QUESTION: What are the religious connotations of the fact that an artificial heart may for a time revive a patient whose heart has stopped beating? Or if a patient is revived after irreparable damage has been done to the brain, would such action be deemed justified by Jewish religious tradition?(Question referred by Nelson Glueck , Cincinnati , OH )*
ANSWER: The various matters involved here have all become actual and practical due to modern methods of resuscitating those apparently dead. They involve many ethical and traditional problems as the questions quite properly indicate.
First of all, what does tradition consider physical evidence of death? When has death actually occurred? This question became a practical one almost two hundred years ago when laws were passed in various Central European countries prohibiting the traditional Jewish custom of burying the dead on the very day of death. These new laws had in mind the possibility that a patient may seem to be dead and not really be dead and that, therefore, there must be no burial before three days have passed. When Moses Mendelssohn was asked, he argued that a three day delay was permissible by Jewish law. Jacob Emden proved the opposite, namely, that it was not permissible to delay burial. Later when the same decree was passed in the Austro-Hungarian Empire , other incidental problems were involved. For example, could a doctor who was a Kohen examine the dead to see that they are actually dead? Could he examine the body two days after the apparent death, which the law would require and which Jewish law forbids to a Kohen?
This question was taken up by the great Hungarian authority, Moses Sofer , in his Responsa, Yoreh Deah,#338, and his chief proof is based upon tradition, namely, that our people who deal with the burial (the Hevrah Qadisha) have an inherited tradition of ancient wisdom and
. That test is mainly has finished and the s assumption of an
they can tell whether the person is really dead or not whether there is any breathing. When the breathing| pulse has ceased, the person is declared dead. Thi