Religious leaders confront myths that stop faithful from donating organs

Health Zone, Canada | Barbara Turnbull

Nothing should stand in the way of saving a life, particularly not death.

Rabbi Reuven Bulka has spent years spreading that message within the Jewish community and beyond with limited success. He is up against centuries of the cultural belief that one should be buried “whole.” This prevents people from supporting organ and tissue donation and costs lives: One person dies every three days in Ontario awaiting a life-saving transplant.

“You are trying to undo in a relatively short time, a decade or two or three, thousands of years of fundamental practices,” says Bulka, 67, a longtime Rabbi in Ottawa and chair of the board at Trillium Gift of Life Network, the provincial agency mandated to organize organ and tissue donation and transplantation.

Read more: http://www.healthzone.ca/health/article/1064000