Posted on November 7, 2025 by Gary Cohen
The following remarks were shared by Gary Cohen at our Erev Shabbat Service on Friday, November 7.
Shabbat shalom everyone. For those of you who do not know me, my name is Gary Cohen, and if you do know me you may not recognize me without my mask. Tonight, I took off my mask to speak with you about the gift of life. When Amy called to ask if I would speak about organ donation, I immediately jumped at the opportunity. It’s one small way for me to honor the gift my sister gave me nearly twenty-two years ago on December 9, 2003, when she donated one of her kidneys to me.
Organ donation has been in the news recently, with the passing of former NY Jets center Nick Mangold shortly after his announcement that he needed a new kidney, or the story of Jesse Eisenberg announcing that he is altruistically donating one of his kidneys to a stranger. Locally, you may be familiar with the story of Rich and Zahava Schaefer, a Hillsborough couple who are searching for a kidney for their daughter. Rich had received a kidney transplant in the 1980s, and now his daughter, who has the same diagnosis, was in a similar situation. Since the waiting list can be quite long, they had taken to the local news and even rented a billboard on Route 206 looking for a donor. Tragically, Rich passed away just before the holidays, and Amy told me earlier that the latest information was that his daughter was still waiting.
So why would anyone need to advertise their search for a kidney? It’s a complicated situation, but to try and answer in the simplest way, there are just not enough donors. Right now, there are over 107,000 people in the US waiting for an organ. The waiting list in NJ alone is close to 4,000 people. In 2024, in the US there were over 48,000 organs transplanted from nearly 17,000 donors who had passed and over 7,000 living donors. In New Jersey, there were 743 organs transplanted from 297 donors. While the number of donors may sound encouraging, someone new is added to the transplant list every 8 minutes. That’s over 65,000 people added every year, which is greater than the number of donors. For someone waiting for a kidney, the time it takes to get a non-directed donor can be between 3 and 5 years. Sadly, every day 13 people on the list will pass away while they wait.
There are also a lot of myths and misinformation about organ donation. Some people fear that the fact they are an organ donor will in some way change the medical care they receive. There are also those who believe that their age or medical condition prevents them from becoming a donor. Others don’t do it because they believe their religion prevents it. Then of course, there is also the myth that someone someday will knock on your door and ask for your liver just because you are an organ donor. Each of these scenarios could not be further from the truth.
Let’s take care of these myths: First, the number one priority for medical care is the preservation of human life. The decision to consider someone as a potential donor can only be made after they are diagnosed as brain dead, with no chance for recovery. Second, while age and medical conditions may limit certain donations, they do not eliminate potential donors. With the advancements in medicine and organ transplantation, there are now extended criteria that allow for a larger potential donor pool, including older donors and donors with previously unacceptable medical conditions. As for the argument that it is “against my religion”, all the major faiths now view organ donation as an act of charity. Think about it – what greater act of tzedakah could there be then to give a better life to another person, let alone the possibility of eight other people. When someone is an organ and tissue donor, over 75 people could benefit from a single selfless act of charity. And finally, that knock on your door – well, it’s not Monty Python asking for your liver.
As for my story, it started when I was 12 years old – almost a year to the day before my Bar Mitzvah. I woke up not feeling well and 2 days later I was in the hospital. I was there for over a week having multiple tests run to determine what had happened. Unfortunately for me, there were two schools of thought on my condition, and the first two specialists I saw were both in the school that it was not a life-threatening issue. It wasn’t until I was in my late 20s that I found a doctor who understood the condition and what I needed to do. When I first met her, she told me that unless I made some dramatic changes in my life, I was months away from needing to go on dialysis and on the transplant list. Because of those changes, and her close monitoring of my health, I was able to delay the transplant for 8 years, and I never went on dialysis. She was my guide throughout the progression of my illness, and when the time was right, she started me on the path to my transplant and finding a donor. I was one of the lucky ones – when I sat down with my family to discuss needing a transplant, my sister immediately volunteered. The next day, she came to me with all the information she had gathered on living donor transplantation. We went through the process together and we picked our date – December 9, 2003. When our day arrived, we met in the surgical waiting room. When our surgeries were finished, we had neighboring rooms on the transplant floor and competed to see which one of us could be out of bed first or do the most laps around the nurse’s station. My sister got to see me eat foods that I had not eaten in years – including my first glass of orange juice and my first steak. Three days later, we hugged as we left the hospital to go home. Fortunately, our story has a happy ending, and we get to celebrate a new kidney anniversary every year.
They call it the “Gift of Life” – and that is truly what organ donation is all about. It’s a second chance to live, to feel and act healthy. That is an unbelievable blessing. Just prior to my transplant, it was difficult to gather the strength to do many routine tasks or to be an active parent to my 5-year-old son. For me, these changes happened gradually over the years and were difficult for me to detect. I just knew I did not feel normal. The most amazing part of my story was that I never realized how bad I felt every single day until after my transplant. I felt good, maybe even great, and had the ability to do more with my life. Maybe the gift of life doesn’t do justice to what organ donation means. Maybe a better description would be the gift of living – and in that case, it is the gift that keeps on giving.
I’m proud to be here tonight to be an advocate for organ and tissue donation because every conversation that starts here can save a life. If you haven’t had the conversation, now is a great time to start, and if you have already started, keep it going and help to inspire others to register. The decision to be an organ donor is a deeply personal decision but once you make that choice you need to share that with your whole family. Having “Organ Donor” on your driver’s license or registering online may not be enough to be a donor. At a truly terrible moment in their life, someone in your family may be asked if your organs and tissue can be donated. Letting them know your wishes makes that question easier to answer. Being a donor and giving life to another – there is no greater legacy or honor. Thank you for this opportunity to share my story and to talk about organ donation. Shabbat shalom.
