I just finished watching tonight’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I happen to like the show - it’s entertaining and fun to watch.
Tonight’s episode featured a young Orthodox Jew who needed a heart valve replacement. Of course, the first option presented is a porcine valve replacement, which the young patient refuses. In the end, the doctor finds a bovine valve and everyone lives happily ever after. However, before the bovine valve was an option, the patient indicated that she would not have the surgery with a porcine valve - under any circumstances - even if it meant her death.
Of course, none of this is within normative Jewish law on several counts and a simple call to an Orthodox (or even a Conservative or Reform) Rabbi would have confirmed this.
The prohibition regarding non-kosher animals refers to eating - nothing more. There is nothing wrong with taking pig insulin, using a porcine heart valve or even using soap made from pigs.
Even if the pig-product had to be eaten, one would not only be allowed to but required to take it to save one’s life. A Jew is not allowed to allow him/herself to die rather than take a pig product.
So, would it have been so difficult for one of the producers to actually pick up the phone and call a rabbi and confirm this before going ahead with the story line?
That would have required the writers to do research, and that’s asking too much from a network TV drama
That would have removed any of the dramatic tension of the episode.
Doctor: “We can save your life, but we need to put in a pig valve!”
Woman: “Ok”
Doctor: “Oh, just great! What are we going to do for the next 40 minutes?”
And, giving the show the benefit of the doubt, even though the pig valve would have been halachically permitted, it still might cause the woman enough psychological distress to make her irrational. I think it was the Rambam who said that if someone is dying, and you need to feed them forbidden food to keep them alive, you should lie to them about what you’re feeding them, because if they realize what they’re eating, they’ll become disgusted and unable to swallow it.
Even a real hospital probably would have urged the patient to conult with her rabbi.
You think this show got it wrong, you should see what Revelations is doing to Catholicism. Oy vey. They have a nun reeling of “Left Behind” psychobabble like that has anything to do with Catholicism. She keeps talking about “signs and symbols of the endtimes” and the writers seem completely unaware that the RCC does not have any fucking "endtimes’ theology as such, they don’t believe in “signs and symbols” or a war beteween Jesus and the "antichrist or any of that bullshit.
The show also pisses me off with it’s cardboard “skeptics” and straw , fundy “scientists” and the nun’s smug, patronizing tolerance of “doubt” (which, of course, can never be sincere non-belief but always has to be motivated by anger at God).
I’m starting to ramble but I can’t believe that not a single person associated with that show bothered to find out anything about Catholic eschatological beliefs before writing such an insulting and wildly inaccurate caricature of a nun. They might as well have her praying to Mecca or burning Vedic sacrifices. That’s about how Catholic this character is.
Have you spoken to many nuns lately? It’s years since I heard any of them speaking about traditional Catholic dogma. They’re almost all obsessed with various psychobabble, Myers Briggs, Wicca, etc.
Not that I like the show, I just had it on in the background, but it seemed to me that part of the character was the teenager who grasps for faith and dives deeply into it, getting some of the details wrong and annoying those around her for a while, as part of the growing-up process.
Of course, it does spread ignorance, and if they were going for that angle it would’ve been better to have wrapped it up at the end so people didn’t actually think that the girl’s construction of the faith was correct. Thanks for letting us know, at least.
I am so glad I watched Survivor instead and spared myself a yellfest at the television.
I am sort of torn on Grey’s Anatomy. On one hand it reminds me of ER back when it was watchable. On the other I don’t like the fact that two of the main characters are sleeping with people who are technically their supervisors. I also have a hard time buying the show’s relentless PCism.
Eh, individual people are not necessarily representative of an entire religion and may hold irrational beliefs, even more so on television. I would be willing to bet that there are at least a few misguided Jews that do in fact believe that a porcine heart valve would be inappropriate just as more than a few Catholics do believe in “signs and symbols of the endtimes.”
Not quite… the Catholic Church does not teach a PreTrib Rapture or a Thousand Year Earthly Kingdom of Christ, but there is a general consensus of a final persecution by AntiChrist rulers/systems to be ended by the return of Jesus to end the world & judge all humanity.
The Church’s ultimate trial
675 Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.[573] The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth[574] will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.[575]
676 The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgement. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism,[576] especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.[577]
677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.[578] The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven.[579] God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgement after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.[580]
II. TO JUDGE THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
678 Following in the steps of the prophets and John the Baptist, Jesus announced the judgement of the Last Day in his preaching.[581] Then will the conduct of each one and the secrets of hearts be brought to light.[582] Then will the culpable unbelief that counted the offer of God’s grace as nothing be condemned.[583] Our attitude to our neighbour will disclose acceptance or refusal of grace and divine love.[584] On the Last Day Jesus will say: “Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”[585]
679 Christ is Lord of eternal life. Full right to pass definitive judgement on the works and hearts of men belongs to him as redeemer of the world. He “acquired” this right by his cross. The Father has given “all judgement to the Son”.[586] Yet the Son did not come to judge, but to save and to give the life he has in himself.[587] By rejecting grace in this life, one already judges oneself, receives according to one’s works, and can even condemn oneself for all eternity by rejecting the Spirit of love.[588]
IN BRIEF
680 Christ the Lord already reigns through the Church, but all the things of this world are not yet subjected to him. The triumph of Christ’s kingdom will not come about without one last assault by the powers of evil.
681 On Judgement Day at the end of the world, Christ will come in glory to achieve the definitive triumph of good over evil which, like the wheat and the tares, have grown up together in the course of history.
682 When he comes at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, the glorious Christ will reveal the secret disposition of hearts and will render to each man according to his works, and according to his acceptance or refusal of grace.
It’s not inconceivable that a young Jew wouldn’t know that it’s OK to have a porcine valve installed, or wouldn’t know that the rules are overturned in case of a life or death emergency. Holocaust survivor Ferenc Göndör tells, in his book A-6171, of how his father, who was a doctor, was mad at Jewish patients of his who wouldn’t come and see him on the Sabbath, even though their lives were in danger. They didn’t know that it wasn’t a violation of the Sabbath in those circumstances, nor that they were in fact required to do what they could to stay alive, Sabbath or not.
How would a bovine heart valve fit onto a human heart? I’ve seen those suckers (the hearts, not the valves specfiically) in the market, and they’re HUGE!
Priceguy, that is true, but still, some one could have been called, right? ( I haven’t seen it, personally)When I was a kid, I noticed I had a boar’s hair(literally)-hairbrush. I called the rabbi to ask if using the product of a non-kosher animal was a-ok, and was told it was, as long as I didn’t literally profit off of it. This reminds me of an old joke. The Kosher Pig: And Other Curiosities of Modern Jewish Life Paraphrased, with the comedic timing left out, it went like this: One day, a man had a heart attack, and almost died. At the hospital, the doctors told him he had a lack of some nutrients best found in pork. Distressed, he called the local rabbi to his bedside. After looking over and confirming the diagnosis, the rabbi told him that in order to survive, he had best eat a pig once, weekly. Soon after he got home, the rabbi received a call. “ We have a fine pig, we are prepared to cook it long enough to avoid getting trichinosis, and we aren’t using kosher dishes, but….
“Where can we find a buther who will kill it in a approved kosher manner?”
Sure. I was just pointing out that it’s not necessarily a goof. If this story had been in a newspaper (on a slow news day, probably) instead of a TV show we would barely notice. If zev feels that the show propagates misconceptions about Jews and that is why he objects, I can totally understand that, but it’s not in any way a complete fact-checker fuckup.
By the way, zev, if you have the time I’d appreciate your input in this thread.
Well, TV medical dramas are famous for getting their facts wrong or grossly exaggerating.
Maybe we need something like that computer Nerd Squad in the TV ads - a bunch of orthodox rabbis cruising around town in a Checker cab, answering a radio summons and leaping out to resolve urgent issues of religious dogma.
A man was diagnosed with a condition which required him to ingest pork to survive. Since the condition was life-threatening, the man (reluctantly) agreed to eat the pig. However, he stipulated that he would only do so on condition that it was slaughtered according to the rules of kashrus.
So, they brought the pig to the butcher who slaughtered the pig. When they went to inspect the lungs*, however, they found that there were several leisons on the lungs. Not sure whether or not it was kosher, they brought it to the rabbi for examination.
The rabbi looked at it for a while, inspecting here and there, but did not offer a decision. When pressed for one, he responded “What do you want me to say? In the end, it’s still a pig and I can’t say it’s kosher under any circumstances!”
Zev Steinhardt
When a kosher animal is slaughtered, there are several possible defects (including certain leisons on the lungs) which can render it non-kosher. These defects are routinely checked for after slaughter.
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