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The world’s foremost rabbinic authority on declaring death grapples with Oct. 7 horrors
Times of Israel ^ | December 27, 2023 | Mati Wagner

Posted on 01/05/2024 2:13:23 PM PST by Twotone

Rabbi Yaakov Ruzah’s eyes are privy to unspeakable horrors. Horrors that can shake even a man like Ruzah, the world’s foremost rabbinic authority on the laws of death and mourning.

“What I saw after October 7, I haven’t seen in my entire career,” says Ruzah as he sits at his living room table in Bat Yam, a city just south of Tel Aviv, where he serves pro bono as chief rabbi.

“You saw how they purposely desecrated bodies, you saw bodies of babies… you never see babies like this… It is very difficult. I am managing to hold on, but there are people around me who are not able to deal with it,” he says.

As the supreme halachic authority on death, Ruzah wears two hats, one civilian and one military. During his five-decade military career, he has risen to the rank of colonel and serves as the IDF chief rabbi’s adviser on matters related to death and body identification.

As chairman of the Chief Rabbinate’s Dignity of the Deceased Council and as former rabbi of Abu Kabir’s National Center for Forensic Medicine, he is responsible for all non-military personnel murdered in the October 7 massacre.

Judaism has developed a robust and intricate legal system for determining death, even when there is no corpse. A Jewish people that is no stranger to horror and the hostility of host nations — pagan, Christian or Muslim — has seen pogroms, blood libels, the Crusades, auto-da-fés, and the Holocaust. Throughout this bloody history, sages have generated hundreds of legal precedents codifying responses to nearly every imaginable atrocity.

Yet even this rich legal tradition, developed over the ages in exile under repressive and extreme conditions, has come up short, says Ruzah.

“The slaughter of October 7 revived halachic rulings dormant for centuries.

(Excerpt) Read more at timesofisrael.com ...


TOPICS: Israel; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: chiefrabbi; declaringdeath; hamas; israel; oct7; rabbiruzah; savages

1 posted on 01/05/2024 2:13:23 PM PST by Twotone
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To: Twotone

Is this rabbi on record regarding abortion? If so, does anyone know what it is?

Nothing justifies the unconscionable acts of of Hamas, but if someone is going to talk about the horrors of mutilated babies, one must talk about abortion.


2 posted on 01/05/2024 2:21:56 PM PST by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: Jim W N

In Judaism, the rights of the mother supercedes the unborn child.


3 posted on 01/05/2024 2:34:23 PM PST by Jonty30 (In a nuclear holocaust, there is always a point in time where the meat is cooked to perfection. )
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To: Jonty30

Then I submit that it is hypocritical to be in favor of brutalizing the unborn while acting astonished at Hamas’ doing the same.


4 posted on 01/05/2024 2:38:27 PM PST by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: Jim W N

I don’t know if it’s hypocritical. They’ve decided that, between two lives, one matters more than the other and the baby loses.

In my opinion, one shouldn’t be sexually active unless you are prepared to care for children and help raise them to adults. The emphasis for me is on life. If you are risking bringing life about, you should honour that life to the greatest reasonable degree that you can and being inconvenienced is not an excuse.

Having said that, my hope is that the mother would birth the child and find a home for it. Her loss of giving a child up is not a good excuse in my book for an abortion. Only if it’s been determined that it really is a medically necessary act to abort it would I allow for it because the mother has to be there for any existing children she might have.


5 posted on 01/05/2024 4:52:16 PM PST by Jonty30 (In a nuclear holocaust, there is always a point in time where the meat is cooked to perfection. )
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To: Twotone

There are specific protocols when doing this type work. He needs to slow or stop for a while. It will drive you insane.


6 posted on 01/05/2024 5:08:43 PM PST by Delta 21 (If anyone is treasonous, it is those who call me such.)
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To: Twotone

3 of the top donors to the liberal radical left democratic party are jewish


7 posted on 01/06/2024 3:56:57 AM PST by ronnie raygun
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