Jewish medical ethics

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 23. Chapters: Aaron L. Mackler, Brit milah, Daniel Sinclair, Eliezer Waldenberg, Elliot N. Dorff, Fred Rosner, Halachic Organ Donor Society, Immanuel Jakobovits, Baron Jakobovits, J. David Bleich, Mordechai Dov Brody, Moshe Feinstein, Organ donation in Jewish law, Organ transplantation in Israel, Schlesinger Institute, Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, Smoking in Jewish law, Yehoshua Neuwirth. Excerpt: The brit milah (Hebrew: ¿ , Ashkenazi pronunciation , "covenant of circumcision"; Yiddish pronunciation, bris ) is a Jewish religious male circumcision ceremony performed on 8-day-old male infants by a mohel. The brit milah is followed by a celebratory meal (seudat mitzvah). "Isaac's Circumcision", Regensburg Pentateuch, c1300According to the Hebrew Bible (Genesis 17:10-14) God commanded the Biblical patriarch Abraham to be circumcised, an act to be followed by his descendants: Also, Leviticus 12:3 provides: "And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised." According to the Hebrew Bible, it was "a reproach" for an Israelite to be uncircumcised (Joshua 5:9.) The term arelim ("uncircumcised" ) is used opprobriously, denoting the Philistines and other non-Israelites (I Samuel 14:6, 31:4; II Samuel 1:20) and used in conjunction with tameh (unpure) for heathen (Isaiah 52:1). The word arel ("uncircumcised" ) is also employed for "impermeable" (Leviticus 26:41, "their uncircumcised hearts"; compare Jeremiah 9:25; Ezekiel 44:7,9); it is also applied to the first three years' fruit of a tree, which is forbidden (Leviticus 19:23). However, the Israelites born in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt were not circumcised. Joshua 5:2-9, explains, "all the people that came out" of Egypt were circumcised, but those "born in the wilderness" were not. Therefore Joshua, before the celebration of the Passover, had them circumcised at Gilgal specifically before they entered Canaan. Abraham, too, was circumcised when he moved into Canaan. The prophetic tradition emphasizes that God expects people to be good as well as pious, and that non-Jews will be judged based on their ethical behavior, see Noahide Law. Thus, Jeremiah 9:25-26 says that circumcised and uncircumcised will be punished alike by the Lord; for "all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart." The penalty of non-observance is kareth (spiritual excision f