widespread danger of an antisemitic backlash.  However, we can be sure that somewhere, someone who has never knowingly met a Jew thinks just a little bit less of the Jewish people for Weiner’s performance. 

Kol Yisrael aravim zeh bazeh, we read in the Talmud, “all Israel is responsible for one another.”  During Yamim Nora’im, the High Holy Days, we make public confessions of sins, not because every one of us has committed every sin, but because as a community we accept some responsibility for upholding communal standards, for supporting one another in learning to live by our values.  Spiritually, if in no other way, we all suffer when one of us stumbles.

What do we learn from someone like Anthony Weiner?  To look carefully after our own actions, to teach our children and our students well, to speak often about what we expect of ourselves and each other, to support one another in resisting temptation, and sometimes—we have yet to see in Weiner’s case—we learn how to make teshuvah, to make reparations for our missteps, to return to a path of uprightness.

“If you will it, it is no dream,” Theodore Herzl famously wrote in his utopian novel and de facto Zionist manifesto Old New Land.  The catch is that he was not writing of dreams in general but of his particular dream of a Jewish homeland built by human hands, which, interestingly, also presented and continues to present difficulties for some traditional Jews.  The answer to your question, of course, is “it depends”—depends on the dream, depends on what you mean by “Torah values,” and depends on the person you are asking.             

            Perhaps it goes without saying, but if fulfillment of your dream requires manifestly illegal and/or immoral actions or elements, you will very likely find yourself at an impasse with Torah values.  (Even here, however, it is not so simple; consider the Freedom Riders, now celebrating the 50th anniversary of their brave and illegal action, which succeeded in changing an immoral law; or the situation of same-sex couples today, who live in defiance of some laws and others’ morals, but whom some of us passionately support in their dream to live and build a family with the person they love.)  

            If by “Torah values” you mean traditional Torah values, then there will be dreams that, while neither illegal nor immoral are in direct violation of halakhah.  For example, if it were your dream to eat a ham & cheese sandwich on Yom Kippur while remaining true to traditional Torah values, you might find yourself at a bit of a dead end.  (I can already hear the arguments: “but if you were dying of hunger on Yom Kippur, and a ham sandwich were the only sustenance available….” Still, it would be forbidden to pursue or orchestrate such circumstances.)

            And it depends on whom you ask.  As Rabbi Zeev Smason pointed out in his answer to a similar question on this site, Naama Shafir reportedly received “special dispensation” to play basketball on Shabbat, while another Jewishly observant and exceptionally talented basketball player, Tamir Goodman, turned down an offer to play for the University of Maryland when they were unable to honor his requirement that he not play on Shabbat.  Different rabbis and different Jews differ in their interpretations of Torah values, even within a single stream of Judaism.  In the end, Goodman received an offer from another Division I school, so he was able to fulfill his dream while adhering to his stricter interpretation of Shabbat law.  Perhaps one lesson of all this is that you’ll never know what’s possible to accomplish within the realm of traditional Jewish observance until you try.

            From a Reform perspective, the answer to your question is that every Jew must answer this question for her- or himself, and that in order to answer this question, each one of us must be very clear about what “Torah values” means to us.  Our answers to such questions may change over the course of our lives as we and our circumstances change.  How can we remain true to Torah and true to ourselves throughout so much fluctuation and uncertainty?  Only through a lifelong engagement with Jewish study and a lifelong pursuit of our own truth, which, depending on one's theology, is also God’s truth.

You’ve asked two questions here, and the answer to each seems to be governed by the principle of dina de-malkhuta dina, the law of the land is the law, which Rabbi Yuter cites in his answer at IIb.  As Jews, we would additionally take into account a general sense of what is the right thing to do, as Rabbi Yuter also points out.

I am not a lawyer, but my husband is, and he’s been kind enough to give us a brief primer on copyright law, which is the law of the land in this case.

First, you ask whether a digital file is “public property” once it is shared and online.  The fact that something is online never automatically indicates that it is free for the taking.  If a file contains a work that is in the public domain, and there is no copyright holder, it can be freely shared, copied, etc.  The website librivox.org offers an example of a situation where thousands of audio files of literary works in the public domain are free for the sharing, copying, and taking. 

On the other hand, if an image, recording, or written work is protected by copyright, the wishes of the copyright owner would prevail.  A copyright holder who posts something online might indicate that the file is available for copying and sharing freely, or might indicate that it is intended for listening/viewing/enjoying only at the location where it is posted.

Second, you ask whether you can give a file to others once you have bought it.  The legal answer is yes, just as if you buy an actual cd or dvd or a bound book on paper you may give it as a gift.  What you may not do with a digital file (as with an actual cd or dvd or bound book) is make a copy of it to keep it for yourself and give it as a gift.

That’s the civil law. Returning to the realm of Jewish values, I would emphasize that ultimately, as Jews, we are absolutely obligated to honor the intent of the copyright holder.  These works are the fruits of the artist’s labor, and often represent her or his livelihood.  Copying online or digital files without permission is stealing.

“Just as a man has a right to live, so there comes a time when he has a right to die.”

This is how Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof, then chairman of the Responsa Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, interpreted the words of Sefer Chasidim, reflecting on the words of Kohelet, “there is a time to live and a time to die”: “If a man is dying, we do not pray too hard that his soul return and that he revive from the coma; he can at best live only a few days and in those days will endure great suffering; so ‘there is a time to die.’” Rabbi Freehof goes on to show that the Talmudic and post-Talmudic record permits us to remove that which hinders death, providing that in doing so we do not disturb the patient in a manner that may hasten death (e.g., B. Ketubot 104a, where the servant-woman of Rabbi Judah the Prince smashes a earthen jar as he lay dying in order to disturb the incessant prayers of his students, that his soul might peacefully depart; Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De-a 339, which states that one may not remove a pillow from beneath the head of the dying patient but may stop someone from chopping wood outside when the rhythmic sound of wood-chopping “focuses the mind of the dying patient and prevents his soul from departing”).[1] 

In other words, “preventing that which delays the death” of one whose death is imminent is permitted.  Jewish law does not require us to preserve life regardless of outcome.[2]

My teacher Rabbi Mark Washofsky, current chair of our Responsa Committee, comments further on this issue. Treatments that no longer offer any hope of healing, he writes, treatments that might delay death but “can neither reverse nor halt the decline” of a patient, “are no longer considered medicine; the patient may refuse them.”[3]

While we have no absolute test for when a patient is terminal, for when death is imminent enough; or for when a treatment ceases to have any therapeutic effect; Jewish law clearly allows us to engage in these moral choices, uncertain as they may be.  As Rabbi Washofsky concludes in his discussion of Refusing Medical Treatment:

We do not make this choice arbitrarily; we do not think that all the alternatives are equally good or equally bad. We decide as carefully and as thoroughly as we can, weighing the information at our disposal and the circumstances of the case against the teachings of Jewish tradition as we understand them.  What emerges from this process, from the moral discussion or argument we conduct within our communities and within ourselves, is a decision that we can never be sure is absolutely “correct.” It is, however, the best we can do.  It is all we are expected to do. And it is most assuredly what we must do if we are to fulfill what is expected of us as religious Jews and moral beings.[4]

Submitted with prayers for the patient and his family, that they may all find strength and comfort in God’s healing embrace.

Jewish tradition views the human body and life itself as gifts from God, and thus demands that we protect ourselves from all harm.  (Exceptions are made in the case of saving another life.)  The selling of hair or even blood (which you do not mention in your question but which naturally presents itself in this context) for legitimate purposes presents no threat of harm: the body easily and relatively quickly replaces these products.  As Rabbi Bulka suggests, a donation, constituting a greater mitzvah, would be preferable, but there is no objection to the sale of hair, blood, or mother’s milk, which would also fall into this category.[1]

The questions of whether to sell eggs, sperm, or the use of one’s uterus (i.e., to become a maternal surrogate), are of an entirely different order as these pertain to the creation of a human life. They therefore raise an additional layer of questions vis-a-vis the relationship of the paid donor to the child(ren) that might result following the transaction.  Nevertheless, Reform responsa generally allow for these sorts of arrangements for the sake of helping a couple who desire to have a child, especially in the case of a Jewish couple who are traditionally obligated to “be fruitful and multiply.”  This would seem to be so regardless of the motivations of the donor (assuming the donor approaches the transaction honestly and honorably).  As a friend of mine likes to say, “ ‘It’s the thought that counts’ is not a very Jewish idea.”

Sperm donation presents the simplest case, since both the procedure involved and the relationship between donor and recipient is minimal.  Egg donation is more complicated because donation requires a more significant investment of time, sometimes travel, submission to medical intervention, and physical discomfort, raising the question of harm.  Furthermore, the long-term effects of egg harvesting on donors is not yet known.  Regarding surrogacy, which presents the most difficult ethical questions because of heightened risks of economic exploitation, emotional trauma, physical injury, and compromised human dignity, the Reform responsum “give [surrogacy] our hesitant approval as we await ‘further clarification of medical and civil legal issues.’ We caution in the strongest terms that the parties involved must not enter into a surrogacy agreement without much careful thought and counseling concerning its attendant medical, legal and psychological risks.”[2] 

In all of these cases, Reform Judaism is also concerned that the donor may be motivated by economic desperation, and would hold the community responsible for helping such individuals rather than encouraging the sale of human biological products.