Q&A: Self-Sacrifice for an Adi Card
Self-Sacrifice for an Adi Card
Question
Regarding the halakhic question about signing an “Adi” donor card, can the following line of thought be suggested?
A. There is a halakhic prohibition against committing suicide. B. It is halakhically permitted—or perhaps justified as a “transgression for the sake of Heaven”—to commit suicide in order to save other people (Ro'i Klein). By analogy: A. Let us assume that it is forbidden to take organs at the time of brain death (because halakhic death is cardiac), and therefore removing organs from the standpoint of the person is an act of suicide (and from the standpoint of the doctor, murder). B. However, one could argue that since this act saves many people, I am “giving up my life” and “committing suicide” for that purpose.
Is this analogy justified from the standpoint of the person who wants to sign an “Adi” card? Two possible distinctions between the cases: A. The halakhic or meta-halakhic justifications in case A apply only to an event happening right now. Only then is there a “transgression for the sake of Heaven,” but deciding now to sign an “Adi” card even though the event will only occur in the future has no present justification. This requires further analysis. B. There is no difference, but in case A the person makes the decision about himself, and for that there is justification. But in case B, in the end we are taking organs from him, and that we cannot do (even though he expressed his consent while fully lucid). This too requires further analysis.
Answer
Your assumption is incorrect. There is no permission whatsoever to commit suicide in order to save other people. Ro'i Klein did something forbidden (unless there was some operational-military consideration there, which does not seem likely to me).
But in my opinion there is permission to harvest a heart after brain death; see my article on organ donation: https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%AA%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%AA-%D7%90%D7%99%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D1/
Discussion on Answer
Absolutely not. What does this have to do with a transgression for the sake of Heaven? A transgression for the sake of Heaven is not just a transgression done with good intentions. We are talking about a situation that justifies a transgression. Regarding the importance of intentions in a transgression for the sake of Heaven, I’ve commented on that and you can search for it here on the site (in my opinion it is not important, although there are halakhic decisors who wrote that it is).
With a large number of people, there is room to be lenient. The Tzitz Eliezer wrote this, for example.
I didn’t quite understand. Isn’t an act of transgression through which I save ten people the ultimate case that justifies violating a prohibition? What situation could justify it more than that?!
Saving the Jewish people, for example. When you are told that you may not commit suicide in order to save someone else (one person, or three), why is your suicide to save him not considered a transgression for the sake of Heaven? Because that is exactly what was forbidden. A transgression for the sake of Heaven is always a case where the prohibition is general, and then suddenly an exceptional situation arises in which it seems proper to you to violate the prohibition for a reason unique to that specific situation. So because there is no halakhic permission for such a thing, it is indeed a transgression—but a transgression for the sake of Heaven. By contrast, when you simply commit an ordinary transgression that Jewish law itself forbade, there is no logic in defining it as a transgression for the sake of Heaven. If I desecrate the Sabbath in order to visit my friend, is that a transgression for the sake of Heaven? The goal is good, but Jewish law forbids exactly that. There is nothing exceptional here. It is just a plain transgression.
Thank you very much for the detailed answer.
So you agree that in saving the Jewish people it is different, and I assumed that when the rescue is of ten people the situation is also different. I assume you would agree with me that the boundary is not sharp. In any case, I had thought that the halakhically forbidden act was suicide without rescue involved (or with only minimal rescue). And in your view I was mistaken about that (since even a major rescue—but not of the entire Jewish people—is halakhically forbidden and still is not a “transgression for the sake of Heaven”). Okay. Thanks again.
It seems puzzling to say that jumping on a grenade to save others is a forbidden act. The categories of saving a life are clearly not applicable in war, because war requires self-sacrifice, and part of self-sacrifice in war includes actions like these.
Don’t you think that this is exactly the kind of case about which “a transgression for the sake of Heaven” was said? And even with a large number of people, would you still not see it that way?