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@Avira
It’s worth noting that when I was learning in a halacha kollel here in Eretz Yisrael, and we had various rabbonim come and talk with us about practical topics, a few mentioned that most poskim take on the Tzitz Eliezer’s psak over Rav Moshe’s by abortion.There’s a great article written by Rabbi Moshe Hauer (a musmach from ner Yisroel- maybe not the most chareidi Rav, but definitely mainstream) who explains that Rav Moshe’s psak is quite unusual.
Unlike his other psakim, here it seems like Rav moshe first decided that abortion is assur and then wrote a teshuva to justify it.Rabbi Hauer wrote his personal hargasha- that Rav Moshe’s impetus for writing the teshuva was he saw the tremendous slippery slope America was falling down. He saw how abortion was becoming very common, much more than it should be, and so he went “overboard” so to speak to reaffirm that it’s assur.
While this is just Rabbi Hauer’s opinion, I’ve heard other rabbonim basically saying the same thing. The Tzitz Eliezer’s mehalech is a more simpler approach and is more accepted by poskim- though perhaps they are not as lenient as he would have been.
ABORTION
The “Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice” is set to take place today in Washington, D.C. Led by the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), the list of rally sponsors includes the ADL, Hadassah, Hillel and several Jewish Community Centers and Jewish Community Relations Council chapters. Rabbinic, cantorial and synagogue associations of all major Jewish-American denominations will be represented, with one glaring exception: those of the Orthodox.The stated goal of the rally is to proclaim that “Abortion access is a Jewish value, plain and simple.” Its real goal, however, is to gaslight broad swaths of the country, and to provide cover for secularist elites. The rally’s organizers, sponsors and supporters wish to render the killing of a fetus a religious liberty “right” and, at the same time, promote the dangerous fiction that a rational pro-life position violates the “separation of church and state.”
In situations where termination of pregnancy is necessary to save the mother’s life, it would be offensive to claim that such a basic humanitarian concern is uniquely tied to a particular religion. Is chemotherapy a “Jewish value?” What about access to X-rays or organ transplants? The panoply of sponsors, then, are not addressing the actual underlying debate. They are rallying to demand, in the name of religion, elective feticide until the moment of birth.
According to a didactic tale, a well-meaning person once asked a rabbi, “If you were to bless a pig, would that make the animal kosher?” “No,” the rabbi replied, “but it would make me trayf (not kosher)!” Jewish values are not determined by an alphabet soup of Jewish organizations, but by an immutable and transcendent code of Jewish spirituality, ethics and law. And that Jewish code is clear that life and the soul precede birth. In Genesis, for example, Rebecca is told that her unborn twins have distinct natures (25:23). In the Prophets, G-d informs Jeremiah, “Before I placed you in the womb I knew you, before you left the uterus I sanctified you, I appointed you a prophet to the nations” (1:5).
Moreover, Jewish tradition insists upon adherence to the Oral Law, in which the Mishnah provides moral instruction that a mother must be saved even at the expense of her child, if necessary, “because her life precedes his life” (Ohalos 7:6). Read that again, because the NCJW, the lead sponsor of the rally, refers to this Mishnah without quoting its explicit reference to the “life” of the fetus. Inexplicably, in the same paragraph, NCJW claims that, under Jewish law, a fetus is “not yet having [a] life of its own.”
This is shocking, and shameful. Still worse, other major Jewish organizations and even “rabbinic” groups signed on as rally sponsors, despite the NCJW’s perversion of an obvious statement in Jewish law.
Every citizen has a democratic right to advocate a public policy position, but it is wrong to misuse or mistakenly invoke the First Amendment. Unfortunately, many American Jews have so utterly lost sight of that which Judaism holds dear that they have elevated their own progressive agenda to the level of faith, likely to fill a resulting spiritual void. This rally, led by those who cherry-pick, decontextualize and distort Jewish law to support their position, will draw from those ranks. As mentioned earlier, no Orthodox organization will be at the rally.
This dichotomy between authentic Judaism and idolization of the progressive platform manifests itself in other ways, as well. In several weeks, the Jewish world will celebrate the 3,334th anniversary of G-d’s giving of the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai. Jews who faithfully adhere to the Mishnah’s teachings will pray in synagogues around the world, celebrating what we believe to be G-d’s greatest gift. Yet, even conceding that I have no special talent for predicting the future, it is quite certain that not 5% of the attendees at the “Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice” will fully observe this annual festival of Shavuot.
Even holding faith aside for a moment, common sense should also have its say. Visit a neonatal ICU, and you will meet babies who cannot yet breathe on their own or ingest nutrients. Yet they are learning to recognize and find comfort in familiar voices, music and their own thumbs. Doctors and nurses work around the clock to ensure that these babies go on to live normal lives. It is utterly nonsensical to argue that a fetus, in precisely the same situation during a routine pregnancy, is not alive.
The transparent and patently dishonest message of the “Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice” is that valuing life is neither a matter of common sense nor an American principle, but rather a parochially Christian tenet—and, further, a tenet that constitutes a violation of the much-ballyhooed “separation of church and state.” Balderdash. In fact, the sanctity of life and the importance of traditional morality both come directly from the Hebrew Bible. Thus, all Americans, especially of the Abrahamic religions, should reject the progressives’ position, predicated as it is upon the absurd notion that it is somehow unconstitutional for the moral values of the citizenry to be reflected in the laws that govern our society.
“In situations where termination of pregnancy is necessary to save the mother’s life, it would be offensive to claim that such a basic humanitarian concern is uniquely tied to a particular religion. ” ?
Great line.
You should check with the religion that has been demanding abortion bans before you answer for them. You might be offensively surprised.Tzitz
Eliezer
Ahh
And who used to condemn Ultramontaneism
the same people pulling him out now?Gefilte Fish,
Please do not minimize Rav Moshe who was the Posek Hador and his psak by saying that current events has anything to do with it.
On the thread where I mentioned the discussion with Rabbi Tendler zatsal , it is clear from Rabbi Tendler , that Rav Moshe held that his psak on abortion was Daas Torah. It was Daas Torah in the year 2448 and the same in the year 5782.Reb E – the same people who do follow those kulos from rav Moshe are the ones who now cast him aside in favor of whoever will grant them what they want.
I think “most rabbonim” quoted here refers to shul rabbis and communally involved modern Orthodox or black hat wearing religious zionists, to be honest.
Time for truth – well said. Modern orthodoxy is a mirror, usually, of liberal but centrist goyim. At the time, most liberal goyim were opposed to abortion, and it was considered somewhat radical to support it. MO rabbis had no blowback for being against it. Nowadays, most MO people believe in it (and other abominations), and even some people with velvet fabric on their heads spout “right to privacy” nonsense and the slippery slope argument. That’s why many MO rabbis shifted. You want to know what MO will say next year? Take out a new york times magazine from 5 years ago, and it’ll match up almost perfectly.
You’re right that they pick and choose. This is probably the only teshuva from the tzitz eliezer that they know, much like the only rambam that they know is his shitoh about being supported by the community to learn. It’s honestly pathetic.
As for the claim that the tzitz eliezer is more grounded than rav Moshe – how much shimush have you had in psak to make such a vlaim? Rav Moshe was very meikil, and had no problems allowing things that the majority didn’t. If you eat cholov stam (which im sure the above posters do) then you should not dismiss his psak on abortions either. The psak is “unusual” because they’re used to rav moshe allowing everything, so when he says no to something – emphatically so – rather than listen to the manhig hador, they turn and dig up whoever they can find who says what they want to hear.
Rav Moshe was also from alonr. Rav avigdor miller called abortion infanticide.
Daas, if you were to drink the same good stuff I do, you would notice that I referred a _greater_ r Moshe – son of Maimon. I am not trying to rank Rabonim, I am just replying to those who do it as a way to quash other opnions. I am also in no way support Roe, just trying to understand the range of halakha that is absolute and what are the social components. As Gefilte mentions, it is possible that R Moshe was reacting to the social conditions (and I have no problem with that too).
As expected, the issue is now back part of public discourse, after being frozen for 50 years by the courts. I don’t know whether it will lead to some mature conclusions or will be ugly. I guess, Hashem gives people bechira hofshit .. for now, some arguments are somewhat inartful – one article bemoans that colleges are concerned. I thought they are concerned by a need to reduce “fun” on campus, maybe making them less popular. Turns out their concern is even simpler – they are concerned that mothers will have hard time studying and will drop out.
No Avira it’s unusual because R Moshe ignores or argues with the vast majority of achronim who have dealt with the issue. This is not unusual for R Moshe kdarko b’kodesh but generally other poskim didn’t Pasken in that style
The tzitz Eliezer is more “grounded” in chain of mesora going through achronim.To be clear. Of course R Moshe could, I am not chas veshalom questioning his psak chas veshalom. Nor am I choosing who to follow. I am just relaying that in practice R Moshe is not followed in this regard
“I think “most rabbonim” quoted here refers to shul rabbis and communally involved modern Orthodox or black hat wearing religious zionists, to be honest.”
In my experience, shul Rabbis don’t deal with these questions. They start at the ob gyn and go straight to the relevant poskim if chasidish then chadidish yeshivish then their community (I’m not as well worked in modern orthodox community though I doubt shul rabbanim get these questions there either)Gefilte,
I’m skeptical thst R Hauer writes that. Where can this article be found?the writer chose to completely ignore that Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik were concerned for the Rambam’s view that abortion is murder and paskened accordingly,
.
Furthermore, in the late 1980’s, when it appeared that Roe might be overturned, and hundreds of thousands of people protested to preserve abortion- Rav Aaron Soloveichik referred to those protesters as “pagans”
Abortion is being portrayed as if it were something in shulchan sruch, where the magen avrohom says one thing and the elya rabba another, and rav moshe ignores them to deliver his own psak. Rav moshe deals with rav yaakov emden(an acharon who actually isn’t given as much weight as the kreisi uplaysi, for instance), but there aren’t that many sources on the subject, much less an established precedent as if they’re in the rishonim and nosei keilim. Rav moshe was, as i said, literally on the level of learning of an early acharon, as anyone can see from his dibros moshe.
In psak, rav moshe often argues with achronim, he was criticized by some who didn’t recognize his gadlus in learning, like the author of maaneh le’igros, who had his own issues… zionism, Holocaust denial (as in, denying the causes thereof), etc..
You’re kidding ! The Ma’aneh guy arguing from quarterly journals and blogs
To posit that abortion is somehow permitted, one must completely reject the psak of Rav Moshe as illegitimate
We have rules of psak.
In cases of pikuach nefesh and murder, we are adjured to follow the viewpoint of the rabbi who rules in favor of life (in favor of saving a life and not ending it), even if it is one rabbinical personage over 10 greater rabbis, provided that the rabbi’s viewpoint is considered legitimate.That is even on the assumption the opinions are of equal weight which-with regards to abortion issues is dubiousAlso, the writer chose to completely ignore that Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik were concerned for the Rambam’s view that abortion is murder and paskened accordingly
Iirc the Lubavitcher Rebbe advocated banning abortion on demand completely
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Rabbi J. David Bleich
…Imagine that one day intelligent, moral and peace-loving Martians land on Earth seeking to establish fraternal inter-planetary relations with earthlings. A debate might break out with regard to whether they are “persons” entitled to the protections and immunities guaranteed by the U.S. constitution. There is no cogent legal precedent that might be invoked to determine whether they are human. Since we do not know whether or not they are “persons,” can we conclude that they may be exterminated with impunity? A hunter hiking through the woods catches sight of an apparition. He cannot determine whether what he sees is a bear or a human being. He shoots and to his chagrin discovers that he has killed a man. Is he guilty of negligent manslaughter or worse?
The Gemara debates the moment of ensoulment. The question has profound ontological implications but no bearing whatsoever upon the halakhic status of the fetus. True, over a period of centuries, halakhic decisors have disagreed with regard to that matter. But Rambam, Noda bi-Yehuda, R. Chaim Soloveichik and R. Moshe Feinstein (and, at least in one pronouncement, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate as well) – and that list is far from exhaustive – unequivocally found feticide to be a non-capital form of homicide justifiable only if the fetus itself poses a threat to the mother. Rabbi Feinstein was an extremely pleasant, sweet, mild-mannered and tolerant person. Yet, when confronted by a much more permissive responsum of a respected rabbinic figure he did not hesitate to write in response, “May his Master forgive him.”
As far as non-Jews are concerned, there is not even a scintilla of controversy. Abortion is an even more grievous offense under the provisions of the Noachide Code. For non-Jews, abortion is a capital offense. Is it conceivable that Jews and Jewish organizations now criticize the Supreme Court for acknowledging that there is no right to abortion on demand? Jews are charged to serve as a beacon unto the nations, not to urge and abet transgression of the Seven Commandments of the sons of Noah. Elsewhere, I have marshalled sources demonstrating that falsification of the Sinaitic tradition is tantamount to idolatry.
Judaism owes a debt of gratitude to the Church for filling a lacuna we have allowed to develop. Rambam questioned why the Holy One, blessed be He, allows Christianity to flourish. His answer was that the Church has kept alive and given wide currency to belief in the Messiah. Were Rambam alive today, I am fully confident that he would acknowledge that such a role is now being fulfilled by others and would have offered a different answer to his question. Today, he would respond that the Church deserves accolades for preserving recognition of the sanctity of human life in all of its phases as manifest in categorization of feticide as homicide. Jews were charged with promulgating that teaching by deed and by word. To our eternal shame, Divine Providence found other ways to do so.
The argument that the lives of Jewish women will be endangered by rejection of Roe v. Wade is specious – and fully known to be so by those who advance it. Pregnant women had no constitutional difficulties in procuring medical abortions before Roe v. Wade and will face no constitutional barrier after its repeal. True, it is possible, albeit unlikely, that some few states might enact a blanket prohibition against abortion; it is even more unlikely that such a prohibition would survive constitutional challenge.
Craven political correctness is no defense for the indefensible. We should not seek to curry favor with, or the approbation of, the so-called intelligentsia. I daresay that no Jewish woman died as a result of legal restraints prior to Roe v. Wade. No Jewish woman is likely to die in the wake of its repeal. Abortion for medical need will continue to be available in most, and probably all, jurisdictions. If any lives are lost it will be because of inability to afford the expense of travel, not because of constitutional impediment.
What should the Jewish response be? It should be two-fold. One, the establishment of a fund to defray the cost of travel to a jurisdiction in which a life-threatening pregnancy can be terminated, such a stipend to be limited to women who produce a statement signed by a recognized posek attesting to the halakhic propriety of the procedure. Two, a second, far larger fund to provide for care of pregnant women who carry their babies to term but feel compelled to surrender them for adoption.
Time for truth; i wasn’t giving him legitimacy, i was saying that the only issue anyone ever had with rav Moshe, erroneously so, was that he argued with the magen avrohom and other early achronim.
The author of maaneh l’igros was r. Yom tov Schwartz; he learned iin chachmei lublin, and at one point probably was a talmid chacham, who was broken during the war and had emotional problems. The way he writes has a total lack of kovod hatorah. Rav ovadia yosef likes some of his torah, but criticizes him for not giving proper respect to rav moshe. Needless to say, he never had a following, as rav moshe was rightfully recognized as the manhig hador by virtually everyone.
There’s a book “The Value of Human Life: Contemporary Perspectives in Jewish Medical Ethics” (Feldheim, 2010).
It’s the transcribed lectures from the first International Conference on Jewish Medical Ethics in Switzerland, 2008.
Rabbi Moshe Hauer was one of the speakers there, and he discussed some of the “Jewish medical Ethics” involved in organ transplants and determining “end of life”.
In the middle of his discussion, he writes (pg. 62):“…So let us talk about the world going mad.
In the seventies there was another major medical ethics issue: abortion.
That was the decade when Roe. V. Wade became law in the United States, making abortion legal upon demand.
At that time, Rav Moshe Feinstein, whose opinions on brain death are questioned and disputed so much, expressed an unambiguous opinion on abortion. In fact, many would consider his opinion extreme.
Rav Feinstein considers abortion to be murder. The Talmud says there is no capital punishment for it, but in his view it is murder. He permits it only when there is a real danger to the mother. He wrote a responsum to this effect and in the responsum he writes some very unusual and surprising things. It seems clear to all who study it that he was single-mindedly pursuing a pre-determined conclusion, namely, that abortion is murder. How can he do that? Where is the objective scholarship?Let me say something a little bit heretical: Rav Moshe Feinstein was looking at a world going mad. How many times over this weekend have you heard the term “slippery slope?” I would suggest that if he were writing his responsum on abortion in old community in Russia in the 1930s, he would likely have said that abortion is not the right thing and is not allowed under most circumstances, but may be allowed under certain specific conditions.
But here he was in the United States, and the world around him was sliding toward a free-wheeling culture of abortion on demand. At that moment, every part of Rav Feinstein said, “Oh my gosh, where are we headed?” And so he came out with the statement that abortion is murder.We call our great rabbis gedolim. We also call adults gedolim, as we call kids that become bar mitzvah gedolim relative to ketanim, to small children. Developmental psychology teaches that when a child is very small- a katan- he sees only a small field around him and in front of him: the breast from which he eats.
As he gets bigger, he doesn’t just see the breast from which he feeds, but he sees his mother, and then he sees the family, and then he sees the community, and the he sees society. That is what it means to grow into a gadol. A gadol is not just looking at the mishnah in Ohalos; he is not just seeing the small picture. He is seeing a big picture, a world of context. And the world is going mad….”Emotional correctness and political correctness define the religion of that ilk. Got it.
Anyone with an agenda will find something to pull out of context. In matter of fact against the very context and general intentHow about Agunos?
Gefilte
thank you for taking the time to type and share that.
InterestingEven dati leumi considered Tzitz Eliezer only mid-level
The centrist bloggers of the moment fan favorite
And even he didn’t allow abortion on demand as you guys wish to imply eg Tay Sachs
People would reference him privately for extenuating circumstances
The previous is really irrelevant because if it wouldn’t be him, you would find some otherGo ahead without googling – could you quote him for anything else?
Rabbi Hauer is talking about the wrong Person
There are many others who would have wished him to have been like that but he wasn’t.
Sorry
second of all
he’s pretending as if others of his stature held differently
but he’s the one who’s out of a touch with the greater realitiesFriday was one of the Great Moments Of Life especially for those who worked so hard for so long towards that and gave up so much. They’re trying to sap us of that
Hopefully leading to events more Lofty
edit
Alan Jotkowitz in The Intersection of Halakhah and Science in Medical Ethics, Hakirah 19, 2015 compares Tzitz eliezer with R Moshe on several other topics – time of death, eod of life care, artificial insemination, .. and conckudes that Tzitz Eliezer leans towards more conservative positions relying on classical halakhic decisions without taking modern science into account, while R Moshe is more “modern” (my words, not his). For example, he rejects paternity disproof by blood type, relying on Gemora’s position that all “red” (including blood) comes exclusively from the mother.
Hakirah should be read “hakiur”, the ugly
Avira, I am not standing by any of the authors or publications I am quoting. So, if you want to perform letzinut b’humra, you would have to contact then directly. Sevorot stand on their own. Feel free to reply on substance.
Get them to agree to accept to The Cardinal precepts of our Judaism first unequivocally before bringing
Hakirah as a sourceColor war teams roe vs wade (ay)
Ketubot 7: fetuses at the yam suf were signing shira and were aware of the miracle …
on the limiting side: there is a suggestion that someone could acquire an object on behalf on a fetus, but this position is rejected.President Biden’s executive order because states have already gone too far.
“If a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the health or life of the pregnant person — or draws the exception more narrowly than EMTALA’s emergency medical condition definition — that state law is preempted.”
Dear Jack,
Presidential Executive Orders cannot and do not override state laws. America isn’t yet a dictatorship.
Even if Mr. Biden, in his old age and infirmity, thinks otherwise.
Just a note: There is clear, objective evidence that life does not begin at conception. Ova can be fertilized in vitro which certainly is conception. The embryo can then be cryogenically frozen to be thawed and implanted at a later date. A living organism cannot be so frozen without killing it.
The definition of life is set by Hashem, not by “evidence” (whatever that then means.)
UJM,
1) If you had read the EO , you would have known that it is written with the advice of WH Counsel ‘s office.
According to Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, the president’s actions “have been carefully vetted within the White House Counsel’s Office and at [the Department of Justice] and are assuredly within the president’s legal authority.”2) I am surprised that you are protecting the states rights to ban abortion even when the mother’s life is at risk.
I was sure you would applaud it and say Boruch Hashem.
I listened to Rabbi Shmuel Bloom shlit’a interview and he was clear that Harav Ruderman Zatzsal was emphatic and stressed multiple times that the abortion law must include protection for the Mother’s life.In Idaho, the republican party platform adopted at the Twin Falls convention includes the language that there is NO EXCEPTION FOR THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER.
They VOTED to specifically include the language.
By a nearly FOUR-TO-ONE margin, they REJECTED an amendment to the party platform on Saturday that would have provided an exception for a mother who has an abortion to safe her life.Aizehu Hachacham – Haroeh es Hanolad.
Jack,
1. Laurence Tribe is a left wing hack. When he offers his two cents, as he does here, it is only because his legal cause is on shaky footing. If it weren’t, he would not have to chime in.
2. No states, repeat — no states at all, have banned abortion when the mother’s life is risk. This talking point is simply used by abortionists to attempt to legitimize killing babies.
Ujm,
Now I am even more surprised that you did not say BH and still can’t give Biden credit for following the Torah.
Maybe on this 19th of Tammuz 5782, there are no states, but the Republican states will eventually have them. Definitely and positively. Because that is already the Republican platform in Idaho. They are not going to ask the Frum Jews what they think.
Further, the consequences of states banning abortions has already caused Hospitals and Care givers to not provide adequate care to mother’s having miscarriages and other pregnancy issues because they are afraid of being sued and other legal issues.
They are watching and waiting while the mother’s life is at risk.This is all well documented.
Jack, let’s cut to the chase. Do you or do you not support me in advocating and hoping for Congress to pass a law that firmly and completely bans abortion nationally in all cases other than when the mother’s life is at risk — with when the mother’s life is at risk the law shall strongly and completely protect the right to abortion, but in all other cases it will just as strongly ban it?
Let’s put the double talk aside of beating around the bush trying to pretend the reason you want to support abortion is only because of when the mother’s life is at risk, when in reality you’re only using that excuse to try to have abortion legal in other cases.
UJM,
This is a run around.
Rav Ruderman Zatsal (and many others ) are being proven correct and you are being proven wrong.
How can you trust and assume that the Christians will follow Jewish Law when they are following their own laws and making laws forcing them on everybody ?I have said yes to this question at least 10 times in the YWN. I will say it another 100 times.
“I hope for Congress to pass a law that firmly and completely bans abortion nationally in all cases which will be defined according to Jewish Law and not Christian Law. Other than when the mother’s life is at risk which will be defined according to Jewish Law and not Christian Law. When the mother’s life is at risk, which will be defined according to Jewish Law and not Christian Law, the law shall strongly and completely protect the right to abortion, which will be defined according to Jewish Law and not Christian Law , but in all other cases it will just as strongly ban it.”Now let me see you agree to what I just wrote!
This is my declaration :
“I am an Orthodox Jew living in Galus. I advocate for laws that will allow me to live as an Orthodox Jew is Galus. I will advocate against christian abortion laws which will force women to die.
I am not a democrat, republican, christian or any other religion.”Jack, you are again acting hypocritically. I’ve pointed this out before and you still keep spewing the same lines. You refuse to support repealing state laws against murder, even though you acknowledge they are based upon Christian concepts of murder and not Jewish laws against murder. As was pointed out to you previously, in most states if you kill someone who broke into your home unarmed, you will be charged with murder, homicide or manslaughter. Even though under Jewish law you acted completely in self-defense, and had the absolute right to kill the intruder who broke into your home.
Which clearly and unambiguously demonstrates the falsity of your hypocritical “declaration” that “I am an Orthodox Jew living in Galus. I advocate for laws that will allow me to live as an Orthodox Jew is Galus. I will advocate against christian murder laws.” (ftfy)
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