Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Give the Gift of Life

Tonight Sean and I, along with friends, attended a program at Sunybrook on organ donation.  Sponsored by the Trillium Gift of LIfe Network, Rabbi Rueven Bulka interviewed Rabbi Moshe Tendler on halakhic perspectives on organ and tissue donation.

It was a fascinating evening, with Rabbi Tendler explaining organ donation as a halakhic imperative, and offering opinions on those who disagree.

There was much I already knew, but having it confirmed by Rabbi Tendler, both a halakhic authority and having a PhD in biology, solidified my own thoughts and opinions.

Highlights:

  • Not only is organ donation allowed, it is commanded.
  • To allow Jews to receive organs, but not to donate is akin to murder.  If you do not accept brain death as death then organ harvesting is murder.  Therefore to take an organ to save one's life is to murder another to save oneself, which is forbidden by halakhah.
  • Discovering that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein studied brain death in patients at Downstate Hospital to make his determinations on organ donation.
  • The Harvard protocol for determining brain death (aka brain stem death) is more stringent than the rules of the Talmud in determining death.  
  • Listening to Rabbi Tendler stating that those who rule against organ donation do so without any facts at hand, and promulgate lies.
  • Rabbi Bulka suggesting that since brain death is true death, those who would refuse to remove life support, allowing the body to deteriorate slowly are the ones truly being nevul met (disrespectful to the dead) by subjecting the body to prolonged indignity and delaying burial.
Yasher koach Rabbi Tendler and Rabbi Bulka on your decisions to stand up for what is right in halakhah and for the Jewish people even in the face of pressure.