My husband's father is in the hospital. the doctor is saying he had a heart attack that deprived his brain of oxygen. Now, the only brain activity he has is that of a breathing response. There is nothing else. He is more or less a breathing dead man. How do you sit Shiva in a case like this? He is dead and yet he is not dead.
Baruch dayan ha-emet.
Oy, rakhel, I'm so sorry to hear this! What a terrible thing to have happen! My heart goes out to you and your husband!
Cases like these are actually at the forefront of halakhic debates in bioethics.
The usual Orthodox answer is that as long as your father-in-law's body breathes and its heart beats, he is not technically dead, and cannot be mourned. Once his heart stops and he ceases breathing, his body can be prepared and buried, and it is after burial that one begins to sit shiva (the time from death to burial is called
aninut, and those who are bound by the halakhah to mourn the deceased are called
onenim. All the time one is an
onen, one is exempt from all positive mitzvot [that is, "you must" mitzvot, as opposed to "you must not" mitzvot]).
The usual Conservative answer is that once there is no brain activity, it is permissible to consider him dead. At that point, if he wished to be an organ donor, they may take his organs; and his body may be taken off any remaining life support machinery. When his body has completed the dying process, it may be prepared and buried, and from that point onward, the answer is the same as in Orthodoxy.
I confess that I do not know what Reform bioethical halakhah might be in such a case, but I would presume it would be similar to the Conservative view, but in some way looser and more permissive.
I am just so sorry that you have to go through this. May your father-in-law's memory be for a blessing, and (though I say it early),
haMakom yinachem etchem betoch sh'ar avelei Tzion v'Yerushalaim. May the Omnipresent comfort you, among all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
