Sometime it just takes one courageous person to achieve hatzalat nefesh (save a life). But to make miracles happen practically every day of the week, a majestic effort by a large and growing group of partners, all focused on saving lives through altruistic kidney transplantation, identifies those heroes who can save lives, thus giving everyone involved the right to share this incredible mitzvah. After over a decade of work, Renewal has reached, and in fact surpassed, the milestone of 500 transplants.

These 500 donors have, in turn, inspired scores to seek out and give, some through monetary donations to keep Renewal functional, and others through kidney donation itself, to keep people functional. From the first to the 500th, and everywhere in between, Renewal brings people together with immense ahavat yisroel (love of Israel). The Jewish Link is proud to share inspiration from the first donor, the 500th donor, and “donor number 243,” Teaneck’s own Rabbi Larry Rothwachs.

Chaim Alter Berger, a Boyaner Chasid from Boro Park who now lives in Lakewood, was 30 when he heard that his wife’s friend’s mother was having thyroid surgery to be cleared to donate a kidney. “It woke me up; I was like, wow. Not only to do a donation, but she was having surgery to qualify to donate,” he told The Jewish Link. Around the same time, during the previous Satmar Rebbe’s yahrzeit in 2006, the community was conducting bone marrow testing, and through that Berger learned that he was part of the O+ blood group.

“About a week after I heard about the thyroid surgery, I saw an ad in a Satmar newspaper. They were looking for a kidney for a 23-year old woman, recently married, who needed an O+ kidney. I cut out the ad and put it into my pocket for two weeks. I was afraid to make the call,” he recalled.

After discussing it with his wife, she said if he was truly considering donating, he would be better off doing it now while in perfect health, rather than delaying. “My wife said, ‘maybe call and just get info,’” he said.

He made the call, and Chaim Steinmetz, one of Renewal’s founders, answered the phone. At first, Steinmetz said that the young woman who needed an O+ kidney was taken care of, but the first donor fell through around Sukkot, and Berger embarked on weeks of testing. At that time, testing took weeks or months and tests were not coordinated with one another. He went once a week for six weeks to Montefiore Hospital. “The more testing I had, the more committed I became,” he said.

Berger also consulted multiple rabbanim for psak (halachic decisions) regarding kidney donation. Two examples: The Skulener Rebbe of Boro Park said he “can’t even imagine the reward for such a deed.” The Skverer Rebbe said “from doing good you can’t lose.”

Before the transplant, the young woman’s family asked to meet Berger. They were from Israel, and did not have a lot of money or health insurance. However, her entire family was actively involved in saving her life, so much so that five of her uncles took out home equity loans to pay for the surgery and medical care. He described an emotional scene, and noted that the young woman had already had two kidney transplants, including one received from an uncle when she was 5, and another they had purchased in South America when she was 19.

The morning of the surgery was nothing like Renewal donors and recipients experience now.

“At 4 a.m. Chaim Steinmetz picked me up in an old minivan with my wife, and I turned around and saw the recipient and her husband were in the back of the van.”

Berger said the kidney donation was a rega shel emet (moment of truth) for him. “It’s not that I wasn’t scared; I was scared. It was pretty painful. But I want to do something of value and save a life.” While his motivation was the same as so many others who have donated since, Berger had no idea at the time that he was Renewal’s first donor.

Later, Berger recalled that after hearing about the young woman’s story and his donation, multiple people gave money either to him, or to his father, to give over to the family for her recovery. One man gave $10,000. And they all shared joy in the news that the young woman was able to get back to a normal life. Today, she lives in Israel and has five children, including two born on Lag B’Omer when Berger was visiting Israel. Berger’s and the recipient’s families are connected as well; through knowing and interacting with one another’s families, Berger’s first cousin is now married to his recipient’s first cousin.

Berger said that after consulting with daas Torah, including his personal rav, Rabbi Binyomin Eisenberger, he doesn’t have a right to keep the story to himself. “I thought people would consider doing this if they knew that a regular guy did it, someone from ‘our shul,’ or ‘from Boro Park.’”

The 500th Donor

For New York City’s Sara Miriam Kaplan, head nurse for Kids of Courage (an organization that takes children with serious medical diagnosis on outrageously fun outings, shabatonim and week-long adventures) and an ER nurse at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York City, kidney donation was something she had been thinking about in the back of her head for a long time. “It was just a lingering thought, not something I thought about in practical terms,” she told The Jewish Link.

However, last fall, Kaplan’s uncle was the beneficiary of an altruistic kidney transplant through Renewal, and she decided it was something she could do.

She also had a wish to mark a special birthday this year, as a single woman. “I have always said there are many ways to give life to someone, and at this stage of my life this was my way of being able to do that… not all of us give life by giving birth,” Kaplan said. “I thought this would be an awesome way to mark a milestone birthday,” she added.

Kaplan did a lot of research on her own before coming to Renewal in April, and has been following Renewal on Instagram for some time. She hoped to donate around June, and her last week of testing was in June. “My recipient had a donor who didn’t work out, so the recipient was prepped for June as well. So here we were,” she said, noting she donated her kidney on July 2. She didn’t meet her donor before or during the donation process, following newer Renewal policies to introduce donors and recipients after both are healthy again, if that is their wish.

Kaplan shared details of what she describes as “one of the most humbling yet uplifting days I can remember,” noting that her medical knowledge did not change that she was a patient experiencing her donation for the first time like everyone else.

She also said that Renewal was “literally there, every step of the way,” adding that Renewal of 2018 works actively to remove all the extraneous obstacles that people might face when donating. “Before, during and after, every time I turned around, there was someone coming to my room with a little gift, just practical things, like a heating pad in a duffle bag full of things I might need. They are anticipating the needs of the donor. They really streamlined the process,” she said.

Kaplan said the constant presence of Renewal staff makes things easier. “It’s not as overwhelming and not as scary as one might think. It’s obviously not a choice for everyone, but if there is a lingering thought in your mind, reach out.”

After she donated, she was discharged July 5th, allowing her the opportunity to enjoy Independence Day fireworks out the window of the Kimmel Pavilion, on the 18th floor at NYU Langone Hospital. Captioning a snapshot of bright sparks lighting the night sky, she wrote a post on Instagram. “500 is a mind-boggling number, yet there are so many more waiting. Maybe you can be someone’s life saver,” she wrote.

Rabbi Larry Rothwachs donated his kidney after a public plea from the Hain family in Teaneck, as they sought a kidney for their brother and son Donny. Unless one was here to witness it, it would be difficult to assess the impact of this single donation, but everyone who knew either Rabbi Rothwachs or the Hain family in 2014 knew this was no ordinary donor and no ordinary recipient. Both families came with deep Teaneck community ties and are beloved; this specific donation marked the beginning of Renewal’s vibrant partnership in the Teaneck community and resulted in at least a half dozen direct donations and likely many more, through each donor’s influence. In fact, a single November 2017 event, held in Teaneck to honor the community’s dozen plus kidney donors, which also featured a prominent recipient’s seudat hodaah, Rabbi Yosef Adler, has so far resulted in eight additional transplants facilitated through Renewal.

“Renewal has succeeded in bringing kidney donation to the forefront of the community’s heart and mind. When a kidney donation is publicized, it goes a long way in inspiring others to consider the same. It has been incredible to witness the chain reactions that have been triggered by the story of one donation,” he told The Jewish Link.

While Rabbi Rothwachs doesn’t focus on the number of lives he impacted, he shared the one story he knows best of all. “I can tell you that there is at least one life that has been positively impacted by my kidney donation—my own. My awareness and appreciation of my own health, as well as the determination to preserve and safeguard that gift, has been enhanced dramatically over the past three and a half years. I have been more conscious of my diet, have made exercise a priority and have tried to remind myself daily not to take my health for granted. For myself personally, this has been the single greatest benefit of my kidney donation.”

Rabbi Rothwachs generally does not speak about kidney donation unless he is asked. But for potential donors, he recommends education above all else, noting that his own thoughts while considering kidney transplantation triggered a process of soul searching, medical research and personal consultation with both his wife and rebbe, both of whom gave their support conditional on the support of the other’s.

He wrote, after his transplant, his hope for the community: “What I would ask for though and hope the community could accept is that we simply commit to become more informed and educated regarding live organ donation. It is natural and most appropriate to focus on what is being risked or lost from such a procedure. But it is also important to consider what can be gained, by recipient and donor alike. I believe it is incumbent, if not an obligation, upon those who have been blessed with good health to study the scientific research, seek proper halachic counsel and consult with past organ donors, so that decisions that are rendered reflect minds that are educated and informed,” he wrote.

Learn more at https://www.renewal.org/, email [email protected] or call 718-431-9831.

By Elizabeth Kratz