SELECTED REFORM RESPONSA

his first wife, being moribund, is to be considered as legally dead?(The conclusion, incidentally, is that such gidushin are prohibited.)

A fuller discussion of the question of moribundity in man is given again by Moses Sofer in his Responsa, Yoreh Deah#52. It begins with a question of an animal that was shot with bird-shot and lived longer that the period of twelve months. Is the animal to be considered terefah and therefore unfit for food? After discussing this primary question, he goes into the question of the extent to which these rules of terefah animals apply to man, and he says, of course, that man may survive certain ailments and injuries which would be fatal in animals, because of the belief that man has a protecting angel or good luck, adam it lei mazala.(Shabat 53a) And sometimes medicines applied to a human being will cure him. On the other hand, he says, in some ways man is weaker than animals and the various injuries, etc., mentioned as fatal apply all the more to man than they do to animals.

The questions asked involve also the matter of brain injuries. It is interesting to note that this question is also asked and discussed in the Talmud . For example, a brain injury would declare an animal terefah but with a man it would have to be not only a fracture of the skull but also an injury to the lining of the brain(cf. Tos. to Hulin 42b). And also, the Talmud in Hulin S7b tells of an incident that happened in the town of En Bol, where a man had a hole in his head and they made him a plug of gourd shell and he lived. But one rabbi says that the patient lived only because that event occurred in the summer but when the winter came he died.

Out of all this discussion they have a general standard of moribundity. First the one in the Mishnah , Hulin II, 1, that when similar injuries are fatal in others, these injuries, wherever they occur, are deemed fatal. And, secondly, the rule that those that are not likely to survive twelve months are considered to be moribund(terefah). Now the practical ethical problem is this: Whatever their ancient rules were as to moribundity, we must understand that the rules of analogy with

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