DONATING AN ORGAN IS SUPREME GIFT OF SHARING.

Byline: Michael Gotlieb

Shortly after I graduated from rabbinical school, I received a phone call. At the other end of the line was the voice of a woman wanting to donate an organ. Feverishly, my thoughts turned inward as I began rehashing the material taught to me in my biomedical ethics courses.

She proceeded: ``Rabbi, would you send someone over from your congregation to pick it up?'' At that moment, I realized she had been been referring to her somewhat neglected, 30-year-old Wurlitzer. All along, I was thinking about her kidneys, her corneas, perhaps her lungs.

Though that conversation occurred nearly 10 years ago, I am still sorry the woman had not called to discuss donating her organs upon her demise. If she had, I would have applauded her for having performed a godly act.

Most people do not donate their organs once they pass away. Some refuse to donate out of the fear their body will be disfigured when the organs are harvested. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the procedure takes place in an operating room, guided by the steady hand of a skilled surgeon. It leaves the deceased donor neither disfigured nor altered in appearance. For those for whom the burial custom is to display the deceased's body in a casket prior to burial, that fear need not be a concern.

Others, who wish to donate their vital organs after they die, often fail to properly inform their family and physician of their final request, thereby invalidating a potentially life-saving contribution.

Meanwhile, 64,000 Americans are included in an organ recipient waiting list, a list which grows larger every year. One-third of those listed will die before they receive a heart or liver. If everybody eligible would routinely and clearly stipulate that his or her vital organs may be donated upon death, the waiting list for those in critical need would diminish significantly. Unless medically ill-advised, everyone should be an organ donor.

Giving of one's vital organs upon one's death is an unsurpassed altruistic expression of love, precisely because the donor will never know the recipient. Furthermore, organ donation has the power to transcend ethnic and racial boundaries. The recipient is not concerned about whether the compatible donor lived life as a Jew, Christian, Muslim or secularist, whether he or she was rich or poor, black or white..

Ever since the courts ruled on Roe vs. Wade, our nation has debated the important moral question of, ``When does life begin?'' But in order to help save the lives of those who are in precious need of an organ transplant, it is also in our nation's moral interest to address the question, ``When does life end?''

Most major religious groups approve and support the principles and practices of organ donation based on the definition of brain death. Such a definition is an accepted medical, ethical and legal principle. It is the standard by which my own Jewish religion determines life's cessation, one that crosses most Jewish denominational boundaries.

While the Bible makes no specific mention of organ transplants, its timeless content alludes to it in principle. The story of creation portrays God taking a rib from Adam, and thereby creating Eve. It is a supreme act of divine love. No doubt, the story is allegorical and not intended for a literal interpretation. Nonetheless, it suggests that God both gives life and enhances life, in essence, by transplanting one part of a human being into another. As God does, so ought we.

According to a recent Gallup poll, less than 10 percent of Americans are aware of their own religious doctrines regarding organ and tissue donation. If that survey is correct, places of worship throughout the land have a moral obligation to better inform their parishioners of the religious duty to donate their organs. Though religions may differ on many issues, most agree: Organ donation is one of the highest forms of preserving and caring for one's fellow human being.

In the final analysis, the good that comes from organ donation is that which it teaches humanity the world over: All of us are truly made of one flesh, all of us are children of God.