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1 SuMMaRy and Conclusions
1. If an administrator does not have the time to write evaluation
letters containing negative information about physicians, he can
dictate them to his secretary and then fill in the names of the
physicians on his own.
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2. If it is not possible to do this, says the Tzitz Eliezer, it is permis- couple who married, and three weeks later, the wife claimed that the
sible for the administrator to dictate letters to the secretary with
the name, since the physician has waived his right for respect.
According to my father-in-law, the administrator should none-
theless take the time to write the letters himself.

Should one notify the staff that there is a patient
with AIDS in their department?
1 Question
To the Rav shlit”a,
The following question was raised by doctors and medical staff in
a certain hospital last year. For obvious reasons, all names and iden-
tifying details have been omitted. Thus there are not enough details
provided to elicit a specific halachic ruling for this case. This question
should rather serve as an introduction to a discussion of the matter
at hand.
Two patients suffering from different medical problems were
hospitalized in the department of internal medicine. Both were di-
agnosed with HIV, which is a criterion for the diagnosis of AIDS.
The symptoms they had were also present in patients who did not
have AIDS. We took measures to prevent contagion from the sick
patients. Gloves, sterile gowns, and masks were standard protocol at
every blood drawing and intravenous infusion.
The AIDS patients are not identified to the hospital workers and
212 1 Medical-HalacHic Responsa of Rav ZilbeRstein
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that she does not have syphilis, the divorce is null and void. However,
if the physician’s words were not spoken definitively, and the husband
should not have been so convinced that he must divorce her, but he
nevertheless did divorce her, the divorce is valid.
My father-in-law cited evidence in favor of his view from Ein
Yitzchak (Part 2, Even Haezer #37), who discusses the case of a young
marriage was not working out and asked for a divorce. The husband
did not want to divorce her because he loved her. His wife and rela-
tives deceivingly told him that in Poland there was a very famous rav
whose expert advice would help the marriage succeed. They repeat-
edly tried to persuade him to travel with his wife to this renowned
rabbi whose advice would bring peace and love to their home. Then
they told him that they had traveled to the famous rav themselves
and he had advised that the young man divorce his wife and then
remarry her a few days later, promising that the renewed marriage
would be loving and harmonious. They even brought the husband a
forged letter with the rav’s signature and his advice.
Once she had her divorce in hand, the woman, of course, refused to
remarry him. The young man cried out bitterly against the wife who
had deceived him so cruelly, saying, “I only divorced her based on the
forged letter and the knowledge that we would remarry afterwards.”
Therefore, the divorce is null and void and invalid.
The Ein Yitzchak explains that he was asked by Rav H. Dobresh
Meisels, the Av Beis Din in Warsaw, for his comments on this difficult
case. He ruled that the divorce is indeed null and void. His explana-
tion is as follows:
If one divorces one’s wife because of a rumor, or because
she shows signs of infertility, this is only a suspicion, and
he should have investigated the matter. Since he did not
do so, he must have already decided to divorce her…If he
divorced her hastily, it must be that he had already decided
to divorce her….This theory is alluded to in Rashi (masech-
es Gittin 46a, s.v. taama), who writes that “since he did not
Divorce due to erroneous medical information 2 193
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