RESPONSA

GOLINKIN, DAVID

RESPONSA DAVID GOLINKIN Introducing a New moment Department Several months ago, when the new English translation of the Steinsaltz Talmud was the rage even in the popular secular media,...

...Before giving the reasons for this conclusion, however, a word about method—which will apply to this and to future columns: Some modern rabbis compare the halachic process to a preprogrammed computer in which every question has one preordained answer...
...Should a concentration camp inmate fast on Yom Kippur...
...How can apparent contradictions in the Bible be reconciled...
...For instance...Is it ethical, Rabbi, to use the WATS line at work to call my parents in Florida...
...May a person sell his or her portion in paradise...
...Furthermore, the child would suffer the additional stigma of being born out of wedlock and the tension of never knowing his or her father...
...Divorce has skyrocketed, Jews are marrying later and are having fewer children and homosexuality is on the rise...
...Another explanation for the required delay in remarriage, as mandated by the Mishnah, is given by Rava, another Talmudic rabbi...
...If, after a serious effort, Sarah does not find a suitable husband, she can adopt a child...
...So I called Rabbi Golinkin and invited him to write an experimental column for MOMENT: What does Jewish tradition have to say about the ethical and personal problems we face every day...
...The responsa literature, like all halachic literature, is quite subjective...
...While this solution has some of the same pitfalls as artificial insemination, the difference is that here Sarah would be solving the problem of an unwanted child after the fact rather than creating a problematic situation...
...Is this permissible...
...Rather than spending a considerable amount of money on artificial insemination, why not spend it on a matchmaker or a Jewish dating service...
...Needless to say, this aspect is also missing from the proposed suggestion...
...8391...
...If a shochet (ritual slaughterer) slaughters an animal while under hypnosis, is the animal kosher...
...The Talmud (ibid...
...In Hebrew this body of material is called she'elot u'teshuvot, literally questions and responses...
...Nevertheless, I believe the answer to her question is "no...
...QSarah, a woman in her early 30s, would very much like to bear her own child...
...She therefore wants to conceive a child through artificial insemination...
...It is high time that the Jewish community got actively involved in matchmaking so that thousands of Sarahs and Abrahams can enjoy the benefits of marriage (see "The New Shadchens,"June 1990...
...A man does not need a wife, a woman does not need a husband and children do not need two parents...
...According to a sage named Samuel, it is because it's a mitzvah (commandment) to know one's parentage...
...Matchmaking is a venerable Jewish tradition that, according to the Midrash, has been God's main occupation since God finished creating the world (Genesis Rabbah 68:4...
...In the 19th century many German rabbis wrote responsa in German...
...as God states in Genesis (2:18): "It is not good for man to be alone...
...For more than 1,500 years, since the days of the Talmud, rabbis have been providing written responses to questions posed to them...
...The other goal of Jewish marriage is holiness...
...In the past 20 years, the Jewish family has begun to disintegrate...
...In Golinkin's first MOMENT column, he examines a question posed on another occasion dealing with the propriety of artificial insemination for an unmarried woman...
...Although for these reasons I believe artificial insemination for a single woman is prohibited by Jewish law and frowned upon by Jewish tradition, this does not mean there is no solution for Sarah...
...2 The best English introductions to responsa literature are still...
...The basic sources on which a decision is based—the Bible, the Talmud, various codes of law, earlier responsa—all remain unchanged, but, as the following answer illustrates, the rabbi responding must take into consideration not only the halachic sources but also the problems and conditions of the current generation and the society in which we live...
...And how about this, Rabbi...
...If we approve of artificial insemination, we are saying, "There is no need for the Jewish family...
...Nothing could be further from the truth, however...
...Artificial insemination may help Sarah in the short run, but it will definitely harm Jewish society in the long run...
...This, of course, was not such an original idea...
...So if you have a question or a problem, please send it to Responsa c/o MOMENT, 3000 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C...
...One of the purposes of marriage in Judaism is "to be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28...
...1 See Louis Jacobs, Theology in the Responsa (London and Boston: Oxford University Press, 1975...
...Thus, the answer to the same question can vary from generation to generation, from place to place and from rabbi to rabbi...
...In the 20th century, many American rabbis write their responsa in English.2 Rabbi Golinkin will write in English...
...In Judaism, as in any society, the good of the individual is frequently superseded by the good of society...
...Similar marriages, both in Israel and in the United States, have been averted at the last minute...
...It turned out that this was the word's only English meaning: "A written decision from a rabbinic authority in response to a submitted question or problem...
...Does a 13-year-old eat more than a 12-year-old...
...The questions cover every aspect of Jewish life: prayer, holidays, customs, kashrut, conversion, honoring parents, medical ethics, mourning marriage, divorce, wife-beating torts and business ethics, to name just a few...
...practical, everyday ethical problems Cohen raised in his column...
...3 See, for example, Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee, Second Chances: Men, Women and Children A Decade After Divorce, (New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1989...
...3 (5748-5749), Jerusalem, 1989, pp...
...Cohen probably didn't like the rabbi's answers, but the Washington Post printed Golinkin's response on its oped page...
...The rabbi's personality and philosophy can also affect the decision...
...Tell me...
...If your child is 13 and the airline clerk says that children 12 and under fly half-price, what should you do...
...In the latter category are questions like these: • May a golem (in Jewish folklore, a clay figure endowed with life) be counted in a minyan...
...And so I know the issues, ethical and otherwise, that perplexed the ancients (blessed be they), but when I looked to see what wisdom I could glean for the ethical problems that perplex me, I could find nothing...
...Golinkin, you should excuse the expression, made (kosher) mincemeat out of the Cohen column...
...I have read the original in both Hebrew and Aramaic, and I have read the commentaries on your commentaries, which are, you will concede, commentaries thrice removed since the Talmud itself is a commentary, is it not...
...Children from broken homes often suffer from various psychological problems.3 But these problems were created after the fact...
...In the case of artificial insemination, this would be impossible because the identity of the sperm donor would be secret or unknown...
...My reaction to the Cohen column was very different from that of Rabbi David Golinkin, senior lecturer in Talmud and Jewish law at the Seminary of Judaic Studies (of the Conservative movement) in Israel...
...Artificial insemination in these circumstances is forbidden both on halachic (Jewish law) grounds and on philosophic grounds...
...Incidentally, I looked up responsum in the dictionary to see if the definition of this Latinate word included a reference to rabbinical responsa...
...RESPONSA DAVID GOLINKIN Introducing a New moment Department Several months ago, when the new English translation of the Steinsaltz Talmud was the rage even in the popular secular media, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote what I then thought was a delightfully clever column about the practical, everyday ethical problems for which no answer was provided in the Talmud's tomes: Oh, Rabbi Steinsaltz, I have read your new translation of the Talmud along with its reference guide...
...This creates a dual halachic problem: The Mishnah (Yevamot 41a) states that women who are widowed or divorced must wait three months until they remarry so that it will be clear which offspring are from, the first husband and which are from the second...
...20008.—H.S...
...Should you be a shmegegge, a shmendrick, a schmo—a total imbecile—and reveal the age of your child...
...Jewish marriage, however, has two other purposes that would not be achieved by artificially inseminating an unmarried woman...
...The betrothal section of the marriage ceremony is called kiddushin, literally "sanctifications...
...According to Golinkin, the Talmud indeed contained answers to the A single woman in her 30s wants to conceive by artificial insemination...
...Kiddushin sanctifies sexual relations, the family and Jewish society...
...A similar conclusion has been reached by three other rabbis who have dealt with this issue...
...42a), as usual, asks why...
...Since one sperm donation can foster up to 200 children and since many donors frequently return to the same sperm bank, there is a real possibility of a brother marrying his paternal sister—and vice versa— without knowing it...
...The principal halachic obstacle to artificial insemination stems from the fact that in most countries it is illegal to reveal the identity of a sperm donor...
...And so, the Midrash tells us, "Not a man without a woman and not a woman without a man" (Genesis Rabbah 8:9...
...Solomon B. Freehofs The Responsa Literature (Philadelphia: JPS, 1954) and A Treasury of Responsa (Philadelphia: JPS, 1963...
...Tell me...
...Artificially inseminating an unmarried woman creates such a situation before the child is born...
...ASarah's sincere—and natural— desire to bear a child is understandable, even laudable...
...More than 2,500 volumes of responsa have been printed over the centuries, containing approximately 300,000 individual responsa...
...There are two halachically acceptable solutions...
...I will make a fitting mate for him...
...In the former category are questions like this: • May a Jew convert to Christianity or Islam in order to avoid being murdered...
...Most responsa were written in Hebrew, although many early ones were written in Aramaic and Judeo-Arabic...
...These responses are called, appropriately enough, responsa (singular, responsum...
...The Jewish family has been the basic unit of the Jewish people since the days of Abraham and Sarah...
...Unfortunately, she is not married and has no immediate prospects...
...The first is companionship and love between a man and a woman...
...I ask you, Rabbi, is it ethical to lie to the school board so that your child can attend a better school...
...As Golinkin told me, "The problems and questions range from the sublime to the ridiculous...
...Even if a donor could be found whose identity was known, artificial insemination would still be objectionable for several ethical, philosophical and social reasons...
...Let MOMENT readers pose the problem, and let Rabbi Golinkin respond...
...In future columns, which will appear in every other issue, Rabbi Golinkin will respond to questions and problems submitted by MOMENT readers...
...This purpose cannot be achieved by Sarah's proposed solution...
...Adoption is a new institution in Judaism, but the Talmud has stated: "Whoever raises an orphan in his [or her] house is considered as if he [or she] had given birth to the child" (Sanhedrin 19b and parallels).'1 The complete Hebrew responsum on which this column is based can be found in the responsa of the Va'ad Halachah of the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel, vol...
...Rabbi Golinkin didn't find Cohen's column so humorous...
...Furthermore, in many sperm banks various methods are used to make detection of the donor virtually impossible...
...4 For a recent study of adoption in Jewish law and tradition, see Michael Gold, And Hannah Wept: Infertility, Adoption and the Jewish Couple (Philadelphia: JPS, 1988), Chapters 7-8...
...His explanation is even more pertinent: Knowing the identity of one's father is important, says this sage, lest the child marry his paternal sister, which is prohibited by the Torah (Leviticus 18:9...
...Why create a situation that is almost bound to lead to psychological problems...
...Is not the education of a child—education, Rabbi!—the paramount issue...
...At least one such marriage has already taken place in Tel Aviv...

Vol. 15 • December 1990 • No. 6


 
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