148 Alan Sokobin
is doubtful whether or not he is there, or whether he is alive or dead, or whether he is an Israelite or a heathen, one should open [even on the Sabbath ] the heap of the debris for his sake. If one finds him alive, one should remove the debris, and if he be dead one should leave him there[until the Sabbath day is over].#?
The discussion continues: Our Rabbis taught: How far does one search[to ascertain whether he is dead or live]? Until[he reaches] his nose. Some say: Up to his heart: If one searches and finds those above to be dead, one must not assume those below are surely dead... life manifests itself principally through the nose as it is written:‘In whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit [breath] of life.” 143
Moses Maimonides , the twelfth-century legal scholar and philosopher, was also a physician. His codification of Talmudic law defined death.“If upon examination, no sign of breathing can be detected at the nose, the victim must be left where he is [until after the Sabbath ] because he is already dead.”'* The still authoritative sixteenth-century Jewish code of law, the Shulchan Aruch, states:“Even if the victim was found so severely injured he cannot live for more than a short while, one must probe[the debris] until one reaches his nose. If one cannot detect signs of respiration at the nose, then he is certainly dead.”
An eminent modern Orthodox analyst of the law, Rabbi J. David Bleich , has confirmed this definition as being authoritative for traditional Judaism .'* Rabbi Bleich writes extensively on the subject of bioethics. He insists that Jewish law rejects brain death and irreversible coma as definitions of the end of life.'¥” He asserts that only when there is total cessation of both cardiac and respiratory activity can we say that one is dead.'*® Bleich totally rejects the position of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School .
Responding to the new secular definition of death,'* some rabbinical authorities sought definitions, which could harmonize the ancient and authoritative Jewish definition of death with the new medical understandings. The Rabbinical Council of Israel stated that“the halakhah holds that death occurs with cessation of respiration. Therefore one must confirm that respiration has ceased completely and irreversibly. This can be established by confirmation of destruction of the entire brain, including the brain stem, which is the pivotal activator of independent respiration in humans.” 5!