Monsey NY – A small ad in a newsletter from his youngest child’s yeshiva caught David Wiener’s attention.
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“Kidney needed,” it said.
Wiener, a Spring Valley father of nine, knew nothing more. But he was intrigued.
He discussed with his wife, then his doctor, the idea of donating one of his kidneys to a stranger. Then Wiener broached the topic with another important person in his life: his rabbi.
What Wiener learned surprised him and reflected the changing attitudes about organ donation among Jews.
“I feel that it’s very important for everyone – Jewish or not – to understand how important it is to give,” he said. “It’s so easy to save someone’s life.”
Many Jews have long been under the impression that Jewish law forbids organ donation after death because it is considered defiling the body.
But that attitude is changing – due in part to writing by an internationally respected Monsey rabbi.
Moses David Tendler, a professor of medical ethics and biology at Yeshiva University, has written extensively about Jewish law and organ donation. journalnews [to read this extensive article]
Tendler; what a disgrace, a disease. Let him donate his heart and both lungs.
Anon. 10:15, You crack me up.
“SHIGETZ AROS”, fin veee???!!!
There’s a famous, [but doubtfully
true]story about Tendler, when he
said the Hesped (eulogy) for his
father in-law ZTZ”L. He started out
by saying that his f.i.l. made three mistakes. So, someone in the crowd spoke up & said that the first mistake he made was to take him as a son-in-law.
These two stories have no connection! A living person donating a kidney is considered to be a tremendous mitzvah by most of the gedolei haposkim. This has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with organ donation after death! I don’t know who wrote this article, but to link this Mr Weiner, who did a tremendous chesed, to Tendler is wrong. As he looks to me to be a fine erlicher Monsey yid, he is probably embarrassed to be connected to Tendler!
Thank you Rabbi Weiner.I know the recipient and you saved his life.
May Hashem grant you many years of Health and Hapiness to you and your family.
annon 10:15
i think a better way of saying it would be ‘TOMEH AROUS’
this so called ‘tendler’ is a rabble rouser. ‘always was…
constantly getting into arguments with mainstream Orthodoxy.
I don’t kmow whether Tendler is a Gaon in medical information, as one Anonymous said. However, being a Gaon in medical niformation does not qualify him to Pasken Shailos. If being a Gaon in medical information were the criterion for paskenen Shailos, there are many non-Jews who are greater Gaonim than Tendler in medical matters.
There is no reputable Posek in any Orthodox circle that considers Tendler to have any credibility when it comes to Halacha. He makes up Halacha to conform with societal trends. No less an authority than Rabbi J. David Bleich, a Professor of bio-medical ethics at Yeshivah University (and renowned throughout the world as an expert in this area of Halacha) has characterized Tendler as a fraud when it comes to these issues (Rabbi Bleich used a more polite word than fraud, but it means the same thing) Nothing Tender says about Halacha can be taken seriously.
I don’t know how Tendler got in this story. Dovid Weiner has nothing to do with Tendler
a few years ago tendler tried the same mishdgaas and r s z orbach and all other responsible rabbonim paskened that a jew is not allowed to donate organs after death or from b raindead person hashem yishmor vechol karnai reshoim agadea
Well he has validity in other communities, he is a gaon in medical information.
In the heimishe Monsey circles, Tendler is known to be “nisht fin inzere”. Nothing that he says or does carries any halachic validity in his own neighborhood!
The picture is the person who donated the kidney. He is the Mr Wiener who did a big mitzvah by donating his kidney. Tendler on the other hand……. Who does not remember Rabbi Shlesingers words, “as er iz nishst vert as mer zol dermannan zein nomen in a mokom kadosh”.
Kidneys and other organs can be donated, and if a person is healthy and able to it is a mitzvah gedolah.
Who is that in thw picture?
To quote Rav J. David Bleich, “No responsible posek holds that brain death is considered death.” To donate an organ, the heart has to still be pumping – according to all reputable poskim, if the heart is still pumping the person is still alive.
However, a kidney can be donated even while a person is fully alive, since still have the second kidney to live off of.
Many Rabbonim do not recognize brain death as a criterion for death and do not allow organ donations from one “brain dead”.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Auerbach.pdf
But that attitude is changing – due in part to writing by an internationally respected Monsey rabbi.
The only respect he is getting must be coming from the Catholic Church. It sounds like Metziza B’Peh # 2.
this guy tendler is NO rabbi at all maybe he can learn but he is from the mekor hatimah……its known fact that his father inlaw Rav Moshe said to his close people “Ich hob mich toah geven in ich hob vhrutah”. and we all know that he was the one that started the whole bris story……. SHIGETZ AROS !!!