You Shall Not Kill - Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller

[Music] next so the next kind of Mitzvah we spoke about hokum the next kind are Mishpatim which are laws of justice so these are laws that if there was no Torah we would have to figure this out ourselves like we have responsibility to have to live justly so and accept the classical example is don't murder in virtually every society there were laws against murder is that true so if you have society telling you not to murder why do you need the Torah to also tell you not to murder so think about the United States today is murder legal No okay it will all murderers get the same treatment in court No everything depends on who the murderer is and who the victim is could you see where this is sir so if you have a murderer who people relate to well and likeable possibly famous possibly good-looking and the victim who's who people don't relate to okay the murderer get well in Judaism its objective the definition of murder is any killing except if the person is a threat to you now the requirement to put in a plug to begin with is a question in other words if a person's life will only be extended very briefly so it's not so clearly under all circumstances you have to do every possible heroic measure but to actually do any action that's going to say once I pull this plug within five minutes the person is dead no so brain death is tricky perhaps someday we'll have the better criteria for it but they've been not one not two but numbers people who were in long-term vegetative States who were thought to be brain-dead who later turned out not to be so we need better criteria than we have now the halacha criteria isn't acceptable to the medical world the halacha criteria is when any limb or organ is real like let's say a hand that's that's gangrenous it produces chemicals these chemicals say death if the brain is truly dead it would produce these chemicals but in the medical world currently they don't want to wait that long before they cause some Google cause someone brain dead because at that point all of the other organs can't be harvested because the brain basically controls everything so it's a problem I mean it's not presenting this is an on problem it's a problem the halacha criteria means dead dead and the current criteria means lack of observable brain activity which isn't the same thing and you also have lots of things that are in between where you have I mean the first case in which of pulling the plug was with Karen Karen England do you remember you don't you certainly don't remember it but you read a bit did you read about it this is like 20 at least 20 years ago so there's a girl her name is Karen Quinlan yeah so she was taking drugs and also drinking which isn't so good which isn't a world-class great idea and then she was at the car crash and she suffered a neurological trauma so here she is with the alcohol in her bloodstream and the drugs and the traumatic injury so she went not surprisingly into a vegetative state her parents went to court to be able to pull the plug okay and they won which said the precedence which makes it permitted now by law right but she lived another six years in basically the same condition but not attached to a respirator she actually had independent respiration so that was surprised you know okay so it's not there currently when people when when good doctors I'm not suggesting that they're trying to fool anybody will say there's absolutely no brain activity it's not a certain disease there's one that's missing it was also okay another case it was a man with ALS you know what that is the terrible terrible illness so he was his name is a people don't see him on the on YouTube in fact he's interested his name is Rafa meme Cohan Malamud he was diagnosed when he was 53 it was a very strange diagnosis as we had shoulder pain Mateus son was arthritic or something but the doctor knew what a soon as he examined him that it wasn't because the pain wasn't at a joint and so he'd had tests he quotes him and his wife into the office now whenever they say come with your wife it's not a good thing he told them the news it is als his wife fainted they revived her and then he said what's gonna happen so you told he laid it out it's a very intelligent man he was the head of the Israeli I'm special education department at the time and he told him about like there are two kinds of ALS some of them affect the inner organs first others affect the outer organs first apparently whereas it comes to go from the outside in which takes longer he asks what's come to happen he kept on what is going to happen he told him he said how long is this gonna take she said around 8 years so he immediately had a stair walking device but in his home at work he wanted to stay independent as long as possible now let's go fast-forward 13 years later ok which is when most of his films were made he's still alive he's terribly disabled he's in a wheelchair he needs something to hold his head up he because he's very bright he devised a way of communicating through a computer which other people now use throughout the world so it works with infrared ok the and by blinking the computer picks up messages but it's not like one blink is a two blinks RB and you would need like 20 to blink ok it's whole words and phrases he worked this out like so like one like right eye one blink could be--could me could you please bring me a you understand what I'm saying so they're whole phrases and like right I left I up down you know it's very sophisticated that's how he communicates he's written eight books like this this is one of them is the Bible of special ed in Israel and another is a book of poetry it's very rare for a book of poetry to be a best-seller his was the bestseller okay and what he does now is that he receives people he especially wants to meet with with young people who are in despair and he sees his goal in giving people hope that's what he sees like his long slow because you could think and feel your life has value he was on TV a lot of times you know like you would have people defending euthanasia and then they'd bring him out he said say does my life have value where it doesn't value yes or no there's only yes or no who should decide you who are you you know whatever okay clear so that's that's why this I was going to say in an objective sense don't murder and the same thing would hold true for all of the laws of logic in the secular system even theft what's theft give me a reasonable definition of theft taking something that's not yours is that accurate to say that all thieves will be treated the same in court how will they be treated differently depending how much what from home so the people of the two extreme ends of the spectrum will probably get away with it and people in the middle won't did you see where this is so like Trump hasn't filed taxes in seven years but he'll get away with it but a youth offender was coming from a bad background if he stole from a middle-class person will also get away with it in conventional courts it's only the people in the middle who have trouble in Judaism theft is theft is theft because we don't think we're judging the person we're judging the event either the money was taken or it wasn't taken if it was taken it has to be returned that's to be returned to there to be damages paid prison isn't a penalty in her logic judaism why do you think prison isn't a good prison isn't a good penalty why not and it's also not victim oriented in other words the victim of the theft doesn't get more money because the thief is imprisoned so the Judaic system is completely victim oriented there's a present premise we can't judge people okay so that's Mishpatim you have any questions on Mishpatim or who came before we go on to the last category so the consequence is basically left for god but restoration and damages are free here and now like the thief would have to work and pay back what he you know what he what he stole and it wouldn't matter like your feelings for the thief aren't a relevant part of the picture okay so there would be no difference between let's say somebody who stole money out of necessity to buy medicine and some do you stole because they want to buy a sound system or drugs because the underlying premise is we can't judge people so why you can try okay this is a little clearer [Music] [Applause]