Pru Urevu (Part 6) By Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

we have a little bit of a larger facility today which is uh good for room but maybe bad for Acoustics so I hope uh you'll be able to uh to hear um again uh we are seemingly in a topic Without End because indeed uh this is a very very extensive topic uh the issue of reproduction the issue of prer Vu and uh if you remember uh the last area we've been dealing with for the past two weeks was the issue with which is both relevant for artificial insation and for IVF because you can have artificial insation which go straight into the woman's body and then you can have artificial ination with with AI with IVF uh is the big makas rosha Feinstein and the satar rebbi if a woman that is inseminated by sperm from a man other than her husbands once again according to the sat's position that is adult the woman is forbidden to stay with her husbands the child is a child of adultery which means the child is a mser r mosha Feinstein took the position that adultery requires actual sexual intercourse as does mut and therefore AB mosha argued that this is neither adultery nor is the child a mser now the last Point uh I'm not sure the very last point point but the point that was made was that the poim and er Israel kind of split the difference they say if a woman uh if a woman's egg is fertilized via a donor sperm or via any artificial insation of donor whether it's IVF or directly in her body L uh we do not treat it like adultery like rosha but we are for a possibility of M uh this is the position of the rebut as well thus for example KES means well is or isn't means that we have to treat it like it's AIC doubt and we want to avoid the situation that we treat it as a possibility of muts and therefore uh one should avoid I'll give you a concrete example of of how that would play out the rabut rule for example regarding surrogate mothers so again in the case of a surrogate mother uh there is a fertilization well again there are two types of surrogates and let let let me briefly address both of them uh one type of surrogate which is not commonly used is actually a full surrogate by a full surrogate we mean that let's assume you have a husband and a wife and the wife neither cannot ovulate or doesn't ovulate and she doesn't have a womb she had a hysterctomy so under those circumstances both the egg and the incubator have to be a third party so in a case like this how would full surrogacy work husband's sperm fertilizes surrogate's egg which is then transferred to surrogate's body for nine months she is both the egg owner and the surrogate will'll call that full surrogacy now that's not not the way it usually works but but there is such a thing as full surrogacy gestational surrogacy is the more common scenario where husband's sperm fertilizes wife's egg in vitro and the embryo is transferred to a gestational surrogate who carries the baby for nine months and pursuant to a contract agrees to deliver the baby to the couple obviously things can break down but this is what it is now the raban so under Israeli law there is such a thing Israeli law permits the use of both types of surrogate mothers it is legal in Israel it's called aim which literally means uh the in-keeping mother the mother that simply is the inkeeper uh for the baby however the raban has issued guidelines for surrogates and the raban has the following requirements now again these are not required by Israeli law but under the Ran's guidelines these are the requirements number one the surrogate must be a single woman she cannot be a married woman number two the surrogate cannot be related to the husband in a manner that would be Hally incestuous so again the problem here is a problem of M let me give you concrete examples if the surrogate is married the r is for exactly what thebi said that if the husband sperm impregnates another married woman you know even via surrogacy the child might be a momer that's why she has to be single to avoid aam Z's problem like rosha Einstein there wouldn't have been a m problem right because there was no sexual intercourse that's what I mean to say the raban tries to be M on the mser issue similarly even if the surrogate is single uh if the surrogate is a certain relationship for example it is very common in the secular world that a sister will be a surrogate for a sister right a sister might agree to carry her sister's baby it's a very common uh surate arrangement to the degree surgus is common which is not that common now according to the Torah even though the Torah does permit male polygamy male polygamy is M it is only the ban of ram but the Torah does prohibit having relations with your wife's sister that's called a Isa and if one were to have a child from a Isa let's say by intercourse that would be a mser so the rabut therefore says you can't use your wife's sister as a surrogate and you can't use the husband's well same reason the husband can't have relations with in other words anything that if there would be relations there would be mser you can't use as a surrogate so you can't use a married woman as a surrogate you cannot use wife sister as surrogate you cannot use husband sister as surrogate you could not use husband or wife's mother as surrogate right there there are cases where young mothers you know mothers who are young have actually been surrogates for their daughters now that of course creates a tremendous confusion uh I'll get to that what's the relationship of a baby baby uh is the baby the granddaughter of the surrogate or the daughter of the surrogate is the baby the daughter of the wife or is the baby the niece the niece of no The Sibling The Sibling of the wife because born from the same same mother very very confusing but nevertheless the rabut would not allow that because of the K of M that's what I mean to say that the rabut ises the rabut is m for of mosha Feinstein's reasoning I'm sorry not for the sb's reasoning that there may be an issue of Ms are here and that's why the surrogate must be single the surrogate cannot be a sister of husband or wife and the surrogate cannot be a mother of husband or wife uh simply because uh in either of those cases the child might be a Mamer right if a man has relations with his mother mother-in-law that's muts if a man has relations with his mother that's muts and even though uh this is not sexual relations this is simply IVF followed by surrogacy but since the child is generated from a Hally incestuous Union the raban nut's guidelines are to treat it as a suff doubt whether the child is a mom yeah have any children isra don't register children with when you have baby in Israel yeah connection to the yeah yeah so s sroga do have to be registered that that's exactly right there are special rules that children that are born uh from surrogates uh there are registration procedures uh yeah and with the Reet I'm saying the ranet uh does require registration uh yeah uh I think last time you may have said that under the hook when the boy yeah I told you the story yeah yeah and Rob mosha took the note and he crumpled it and he put and that was the end of that they just went on with the ceremony that's correct yeah and what my question is uh whether or not the Ming issue the reason that I think you said was because there were not two witnesses I think that's why he yeah yeah so so let me let me just explain a little B little bit of a background there uh those of you that if any of you go to dfom I know one person who goes to d yomi uh so uh this was actually discussed in the DFI around uh maybe five or six weeks ago uh that there is normally in order to establish prohibited status that a Jew is a m or whatever it is you normally do need two witnesses but there is a g a special scriptural dispensation that a father has nus to disqualify his son so if a father were to come forward and say I had you I had my son through my uh affair with a married woman he would be believed to make his son a mser uh even though he's only one person this is a special kak of the father uh and Rosa's argument is that based on the sources it only applies to the father and not the mother so the mother is the same as any one witness and normally you would need two witnesses to establish that status so if the father were to say such a thingi the father would be would be believed that's a special G based on Yakir Yakir means he has the right to identify start when did what start they believe well well it's in the talmud itself the talmud itself Bas and it bases it on interpretation of the Torah so as far as we believe as part of the oral Torah it goes back all the way to mosha rabo so it's all the way all the way back yeah yeah okay yeah yeah yeah so I'm gonna I'm going to address that right right now that's what I'm up to meaning meaning the following uh yeah okay I will get to it in a minute yeah yeah um I'll get to that too because it all depends on on the following situation now again it's very important it's very very very important that when we talk about uh surrogacy we differentiate between full surrogacy and gestational surrogacy because Hally they pose different issues full surrogacy which as I say is actually not so not so common today but full surrogacy is Hally a much more simple situation to analyze because in full surrogacy we know for sure who is the father and we know for sure who is the mother the father is the husband who sperm fertiliz the egg and the mother is the woman who gave birth to the child because she is both the mother who carried the baby and the mother whose egg was fertilized so all of the big shilas which which I'll get to in a second about who is the mother are not relevant in full surrogacy because we know who the mother is under those circumstances and that's clearly where the raban nut's guideline would apply in that that case that is she has to be single and she should not be a sister of husband wife or a mother of husband wife now when you get to gestational surrogacy you have oh I'm sorry and once again and if the full surrogate okay if the full surrogate is not Jewish once again it's pretty simple the child is 100% a he is born from a non-jewish woman and her egg was fertilized and is a that a child that is born from a non-jewish full surrogate 100% needs conversion I would also add that according to halaka the Jewish man has not his father because essentially he had a child from a non-jewish woman and when the child converts he is not Hally related to his father now again I I always have to make this point so there's no PR ofu there for sure I always make this point that I am not referring to emotional bonds I mean sometimes uh when G hear these that your father is not your father they take it they may take it in a certain way that is not intended uh I don't mean you don't love if a man was born or or a person a child was born from a non-jewish woman and their father was Jewish I don't mean to say you don't love your father I don't mean to say you don't honor your father you don't of course you do I just mean in terms of the narrow halic construct uh it's not a paternal relationship it's one of gratitude and love it's very similar to adoption I mean adoption too you don't have the logical bonds but the emotional bond is still there okay so the case of full surrogacy is a fairly simple situation to analyze now if you then ask is it better to have a non-jewish surrogate or a Jewish surrogate so uh based on rosha Feinstein's concern for secret incest of a brother marrying a sister it might be better to have a guy but in the case of surrogacy I think that's less compelling because unlike sperm donors who are repeat donors surrogates tend to be one-time people meaning to say the fear that you know one child will marry another child later because they both came from the same woman is not so likely because surrogates tend not to be repeat it's hard enough to be a surrogate once uh unlike sperm donors they don't do it multiple times so mosha is concern about sperm donors you know a brother marrying a sister if it's a Jewish woman and therefore you want a non-jewish woman I think maybe less uh less uh compellent I'm sorry not I don't mean non-jewish non-jewish non-jewish sperm Rao's point of non-jewish sperm wouldn't automatically translate into non-jewish woman but okay all right so that's the situation of surrogacy now the only question we might ask about full surrogacy is the interesting question is a woman allowed to be a full Sur okay if it's a non-jewish woman she'll do what she wants but if you have a Jewish woman who wants to keep Hal can a Jewish woman Hally be a surrogate so the question is well why not I mean what AA is taking place by carrying a baby on behalf of somebody else once you re once once you factored out momser and once we don't treat it like intercourse for purposes of premarital sex or whatever it would be so rosha tendler made the argument and I'm not sure it's I don't think it's a compelling argument but he actually said it's forbidden to be a surrogate because pregnancy and childbirth are halachically life-threatening conditions potentially people can die but the Torah permits it for the purpose of raising a child so his argument is a woman is allowed to get pregnant only if she plans on raising the child you know with her husband uh if she's getting pregnant in order to give the baby away he claims it is prohibited to put yourself in a Mak Sakana if it's not for the purpose of raising the child um I hear it I understand and surrogacy makes me uncomfortable as well but I'm not sure if his logic is Ironclad here because I understand the idea don't become pregnant unless you're going to bring it unless you you want to bring a child into the world but who says you have to be the one that raises it I mean the other way around we sometimes encourage parents under very difficult situations to place a child for adoption you know we don't we don't say can't get pregnant if you're going to give up the child for adoption so going back to square one therefore if you were to ask is it forbidden for a woman to volunteer as a surrogate uh it's not clear that there any prohibition but again as I say I will mention that Rabbi tendler who was rosha Feinstein son and an eminent in his own right did take the position that surrogacy was in itself a forbidden status for a woman to be now that's the full Sur yeah AR I I understand that I didn't get there yet I I I I I told I told you I was going to get to it I will get to it I will get to it I mean uh I mean you have to let me you have to let you have to let me control the timing of of this year I mean I'm sorry okay yeah I I don't ignore questions I mean I I will get to it I'm sorry I was confusing yeah that's correct that would be part of the same issue that um of putting yourself through this where it's not even for the purpose of her raising a child that would be well well I I mentioned a few several times that says a woman is not obligated to go through any of these even for her own children uh but she's allowed to if she wants to most of the time uh people want to yeah I'm sorry I didn't hear you she's married yeah so I did mention that the rabon's guidelines is that the surrogate must be a single woman not a married woman because otherwise the child might be considered to be a mser born from an adultery well no as I say though uh the rabut splits the difference they do not treat it as intercourse and therefore she's allowed to marry AO but their that the birth may be okay so now let me answer the question okay really I mean okay uh let us talk about gestational surrogacy which is a more complicated phenomenon in gestational surrogacy a husband's sperm fertilizes wife's egg in IVF IVF typically and then if there's a fertilized embryo it is transferred to a third woman or a second woman uh she might be Jewish might be non-jewish Etc so here here we have a very very fundamental hak problem that turns on many many that has many ramifications and that is who is the hak mother in that type of scenario because what's the issue we know that Judaism of course is based on identity of mother matrilineal descent the question becomes okay in a full surrogacy we know who the mother is that's not a question by gational surrogacy who is the mother is the mother the genetic mother whose egg was fertilized 50% of whose chromosomes are in this baby or is the mother the gestational woman who carried the baby for nine months of pregnancy now this is going to be extremely important if for example the surrogate is not not Jewish husband wife are both Jewish surrogate is not Jewish husband sperm fertilizes his wife's egg but the baby was born from a non-jewish body if the halakic mother is the surrogate the child would have to have a conversion as a baby there are procedures for converting babies and the like if on the other hand the halakic mother is the genetic mother the child would not need a conversion so that's one Naina one difference is if the surate is not Jewish do you need conversion there but there are other differences even if both are Jewish the question is which relatives I mean let's imagine the wife who who gave her egg has natural children and let's say the surrogate has natural children so let's imagine a boy is born from a gational surrogate could he marry the sister from the wife the wife or the sister from the surrogate in other words it all depends who the mother is meaning to say well well okay okay this is a little tricky because there it may be user anyway uh because it may be a half sister meaning he certainly could not marry okay he certainly could not Mar marry the siblings from the wife because they at least would be half siblings from the father that's true but but if Hally the surrogate is not his mother then he has no h relationship to her children neither from because they don't share a father or a mother so if maternity would be defined by the genetic mother he I'm just example of a boy the Boy let's say he was born from the surrogate would excuse me would be allowed to marry the siblings of the surrogate you see no no the Father the father is with the egg donor the father is with the egg donor yeah in other words husband's fertilized wife's egg and the fertilized egg was carried by surrogate if Hally the egg donor is the mother then Hally the child born from the surrogate has no relationship at all to the other children of the surrogate so he would be allowed to marry other children of the surrogate now mashen came if Hally the surrogate is the mother then he would not be allowed to marry Children of the mother because they would be half siblings from the same mother nor could he marry Children of the egg donor because even if the egg Doner is not the mother but they're half siblings from the father you see so so this is the sh yeah [Music] yeah well DNA testing is not is not going to be relevant here because we know we know the facts I I know the DNA is going to be from the egg donor I mean I know that the issue is not doing any testing the issue is Hally what is the Criterion that will establish I'll give you some proof from the gamar in a moment what are the Criterion that EST criteria that establish halic maternity is it the genetic contribution or is it the N9 months of gestation I mean DNA testing is not going to help you at all I mean you know that I know if I do DNA testing uh it'll be the egg donor that that whose DNA is gonna come up but the question is is that COA uh what is more significant yeah a contract yeah yes yes but but but but the question becomes Hally you can't change that meaning to say uh we can sign all sorts of contracts who's going to have custody okay I agree I agree with you we can have adoption procedures we can have custody procedures but Hally that cannot erase you cannot erase the halakic definition of who is a mother and who is a father that's going to remain if a person puts up their child for adoption at Birth they are still the Hal father and mother uh even if they agreed uh for support and other purposes to relinquish it so you are right uh that with respect to custody and support and who's going to be obligated to do this and that they're going to have a contract but in terms of conversion Necessities uh in terms of theu surrogate in terms of sibling and the like there are going to be problems now I do want to point out that the rabut treats this just surrogacy as an unresolved issue and therefore you must be M on all sides of the question therefore thank you therefore uh the person the child's born from a non-jewish surrogate must undergo conversion he will not be registered as a Jew unless there's a gor and number two the uh kid cannot marry siblings from either the egg donor or the surrogate because we treat either one of them as a mother other words that's simply considering it as a suffect and as a suff one must go now that's the Rab's position which is simply saying we don't want to decide the question so we're just going to be strict on it but let me point out there's a very very fascinating uh proof although it's not really a proof because you don't bring proofs from midrashim that emerges from last week's para amazing amazing amazing proof and this is the story of Dena remember last week's para we read about the daughter that Leia had whose name was Dena now with all of the boys all of theim it always says V she conceived and she gave birth in the case of Dina it just says y as Dina she gave birth to Dena it does not say she conceived Dina Rashi brings the following teaching when Leia was pregnant with the child who was eventually Dena originally she was carrying a boy now she already had six Sons this would have been her Seventh Son and when Rael was pregnant with who eventually was Yosef Rael was originally carrying a girl Leia knew she was carrying a boy and Ra was carrying a girl with Ru she knew this and here was a problem there's only going to be 12 tribes uh if Leia were to have one more that would leave only one tribe for Dina One Tribe for ra which would have been bamin and that would have made Rael inferior to even the maid servants each of whom had two therefore Rashi says based on the medish that uh Leia prayed that the boy she was carrying should be turned into a girl and the girl that Ra was carrying should be turned into a boy so it's a it's a miracle the says it is a miracle because as a general rule the gumar says that after 40 days from conception you you you're not allowed to pray I should have a boy or I should have a girl because it's already been decided and the gar asks well how could Leia change have sex change or whatever it would be uh it was it was m a miracle and that's why it doesn't say she conceived Dena because she didn't conceive Dena but she gave birth to now according to rashi's understanding of the medish this was just a sex change meaning there's no surrogacy here meaning the girl in Leia's body became a boy and the boy in R's I'm sorry the girl in R's body became a girl meaning there was no switcheroos here it was simply a gender change so that has nothing to do with surrogacy but there's an alternative version of this medish that is preserved in tarum yonasan benu now a little bit of background here uh yonasan benuel uh was considered to be the greatest of the Disciples of hillo the greatest of the tum of hillo uh and he was so great and so holy that when he would learn Torah the Angels would gather over his head and their Heavenly Fire would burn any birds that flew over the learning that's how kados he was like to say that uh you can Gauge by your reaction to this story are you Aid or mis because what would Aid do how would Aid react when he hear such a story he would say ah look at the Holiness of a sadic where it's sadic be greater than the Angels the angels in heaven are jealous of the sadic right like kabad likes to say this is the message of the game of chess that the lowly Pond which is the most inferior of all the chess pieces is the only one that can grow and become a queen right that's the human being we're much lower than the Angels but we can change and we can grow and that's why the angels are jealous of yonas and benu that's a response to the story a lak response to the story by who has to pay for the birds let's say the birds belong to somebody meaning right as writes is is everything has to be analyzed if is is yonas liable for Supernatural damages right so that's a lak versus a versus a uh you may know museal is buried near spat in a very deep deep valley called amuka amuka uh I haven't been there for a number of years uh I think they probably fixed up a little bit but when I was in amuka it was dark dark dark there were literally No Light No lights at all other than your headlights of a bus and I have to admit amuka the first I it was the first time I understood hashem's promise to Abraham that your children will now go outside tonight look up at the sky how many stars do you see I you see 10 10 stars like what's the big deal stars of the heaven ah but go to a place totally dark that's a deep valley you know there are like millions of stars up there there really are a whole bunch of stuff out there so I understood for the first time now amuka it is said yonil never got married I don't I'm not sure why but because he knew the pain of being single it's a place that's very mugal you go there to pray and what often happens is uh young ladies inadvertently leave their sitters there with their names addresses phone number and email uh conveniently and young men who want to be M the Mitzvah of Hasa when they get back to the states will try to do this mitzvah in the Merit of many many done now if you look at a MCR gados you will notice that we have tumus which is an Aramaic translation and then we have tarum yonas buil which is also an Aramaic translation but they're very very different they're both authoritative taramis is very much a literal translation uh although an in-depth analysis will reveal sorts of things but on the surface it's just word for word for word taram yonasan benel brings in many many MIM and in fact because he was a Tana he himself now that you don't have to say oh where did he get it from I mean he he's a medish taronis in itself is a midrashic source now he brings the same story that Rashi brings this is fascinating but he brings it in a very very different way once again we start off the same way Leia was carrying a boy and Rael was carrying a girl and Leia was afraid that if she has a boy same part thing with Rashi Zar that's only gonna leave One Tribe for R so she'll be humiliated so Leia prayed so far Rashi and taronis are walking in the same road taram yonis and then says the following as a result of Leia's prayer the embryos in the bodies were switched not that the embryo changed gender rather the boy in Leia's body Hashem put into rael's body and that was Yosef and the girl that was in rael's body was put in Lea's body so now it turns out that genetically Dena was rael's child and it turns out that genetically yoseph was Leia's child in effect each one became the gestational surrogate of the other and since B tyraa Dena is always described as Leia's daughter even though according to taramona son genetically she was Ra's daughter and Yosef is always described as the child of raal even though genetically he was Leia's son this seems to be a proof that the surrogate is the mother and that overrides the egg donor now again I want to point out two things number one it's essential that you understand that this is only a proof according to taramona son's version of the story it is not a proof according to rashi's version of the story because according to Rashi Dina was the Gen genc child of Leia she just transitioned from a boy to a girl and yoseph was the genetic child of Rael uh he just transitioned from a girl to a boy so it has nothing to do with surrogacy according to rashi's understanding of the medish it is only uh a proof according to tarum yonas and Ben which means it's not a proof because who says that that's the version of the story also as points out generally speaking uh we are not able to bring H proofs to midashim midashim have symbolic value they're not always meant to be taken literally uh so it's fascinating it's just a fascinating little point that you can see from this story something that has an implication for surrogacy but this is not a halakic proof and therefore the raban not's position is very defensible that we have to treat this as an unresolved question now reel yashiv I'm told I didn't see didn't see the second thing in writing but I I know that Rebel Yos originally took the position that it was not a suff he considered gestation and birth to be the most important thing which is supported by this taramona son but somebody told me and this I had not seen that Rebel Yash changed his mind he waser before he died and he wanted to allocate maternity based on genetic contribution now if we were writing on a blank slate if we were just asking ourselves logically what should be the most important determinant in many ways a very strong logical argument could be made for the egg donor because after all the Genome of the person the the characteristics of the person the 50% from father 50% from mother are coming from the egg donor right that those are the characteristics that form the identity so that would argue in favor of egg a wife egg donor I shouldn't call her an egg Don she's gonna raise the child but know the one who contributed the egg egg contributor will say genetic mother but the counterargument is spiritually based on the well-known gar that before a child is born an angel a Malik is teaching the child the whole Torah in the womb and uh when the child is about to be born the child takes an oath to be righteous and not to be a Russia he actually promises God takes an oath which you know maybe we break but at least the oath is made and then the child is struck on the lip here above the lip and forgets all the Torah uh people ask the question what is the purpose of teaching a child Torah if he's going to forget it and comes in not knowing anything the short answer is it imprints spiritual truth in his Nish so even though he forgets the information it defined his Essence that's why people sometimes say people who are sometimes say that when they encounter Torah there is a Deja Vu sensation it's as if I I'm somehow connected to this before yeah it goes all the way back uh interestingly how does this work with non-jews who convert people who were born from non-jews uh again it's a little tricky there are two different ways cabala explains it so we're not sure one is that since Hashem knew ahead of time this person would be converting so he sent the angel even to the non-jewish mother and the person got his lesson others say that immersion in the Mikvah is a new birth and therefore you get a crash course so to speak you don't have nine months well of course you prepare for the conversion but you go into the Mikvah the Mal gives you like instantaneous knowledge but but the point I'm making is if there is something something significant in the spiritual development of the Nish that occurs dur during gestation that may be a basis for assigning maternity to the to the birth mother so there are SOS there are arguments mik mik uh that's why R himself went back and forth on it the rabut treats this as an unresolved question again it is relevant to conversion it is relevant to siblings um inheritance maybe not so much I I'll tell you why uh because inheritance of the father's estate does not depend on the mother so in terms of from the father that would be not a problem uh but it would make a difference uh you know if the mother at some point either mother is widowed and when she dies the inher her property would go to her children so once again you'd have a Shila uh does the Kid born from the surrogate inherit from the surrogate or inherit from the egg donor so there are many many questions now I I do want to point out uh yeah sorry back okay well all I can tell you is obviously if we knew what schlom would say we wouldn't say it's an unresolved question meaning it's precisely because we don't know what schlom would say that we have to treat it as a sa yeah the back not the children to even [Music] what Happ DNA to that child yes so let me let me answer the second question first uh unfortunately the child is not a Coen even though he has the DNA of a coin because he was born from a non-jewish woman and if that is his mother he has to convert uh that is why by the way the DNA test for Kahuna can only establish you're not a Coen it cannot establish you are a Coen meaning it may very well be that if a CH if if a person does not have the DNA marker for Kahuna that may prove he's not a cohain but the presence of the DNA does not prove he is a Coan because exactly in this example would be an example of having the male DNA and and and losing it so that's correct now with re to your first question it is very very true that uh writings on surrogacy have pointed to the bill and Zila remember when Rael gives her mid servant bah to Yakov he she says I will have children through her I will be built up through her now there you're not the I mean Ra was not the genetic mother she was not the birth mother so the truth of the matter is I would say that surrogacy is not the uh the right category to apply there I would apply adoption essentially uh we look at it the notion that emotionally there could be an adoptive Bond when you when you take the primary responsibility for raising the child because there's no question that the are the mothers of those but apparently ra and Le took primary responsibility for raising those children and that's what say say if you raise orphans in your home it is spiritually as if you gave birth to them although that does not create eternity yeah mother in other words if you're praying for for a sick person like's a which mother do you use uh yeah it's a very it's a very good question uh if we say we're uncertain who the mother is so it's very relevant for right we pray when we pray for a uh we use the mother's name uh which mother do you use uh the truth is frankly you can use two mothers you can basically say uh now publicly I'm not sure that may embarrass somebody but technically would be you know yov ra uh Leia whatever whatever the names names are there would be that I will say though bottom line though even though the Raba treats it as a saf I actually believe that most poim do consider the surrogate to be the mother by virtue of of gestation so if that's the case that's where you would probably go with the name yeah oh of course he does sure sure sure sure uh no I mean Steinberg uh Steinberg a wonderful wonderful person a big and a great physician has um a whole encyclopedia multiv volume encyclopedia in uh Hebrew and in English on Jewish Medical ethics but you know uh the nature of an encyclopedia is he'll give you all the different opinions and he will not tell you what the bottom line H is uh so I I don't know what he personally would POS him but but from his writing you know it's more or less the stuff I'm telling you uh yeah well well you say the medish uh well well well remember the medish here is is based on a very yeah the question is why why why do some people think the medish takes precedence over what's written in the Torah right that's that's the question so you have to understand that the medish is based on a very close reading of the Torah because remember the Med's Point by every single one of the tribes it always says she conceived and gave birth by Dena the word vah conceived is left out so the medish is interpreting now you may find it far-fetched but the medish is basing its conclusion on a linguistic analysis of the text of the Torah it isn't just a freestanding Baba that it's bringing in uh it's a very very close reading of the text and in fact we often don't understand the textual basis of medish so we look at it as fanciful and artificial but in truth and this this could be a whole big coincident of itself in Truth uh medish is actually extremely close reading of the subtleties of words repetitions redundancies inconsistencies why does this word come here and not there and that's the basis of of kaz's uh of kaz's tradition uh yeah earli you mentioned mentioned two concepts of how a could receive the imprint of yeah said did I say no I think I said two uh but uh the two are that ahead of time you know he gets it even as a non-jew and the other is the Mikvah now that also goes to a related question which is kind of almost the same question and that is is a gar born with a Jewish Soul or does a g acquire a Jewish Soul upon the conversion the truth is that's just another way of of describing the two many people who become G often describe a phenomenon that they felt Jewish at a very very young age they felt Jewish at a very very young age and I'm talking about people who grew up in places even where there weren't any Jews at all like somebody from you know South Dakota says ever since I was ever since I was four years old say again yeah yeah yeah yeah so ever since I was four years old in fact they didn't even know it was a Jewish thing you know you might see something I'm not saying every case you might see something like whenever it was Saturday I just felt I I couldn't turn on the television they didn't even know they didn't even know there was shabas they didn't even know what they connected to but there was something in them that they just couldn't do certain things on Saturday you know so that would suggest anecdotally at least that there is this pre-existing Jewish soul that was there all the way from the beginning somehow it got in a different body how that happened interesting question others say that they look at conversion as a new creation meaning yeah you didn't have a Jewish Soul you go to the Mikvah you have a Jewish Soul by the way that happen s only when you come out of the mikah you know it's interesting Mikvah does not do its job it's true even for you're not toor when you go into the Mikvah you are to when you come out of the Mikvah so theoretically as long as you're underwater nothing's happened yet the the the transition occurs when one hair is above water you you've emerged from the womb and now you are reborn it's important to know that the tah of a Mikvah is not in the water uh it is H so for example uh I don't know if husband would jump his wife okay whatever his wife is in the Mah uh she's under and he's so happy to see her he jumps into the water to to give her a hug and they're both underwater is her there of n uh she's still a Nida until she comes out of the out of the water yeah yeah and yeah well well once again you know uh um this is going to even be worse if you if you consider an egg donor who might be a mother you know I mean let me let me let me turn it around a little bit let me turn it around a little bit so you're arguing it's not fair that the surrogate should be the mother well who should be the mother therefore the the the egg donor so now let's consider a reverse situation which I'm going to address next week let's consider a situation where a husband and wife the wife is going to carry the baby but there was egg donor now is it is it more logical that the egg donor over there in South Dakota I think there's a stronger case for the surrogate than for the egg donor right so you can't you can't have it both ways meaning if you're GNA no because if you're G to give the wife motherhood because she is the egg donor then you're G to give the anonymous egg donor motherhood because she's the egg donor it's the same same issue so you're arguing that T should change it I I I understand but that may I no no I do I do understand uh yeah [Music] yeah no there's no yeah I have to stop but there is no question you're raising very very legitimate points and uh this has to be considered the question is how relevant are they that's going to be the question meaning there is a problem I'm not I'm not denying that but we may be stuck sometimes we have to work with the the evils that we're confronted with anyway we'll continue next week have a good week everybody thank you