Giving Away Part of Her Liver Saved Three Lives

Every act of saving a life starts somewhere. For Aviva, it started with an ad she almost ignored.

After a long day with her young kids, Aviva came across an ad about a 34-year-old father of four in desperate need of a liver donor. She thought of her own husband and what it would mean if he were the one waiting for that call. She was intrigued.

Aviva began to learn about the liver, how the body's largest internal organ purifies the blood, creates vital proteins, and turns food into energy. It's also the only organ that can regenerate itself. Even after part of it is removed, both the donor's and recipient's livers grow back, which is what makes it possible for one person to give life to another without losing their own health.

Weighing the Decision

Aviva and her husband went to speak with their family rabbi, who was hesitant at first. Aviva was a busy mother and her young children depended on her every day. They weighed the physical, emotional, and spiritual sides of the decision. Only after careful thought did their rabbi give his blessing.

Then Aviva spoke with a past donor. "She told me what it was really like," Aviva said. "She said the feeling of giving someone more time in this world never leaves you." Those words stayed with her.

Aviva and her husband Akiva Gavrilin

The Process Begins

Working with Living Legends, a Jewish organization that connects patients in need of a liver transplant with live donors, she was first told she might be a match for a baby girl. "It wasn't final," she explained. "It was just the beginning of the matching process." The weeks that followed were filled with tests, forms, video appointments, and one full day of testing at the hospital. She kept thinking about the family whose lives were hanging in the balance, and prayed for the strength to keep going.

Living Legends guided her through the whole process and helped with meals, babysitting, extra cleaning help, and more so Aviva could focus on recovering after surgery.

One Gift, Three Lives

Months later, Aviva’s gift became part of a remarkable transplant chain. The man who first received her liver had a metabolic condition that made his own liver unsuitable for him, but still healthy enough to help others. So his liver was split between two more patients, in what became a first-of-its-kind Quadruple Domino Liver Transplant. One act of generosity became a chain of three renewed lives.

Doctors performing first-of-its-kind Quadruple Domino Liver Transplant

In Jewish thought, there's no greater mitzvah than pikuach nefesh, saving a life. The Torah commands, "Lo ta'amod al dam re'echa – do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” Compassion in Judaism is a call to action. Jewish law allows a living person to donate an organ when it doesn't put them in serious danger and can save someone else's life. The 16th-century sage known as the Radbaz wrote that while no one is obligated to take that risk, one who chooses to do so performs a mitzvah of the highest order.

Aviva's story reflects that teaching. Her health was carefully protected, her consent was clear, her intention was pure. It was chesed, kindness, in one of its purest forms.

A Circle Closes

Then came a detail that made the story feel even bigger. Hours after the surgery, Aviva's husband learned that the mother of the liver recipient had traveled to Ukraine back in 1993, Aviva's birthplace, to help Jewish families reconnect with their heritage after decades of Soviet oppression. Aviva, one of those Soviet-born Jews whose own family only began learning about Jewish life after immigrating, was now the one giving life to that woman's son.

A connection that started in Ukraine decades earlier had come full circle in an operating room in America.

"I kept thinking how amazing it was that something inside me, something I was born with, could keep someone else alive," Aviva reflected. "It felt like God had let me take part in His work."

Her surgery happened to fall on July 8, 2025, her own birthday. She views it as a reminder that the best way to mark your own life is to give someone else more of theirs.

Because Aviva valued another person’s life as deeply as her own, three people were given a second chance.