Sermon on Organ Donation
"DON'T HANG UP THE PHONE, IT'S YOUR COVENANT CALLING"
By Rabbi Brian Zimmerman
Beth Ami Synagogue
Rockville, MD
It was a little over a month ago; I remember the phone call quite well. I was
settling into a
comfortable position at my desk, reflecting on the holidays, thinking about what
message I would
offer this Rosh Hashanah. What fault would I force others to confront? What issue
would I use
to make the congregation squirm in their seats? And then the phone rang...on the
other line was
Judy Braslow, a member of our congregation who works with the United States
Department of
Health and Human Services as Director of the Division of Organ Transplantation.
Why was she
calling me?
The voice on the other end said to me, "I want to talk to you about a
professional issue."
Immediately I thought to myself, "Uh oh, what did I do now"? "No, no," she
assured me. I wasn't
in trouble. She was calling because she wanted me to give a sermon on organ
donation. Had
I thought at all about organ donation? And I must confess to you that only one
thought went
through my mind at that moment-hang up the phone. Suddenly, I didn't want to be
talking about
this subject at this time.
Ms. Braslow told me about the thousands of people across America that are
waiting for
transplants. About the many, many who will die because there are an insufficient
number of
donors to meet the need. She shared with me that Jews were among the two groups
with the
lowest number of organ donors, even though the strictest movements in Judaism
permit donations
in some cases.
She explained how there are many people who die tragically who would have
wished to donate
their organs to save a life but couldn't because they never shared that
information with their
families while alive. Well, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed now and more than a
bit depressed,
and then to prove her point she asked me if I knew what my wife's wishes would be
if she were
ever in an accident. And I quickly replied that it wasn't the type of question
one liked to ask his
wife over dinner at the end of a long day. And then I was overcome with an even
stronger desire
to hang up the phone, to leave the problem alone, to make the question go away.
Explain to me how I can sit in bed and read about thousands of people dying
in Rwanda and
be disturbed but not really have any trouble sleeping through the night, but I
can't discuss the topic of organ transplantation in the middle of the day without wanting to jump out of
my skin.
Somehow this is different, isn't it? This is my life, my death, and who really
wants to make
decisions about that anyway? If we talk about it, then we make it real.
On Rosh Hashanah morning we read a strong and disturbing piece of liturgy,
the prayer
Unatenah Tokef, "Let us proclaim the sacred power of this day for it is awesome
and full of
dread...You, O God, are judge and arbiter...on Rosh Hashanah it is written, on
Yom Kippur it is
sealed...who shall live and who shall die; who shall see ripe age and who shall
not; who will die by
fire and who by water; who by hunger and who by thirst, who by earthquake and who
by plague."
What is this prayer, that tells us that God seals our fate this day? What do
we make of this
list of ways to die? And yet we know that we are lucky to be here. We all know
people who have
died in the past year. We are aware of the random nature of our lives. And the
prayer Unatenah
Tokef says yes, our lives are random. We don't know who will live and who will
die, so it is time
to get serious. We have been given another chance. We stand here today alive,
lucky to be alive,
so what are we going to do about it? Hope that we get lucky another year or face
up to the
sacred responsibility that awaits us. This prayer reminds us that today is a day
of decision,
today is a day when we face the unpleasant, but real, decisions that we avoid the
rest of the
year.
Now you're thinking, "Rabbi, it's Rosh Hashanah. Some of us are here with
our children. What
are you talking about? Organ transplants? Death? You're scaring my kids. Just
tell us a nice
story about the round challah and let us go eat a happy holiday meal."
There is a legend about King David, that when he was a young man he learned
that he would
die on a Shabbat. And what do you think his favorite ceremony was? Havdallah, the
ceremony
that marks the end of Shabbat. The legend tells us that David couldn't get to
Havdallah quickly
enough.
Isn't that a lot like us? We say to ourselves, "We made it to another year,
we're alive and
hopefully healthy, Mazel Tov, L'chayim, let's give thanks and go eat some
brisket." But Rosh
Hashanah is not thanksgiving, and we do not live only for ourselves. We live in
covenant with the
people around us-our spouses, our children or grant Children, our parents and
grandparents or
our brothers and sisters. We all have people we made covenants with, people who
depend on us
as we depend on them. Yes, Mazel Tov, congratulations to all of us, we've made it
to another
year, but now it's time to get serious. It's time to face up to some major
decisions, it's time to
honor our role in the covenants we have made with our manv partners in life.
These high holidays are called Yamim Noraim in Hebrew, Days of Awe. We need to use this time to
successfully avoid
the rest of the year.
And organ donation is a great example. Too often when asked about this issue
we hide behind
the answer that we don't think Jewish law allows that. But rather than pursue and
study if this
is true, we hide behind a vague answer that we think is true. In reality, there
are many different
opinions on this issue. But for the majority of Jews in America, there is
agreement that organ
transplantation is permitted to some degree when the saving of a life is
involved. Pikuach
Nefesh-the saving of a human iife-is one of the most urgent Mitzvot in Judaism,
and based on the
statistics, you can rest assured that anything taken from you will be used to
save a life. While
organ donation makes us uncomfortable and forces us to think about what we want
done to our
bodies when we die, the truth is that it may be the closest thing we have to
immortality. A
part of us living on in the body of another person who has been given a
miraculous second chance.
And who knows, maybe one of us or our loved ones or friends will one day find
themselves on the
other end, surviving only because someone else had that conversation with a loved
one in
advance and said to him or her, "These are my wishes if something ever happens to
me."
What about living wills? How many of us know someone who said in their
lifetime, "If I were
ever in a coma, I would want to die," only to later end up on a respirator,
placing a burden on
their family they desperately wanted to avoid. All because they didn't really
discuss the issue
properly with their family. It is amazing how you and I can worry about car pools
and seat belts
and other day to day safety details while we drive around with the future of our
families in our
hands. Because if, God forbid, something happens to us and our families don't
know what to do,
we will burden them financially and emotionally in ways that could ruin them for
the rest of their
lives. We warn our children about drinking and driving, and we beg them to behave
cautiously.
Then we proceed to drive around every day with unresolved issues that ares just
as dangerous
to the security of their futures.
There are so many issues to be discussed, so many important decisions to be
made. How
have we managed to avoid them for so long? We put away money to help out those we
love when
we are gone, we take out life insurance policies, but how many of us have bought
a cemetery
plot? How many of us have confronted that terrifying reality of our own mortality
and saved our
own family thousands of dollars in the future? A future in which we will not be
around to help
out.
I recently read about a 22-year-old woman who had made clear to her family
her intention
to be an organ donor. It seemed unusual for a 22-year-old to have such a deep
awareness of her own mortality and the foresight to deal with it. Little did she realize just how
soon her own life
would end. She was killed in an accident, and her heart was given to a man who
had been waiting
four years for lifesaving surgery. He was running out of time, and her gift kept
him alive. The
man who received her heart was her father.
We have the power to help the world, we have the power to help our families,
but we
won't help anyone if we don't talk about the decisions, if we don't make them
real. When you put
down the prayer book and leave this building, talk about these issues, make them
real. On your
way out, there are pamphlets on organ donation. Take one, read it, discuss it
with your family
or friends. It will offer clear answers to any of the questions you may have.
There is another
book printed by the UAHC called "A Time to Prepare". It is about living wills and
funeral
arrangements. It has forms and information to help you understand anything you
may be unsure
about writing a living will. It will make you uncomfortable now, but it will help
your family
later. Call us at the temple, tell us you want one and we will order it for you.
It's time to talk about these things. It's time to make them real. Let's
face it. How many of us
had moments in the last few years where we were worried about our own health?
Where we had
a real scare? And yet what have we done about it? If I had a car that broke down
in the desert
and I didn't have AAA or any other protection, wouldn't you expect me to purchase
some as soon
as possible afterwards? And yet, you and I keep living our lives on borrowed
time, and we're
not purchasing the proper insurance, we're not making another year. It is time to
face our
destiny while we are healthy. I know that this is painful, and I'm not trying to
tell you what the
right decisions are in each of the cases I have mentioned, but I know that we
have to start asking
the questions, we have to start making the decisions.
When I came home from that eventful phone call with Judy Brasiow, I was very
excited. I
was fascinated by my reaction to our conversation and thought I had the makings
of a great Rosh
Hashanah sermon. I explained all this to my wife, Mimi. And when I was done, she
looked at me
cautiously and said, "So, are you going to make some big decision NOW?" I quickly
answered,
"No, No, I have to write this sermon first. I just wanted to let you know what I
was going to
speak about on Rosh Hashanah."
I know that these are not the easiest things to talk about, and I do not
know what my final
decision will be, but I do know that the time is coming when I must ask the
questions. It is a
covenant I made when I agreed to marry Mimi, and I intend to honor it. On this
Rosh Hashanah,
may we all find the strength to fulfill the covenants that we have made with our
loved ones, may
we find the courage to make the hard decisions that cry out for a response. AMEN.
This material appears on TransWeb with permission from Christine Gallagher of Colorado Organ Recovery Systems, Inc.
Last modified:
11 May 2000