Why do people have two kidneys? Maybe it’s so we can save lives
Matnat Chaim is revolutionizing kidney donation in Israel, connecting healthy donors with patients in need and giving hundreds a second chance at life each year.
When Yehuda Zaks thinks about the important milestones in his life, he remembers his bar mitzvah, the day he got married, made Aliyah, became a father, a grandfather, and the day he saved someone’s life.
“That was the greatest thing I’ve ever done,” said Zaks. “I really didn’t think I would get so much out of it, but it changed my life.”
That day was almost seven years ago when Zaks, now age 63, donated his kidney to a stranger. Zaks is one of roughly 1,900 people in Israel who have donated a kidney through the Matnat Chaim organization.
Founded in 2009, Matnat Chaim is a non-profit organization in Israel that guides individuals who make life-saving kidney donations and helps people in need of a donation find a donor. The organization helps donors and recipients through the maze of hospital corridors, medical tests, and patient rights to ensure both sides get the most out of the donation.
Rabbi Yeshayahu Heber z”l started Matnat Chaim after a young man named Pinchas Turgeman passed away. Pinchas’ older brother had died during his IDF service, and when he found himself in kidney failure, his parents faced the unthinkable: losing both their children. Unfortunately, Pinchas did not find a kidney donor in time, leaving his parents bereaved of two sons.
Rabbi Heber, who was undergoing dialysis at the same clinic as Pinchas, was overcome by this story, and decided to create an organization that would raise awareness of kidney donation, explain how a living donation entails very low risk for the donor and involves minimal discomfort, while saving a life and providing an invaluable gift to the kidney recipient and their entire family.
Rabbi Heber knew firsthand the life-saving power of a kidney donation. His own kidneys failed before he turned 40, forcing him into the grueling routine of dialysis — until a donor gave him a second chance at life. That experience inspired him to dedicate himself to helping others in similar need, just as his donor had helped him. In 2023 Rabbi Heber died as a result of COVID, since then his wife, Rachel, has taken on the role of president of the organization, winning the Israel Prize of Lifetime Achievement later that year.
In its first year, the organization facilitated four donations. The second year, seven. Now, the organization facilitates well over 200 donations a year in Israel.
“Rabbi Heber used to say, ‘I never met a kidney donor whose donation was the first good deed he performed,’” recalled Judy Singer, vice president of Matnat Chaim. “Kidney donation is a type of mitzvah that is attractive to many people who are interested in helping others in more conventional ways.” Singer donated a kidney herself in 2013. After realizing the benefits to her own life while being life-changing to the recipient, she decided to help others make this decision.
Those approved to donate undergo a 2-3 hour surgery. They stay in the hospital for 2-3 days and can get back to their lives within 2-3 weeks. There are no medications and no special diets; after kidney donation, donors can generally pick up where they left off once they recover from surgery.
“It used to be that kidney donation was a novel thing,” Singer said. “That isn’t true anymore here in Israel. Matnat Chaim has been leading a real revolution in the field of kidney disease and living donor transplants.”
Donating a kidney is a major decision and requires several months of testing, noted Singer. These tests are performed to ensure the donor is in good health and will be able to recover quickly. The minimum age to donate a kidney is 27, the optimal age is between 35-65. This is because a person’s future health is more predictable once they have reached middle age. Women donate after they have finished having children.
“Many people think that kidney donors are ‘tzadikim’ [righteous people], but they’re actually just regular people who have decided to do an unusual good deed,” Singer said, noting that many donors are people who feel a need to give back to society, regular every day people. Many donors are religious, many are teachers, and many have served in the army since October 7th. Donating is not an easy decision, agreed Zaks, who donated his kidney in 2018. Making the decision should take time, in fact, it took him several years. In the end, he knew it was the right thing to do.
“Years before I donated my kidney, a friend came up to me at shul and said he gave a kidney, I had never heard of such a thing; I thought he was crazy,” Zaks recalled. “A year and a half after that, I was at a wedding, and I saw another neighbor who said he donated his kidney three weeks before. He was dancing at the wedding! I asked him why he donated, and he said, ‘why not?’ and that got me thinking.”
Zaks then started asking people in his community in Beit El and found that several others had donated kidneys. Already retired from his job as an electrical engineer, Zaks decided he would donate his as well.
“When I told my wife, she asked, ‘Are you bored?’” Zaks said with a laugh. Zaks then started the process of medical testing to see if he was eligible to donate and to find a match.
Finding a match for kidney donation is not as complicated as it sounds, noted Singer of Matnat Chaim. Usually, it just means the donor and recipient have the same blood type.
Zaks met his match two months before their operation while appearing before a medical committee that would approve the donation.
“He and his wife looked at me and said ‘you’re an angel,’” Zaks recalled. The day of the donation was emotional for Zaks and for the recipient, who was receiving a kidney along with his brother. The two recipients were at the hospital with their entire family. That was when Zaks realized he wasn’t saving one person, he was saving an entire family from heartbreak.
As a result of the donation, Zaks struck up a friendship with his kidney recipient. Today, he says, they are like family.
“There is a spiritual connection between a donor and recipient,” said Rachael Steele, 43, who received, not one but two kidney transplants through Matnat Chaim. “I have this otherworldly love for the man and woman who saved my life.”
Steele was 19 when she went into kidney failure. It happened suddenly, one morning she awoke feeling extremely unwell and went to the hospital. There she learned she would need to be put on dialysis three times a week.
“I wouldn’t wish dialysis on my worst enemy,” Steele said. Dialysis is a process for cleaning blood when the kidneys fail. Dialysis patients have tubes permanently inserted into their leg or chest and must be connected to a dialysis machine for three to four hours almost every other day. Patients must adhere to a strict diet, severely limit their liquid intake, and may suffer from nausea, weakness, and other side effects.
Steele received her first kidney transplant from her father in England. The transplant saved her life and allowed her to live normally. She was in good health and moved to Israel. But several years later, she found her body rejecting the kidney, so she moved back to England to be near her family while she went back on dialysis.
“I couldn’t just be on dialysis until I died,” Steele said. Her mother then read about Matnat Chaim in Israel and suggested that Steele meet with its founder, Rabbi Heber, when Steele was on a trip to Israel for a friend’s wedding.
“I had to dialyze in Israel for the trip,” Steele recalled. “I called Rabbi Heber and he welcomed me into his home. Within two weeks, they told me they found a match.”
Her second kidney transplant in 2013 gave her several healthy years before she found herself in kidney failure a third time. Matnat Chaim did not give up on her. Thanks to Matnat Chaim, Steele received a third kidney transplant in 2022.
“I am very lucky,” Steele said. “One of the privileges of bad health is that you get to meet real angels.”
Thanks to her donors, Steele regained life’s simplest joys — walking her dog, taking a warm shower, even the dignity of going to the bathroom unaided.
“Maybe this is why Hashem gave us two kidneys,” Steele pondered, “so we can donate one and save a life.”
Are you eligible to save a life? Take this short quiz to see if you might be a candidate for donating a kidney.
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