Community Magazine January 2012

information for them to make an educated decision, including our booklet, ‘Guide for Kidney Donors and Their Families.’ We never even call to follow up. But Tomer kept calling us.” It seemed obvious to Tomer that everything was being orchestrated from Above. “For someone to remember from eight years ago that I do printing, and then for me to get two tickets and attend… I’m very spontaneous and when I decide to do something I move forward with it. My philosophy is, if Hashem put an idea in my head, it’s there for a reason. In this case that allowed me to go ahead and do this missva . My nature is to be a giver. If I can help someone, I do, without thinking twice about it. You could say this is a big thing but I look at it not as a big thing but as a duty.” Once the initial blood tests were done, there was further testing involved, including psychological screening. Tomer explains that he and Ronen each had their own dedicated team at Columbia Presbyterian that was responsible for their wellbeing. “Mine was to make sure that I would be okay. If not, they wouldn’t have gone ahead with the transplant,” he says. “Their psychologists wanted to make sure that I wasn’t crazy. They asked me why I was doing this and even suggested that maybe I was trying to gain business by getting Renewal as a lifetime client. “They asked, ‘What if your kids ever need a kidney?’ and I answered that if Hashem is asking me to do this, why would He put me in that situation where a family member would have that need?” Tomer, whose grandparents were from Syria and Turkey, was born in Israel and grew up in Kew Gardens Hills, Queens. It seems like an added coincidence that both he and Ronen are Sephardic. “I feel that we definitely have had some sort of connection in a past life, that one of us owed the other something,” he says. The Rabbi’s Blessing Rabbi Eli J. Mansour has been Tomer’s “mentor and role model” for the last year and a half, ever since his father gave him a CD of one of Rabbi Mansour’s classes. “I’ve been listening to his CD’s since then and have become a much better person than who I was.” Two days before Succot Tomer called the rabbi and received a blessing. Rabbi Mansour said that the missva he was doing is even bigger than akedat Yizhak (Avraham’s willingness to offer his son Yizhak as a sacrifice). Yizhak, the rabbi explained, was never touched by the knife. “The Rabbi told me, ‘You’re actually going under the knife, which is a major ordeal and a big zechut (merit).” On the Shabbat before the transplant, October 29th, when the first snowstorm of the season hit, Tomer and his family stayed with relatives in Brooklyn. He walked 45 minutes to Rabbi Mansour’s shul for a dose of inspiration and was not disappointed. Recounting Rabbi Mansour’s explanation of the missva of shilu’ah haken , sending away the mother bird before taking eggs or chicks from its nest, Tomer’s voice choked with emotion. The Torah promises the reward of long life for performing this missva . “When the mother bird sees the baby birds missing, she cries out, ‘Hashem, where are my babies?’ and Hashem has pity on her, and this pity showers the whole earth with rahamim (mercy). It’s an et rasson (auspicious time). One person doing a missva brings blessing to the whole world. By doing this, I’m not only bringing good to those in my immediate surroundings but beyond that, to all of Kelal Yisrael . I hope to be able to inspire others to donate, to be true servants of Hashem and to care for each other.” But he adds, “The focus is really on Ronen, who has had a whole life of tribulation. The point is to give him a good life.” Tomer says that while most people who heard of his decision were very supportive, a few tried to dissuade him. “I was also afraid,” Tomer says. “I knew that I would have some pain and might have to be drugged up, but I always take things one day at a time. To those who questioned me, I said, this will be a zechut for my whole family.” The Ripple Effect Tomer received overwhelming support and encouragement from his friends. The schools he works with were given his and Ronen’s Hebrew names to pray for on the day of the surgery. One person volunteered to drive his kids to school. Another friend offered to donate $500 to the organization of Tomer’s choice in his merit. “I asked him to send it to Roots, which helps people to put on tefillin every day. He bought two pairs.” A Jewish chiropractor who works in the same office building as Tomer, but is not particularly observant, reacted to the news by giving Tomer his treasured keepsake – a red string from Kever Rachel (Rachel’s Tomb) intertwined with the links of a silver chain, which Tomer has been keeping in his wallet. He adds, “When I told him the date of the surgery, he took me to his Ronen together with Tomer’s two sons. Tomer blessing Ronen with Birkat Kohanim just before the surgery (from left to right) Ronen, Mendy Reiner, Rabbi David Ozeri and Tomer laughing together in pre-op Meeting for the first time. TEVET 5772 JANUARY 2012 45