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PAGE 16 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE March 21, 1986
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Jewish law weighs thorny
issue of organ transplants
by Ron Csillag
—TORONTO
Jews can allow themselves to
become organ transplant reci
pients but are not obliged under
Jewish Law to be organ donors,
says a leading expert on Halacha
and organ transplants.
Rabbi Howard Sacknovitz, a
Toronto teacher, told an audience
here recently that the surge in the
last decade of safe, almost routine
organ transplants has presented
Jewish law with new problems.
While organ transplants were
regarded as sins 20 years ago, they
are today seen as mitzvas because,
in most cases, they are life-saving,
Sacknovitz said.
In Jewish Responsa literature
and in the Talmud, he noted, it is
written that Jews are allowed to
risk immediate death for the possi
bility of living longer. So an organ
recipient can take the risk of a
transplant operation, Sacknovitz
explained.
But the problem many Jews per
ceive with being a recipient, he
added, is that Kohanim are not
allowed to come into contact with
a dead body, or even with a dead
limb or organ.
Sacknovitz said there “is no
problem” with being a recipient if
one is a Kohain because an organ
that is removed from a body for
transplant is not dead—it is still a
living thing.
He said halachically, there are
“bigger problems,” however, with
being an organ donor.
In the case of a live donor, Sack
novitz said there is a “major dis
agreement” between how the
Babylonian Talmud and the Jer
usalem Talmud interpret the
matter.
The dilemma is that on the one
hand, Jewish law holds the sanctity
of life above all else and says it’s a
mitzva to save a life but also com
mands not to endanger one’s own
life.
The Babylonian Talmud, he
said, indicates one is under no
obligation to donate an organ in
order to save another life, even if
that life is in immediate danger.
The Jerusalem Talmud hints
that one is obliged to donate an
organ—that the risk of death out
weighs the doubt.
Sacknovitz said that since most
rabbis in the Diaspora follow the
Babylonian Talmud, the prevail
ing thinking is that one is under no
obligation to donate an organ.
However, it is still seen as a
mitzva to volunteer an organ.
Volunteering, he states, is “morally
still the proper thing to do.”
The case of a dead donor is more
complex, said Sacknovitz. Hala
cha states that mutilation of a
corpse is desecration, that one
cannot derive benefit from a dead
person and that a whole body must
be buried.
So on the surface, it seems tak
ing an organ from a dead donor is
halachically wrong. But, Sackno
vitz stressed, saving a life super
cedes those three prohibitions, so
in many cases today, being a dead
donor is all right.
He added that even cornea
transplants have received the Jew
ish stamp of approval because
being blind can be life-threatening.
In the case of kidney trans
plants, though, both kidneys of the
recipient must be damaged before
one should donate his own kidney.
In the final analysis, Sacknovitz
said, each transplant case must be
judged on its own merit.
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