From Sinai to Cyberspace with Rabbi Yosef Shusterman, Chabad North Beverly Hills
The Torah is absolute truth. So the Torah does apply to events today even though it was written thousands of years ago.
God gave Moses generalizations, general rules.
Rabbis don’t always answer the question. They answer the person asking the question.
Torah says you cannot have minyan or do a Megillah Reading through Zoom. Yet there is a law in the Talmud that says a Shofar cannot be blown in a pit because it creates an echo. You have to hear the original voice, not the echo. So even though the Talmud has no idea what Zoom is, the law still applies.
Abortion and heart transplants?
Torah talks about when life begins and ends. Life begins at conception. Abortion is allowed to save the life of the mother.
Heart transplants? When does life end? Is it brain death or respiratory death? If respiratory death, then the transplant would be impermissible. If the brain death is the criteria, then the transplant would be allowed since the heart is being removed from a dead person.
You cannot take a prayerbook into the bathroom, but you can take your cellphone there.
Surrogate motherhood: If Sarah gives the egg but Rebecca carries the baby, who is the mother?
Laws of inheritance matter. Who would you say Shiva for? Does Shomer Nagiyah apply? What if the donor mother is Jewish and the carrier of the baby is not Jewish? Or vice versa.
In general, if either woman is not Jewish, Judaism prefers they convert to Judaism.
Life does begin at conception, but there are various stages of Halachic life. The true viability of a baby is 30 days after birth.