Interfaith: Organ donations not only saves lives, it keeps commandments
Ventura County Star
PHOTO BY CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Rabbi Gershon Weissman
A few weeks ago, we who live in Israel read about Jewish Israelis Sarit and Avi Naor, who donated a kidney from their son Noam to a 10-year-old Muslim boy, Yakoub Ibhisad, who has been on dialysis for seven years. Noam suffered irreversible lower-brain death after falling from a fourth-story window in his home to the second floor below. The Naor family who are religiously observant consulted with their rabbi who agreed with their decision to donate their son’s kidney. Only one of their son’s kidneys was fit to be donated.
In recent years, Jewish law has come to find ways to incorporate medical advances without compromising Jewish values. Though it is critically important to have a medically knowledgeable rabbi determine whether death has occurred which would then allow organ transplantation, it is now a positive precept to donate a person’s organ upon death of the donor, when it can immediately benefit a living person in need of that organ.
There are still too many people who believe that it is a desecration of our God-created human body to donate organs to another. Yet the overwhelming majority of knowledgeable rabbis agree that Jewish law supports organ donation under the circumstances discussed above and that it is only positive when a patient can live his or her life more fully as a consequence of such a donation. The Halachic Organ Donor Society is an organization that encourages Jews to become organ donors in accordance with Jewish law.
Rabbi Gershon Weissman
A few weeks ago, we who live in Israel read about Jewish Israelis Sarit and Avi Naor, who donated a kidney from their son Noam to a 10-year-old Muslim boy, Yakoub Ibhisad, who has been on dialysis for seven years. Noam suffered irreversible lower-brain death after falling from a fourth-story window in his home to the second floor below. The Naor family who are religiously observant consulted with their rabbi who agreed with their decision to donate their son’s kidney. Only one of their son’s kidneys was fit to be donated.
In recent years, Jewish law has come to find ways to incorporate medical advances without compromising Jewish values. Though it is critically important to have a medically knowledgeable rabbi determine whether death has occurred which would then allow organ transplantation, it is now a positive precept to donate a person’s organ upon death of the donor, when it can immediately benefit a living person in need of that organ.
There are still too many people who believe that it is a desecration of our God-created human body to donate organs to another. Yet the overwhelming majority of knowledgeable rabbis agree that Jewish law supports organ donation under the circumstances discussed above and that it is only positive when a patient can live his or her life more fully as a consequence of such a donation. The Halachic Organ Donor Society is an organization that encourages Jews to become organ donors in accordance with Jewish law.
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"You have the power to SAVE lives."
To register as a donor TODAY
In California:
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org
Outside California:
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.net
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