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Honoring the dead or saving lives? When does the Halacha allow dissection of a corpse? Israel today

2022-08-16T11:41:01.664Z


The case of the murder of the toddler in Ramat sparked the protest of the Jerusalem faction against the surgical procedure • Rabbis explain what is behind the protests, and when exactly the medical procedure must be performed


The Jerusalem faction in the ultra-orthodox sector demonstrated in the last day against the autopsy of the 4-year-old boy who was allegedly murdered by his cousin.

The protestors came out against the delay in the child's burial (detention of the dead) and the violation of his dignity.

Following this, the High Court of Justice ruled that the body should not be dissected. But what is the halacha position in Judaism regarding post-mortem surgeries? And what happens in homicide investigations when the police are required to perform an autopsy on the body? 

One of the most important concepts in this context is the degeneracy of the dead.

The meaning is that harming a body just like that is not giving proper treatment to a human body.

"It is forbidden to mutilate the dead or harm his dignity, but if there is an unusual illness that needs to be ascertained or whether the brother of the deceased also has it, and thus save people - surely it is the honor of the dead to operate on him," explains Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, rabbi of the Beit El and Mi settlement who previously headed the Yeshiva of the Jerusalem Crown.

That is, despite the mitzvot of honoring the dead - there are needs that reject it.

The demonstrations in Jerusalem against the autopsy, photo: Yonatan Zindel/Flash 90

"This rejects the issue of mutilation of the body," adds Rabbi Aviner, "in the same way, catching a murderer is also important and for that reason the honor of the dead and the mutilation of the dead are also rejected."

But according to him, in the incident in Jerusalem it was known who was suspected of murder.

In addition, the family did not want an autopsy.

"There was no point in forcing her to perform such an act. It is completely unnecessary. Whether preventing the autopsy is an injury to the country or an injury to the reality of the truth or saving lives is another issue, but here it would have been better to leave this family in the first place."

Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, former rabbi of the city of Ramat Gan, explains that there is a difference in the question of whether the autopsy will actually help incriminate a person or catch a murderer.

According to him, "there are rare cases in which it will be permissible to dissect a corpse and this in the case of a loss, i.e. the murderer will not be caught or there will be great damage of this kind. So in such cases it is indeed possible to perform an autopsy on a corpse. This appears in the Gemara in tractate Chulin."

The scene of the murder in Jerusalem, Saturday, photo: Yonatan Zindel/Flash 90

Following on from this, he notes that "this was not the current case at all and that is why there was the outrage and the demonstrations".

He points out that in the case in Jerusalem it was known who was the suspect in the murder of the child.

"There is no reason why to analyze the body, all the details are known and all the information required to hold a trial is already in the hands of the police. Therefore, there was no need to analyze a body and that was the reason for the outrage," he concludes.

"controlled autopsy"

Rabbi Dr. Ratzon Arosi, a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council and Rabbi of the city of Kiryat Ono, points out that there is a permit in Halacha to perform an autopsy under certain conditions in order to identify a murderer.

"Of course, it should be a controlled autopsy, that is, all the parts will be brought to the burial afterwards and not just buried, and that everything will be done with respect for the dead. But surely there is no prohibition in such cases, and this is to resolve question marks. Of course, the point is to investigate criminal suspicion and discover a crime, and not just an autopsy for the sake of an autopsy which is a different and forbidden case."

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Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2022-08-16

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