QuestionWhat does Judaism say about donating your body to science?
AnswerIn discussing a question of this importance, we should not be influenced by carious “beliefs” and “interpretations” that have been thought up by various individuals throughout our history. We must consult the Torah, which is the blueprint for our daily lives – the instruction book given to us as a nation by G-d with the command to act in accordance with it’s directives.
One of the fundamental rules of Judaism is that this world is temporary. After a person’s death, they move on to the world to come. We do not believe in a “circle of life” regarding humans. The soul is everlasting, and is rewarded or punished based upon its behavior in this world. We cannot leave the determination of what is moral or immoral behavior up to our whims, as we’ve recently witnessed so tragically that doing so only leads to the degeneration of mankind into animals. We must act according to the morals in our Torah, even if this conflicts with what seems to be a “Mitzvah” or moral to us.
Our Torah consists of the Written Torah, as dictated by G-d and transcribed by Moses throughout the 40 years the Children Of Israel wandered in the desert, and the Oral Torah, which is the authentic explanation and interpretation of the Written Torah. This was redacted approx. 2000 years ago, and exists today as the Talmud.
The Talmud instructs us that a body may not be defaced or dissected in any way after the death of its owner. Although there _are_ times that organ donation is a Mitzvah, i.e. if it can immediately save a life, and the deceased is already dead based on Torah criteria, this is merely because we are commanded by the Torah itself to violate its laws (except for 3) if this _directly_ results in saving or even prolonging a life. As noble as it may seem and feel to you, to donate your body to science for research purposes is a violation of the laws by which we Jews are commanded by G-d to live. We are commanded to preserve the bodies that G-d has given us intact, both when we are alive (i.e. defacing and suicide are absolutely forbidden), and after our deaths.
Follow-up questions (2)
The basic rule in traditional Judaism is that the human body is to be respected and buried whole. The reasons are based on Judaism’s (1) seeing the body as a gift from God with Divine purpose (similar to why tattoos are forbidden) and (2) belief that the righteous will rise again, when purified soul is returned to body and both live on in a perfected, Messianic world.While these values are universal (all humanity has a Divine purpose and can achieve a portion in eternity) the laws mentioned above are only part of Jewish law, not the Noachide law which apply to all mankind. Accordingly, there is no limitation on non-Jews donating their bodies to science.
You are surely correct in that Judaism values protecting human life more than almost any other value. Saving human life takes precedence to anything and everything besides murder, sexual imorality, and idol worship.
And so it boils down to this: Were a human body needed to save a life, it would surely need to be used for that purpose. Were there to be a pandemic and science needs to dissect the victims’ bodies to better understand the illness, thereby saving human life, Judaism would mandate that the bodies be given to doctors to be studied and then buried.
But if it is only needed for acedemic purposes – e.g. a medical student learning the construct of the human body – and it is unclear how that student dissecting that body will save a life, Jewish law would forbid the body being donated. This is especially true if there are more than enough bodies to go around for medical research.
Cordially,
Yaakov Rosenblatt
Question
There is a man with a form of cancer, that only about 800 people are diagnosed annually with. Of those, most are diagnosed early and enjoy a 70% survival rate. It has been suggested that because it is a relatively infrequent form of cancer, and because of the late stage the cancer had reached before diagnosis (the estimated chance of 1-year survival is less than 10% when caught at this stage), that this particular individual’s body may be particularly valuable for researchers of this disease, as just under 250 individuals pass away annually from this particular type of cancer. Would donating the body for specific research of this cancer be against or in accordance with Jewish law?
Answer
Thank you for your question. According to Jewish law, the body of the deceased must be treated with utmost respect, and should not be used for research purposes. However, if a competent doctor/ researcher will tell you that doing research on someone’s body will directly save lives, it would be permitted, as we relax Jewish law when it comes to directly saving lives. Still, care must be taken to preserve the dignity of the deceased, and a proper burial must be arranged for all body parts as soon as possible.
Take care,
Rabbi Aaron Tendler
