I went back and forth about writing these words because I don’t feel like I’m prepared enough, knowledgeable enough about the subject, but I felt the need to at least start it.
I’m writing this after just coming back from a shiva house. But this wasn’t just any shiva house. I went with Racheli to console our rabbi, Rabbi Shalom Rosner.
His father passed away at the age of 85.
The reason I say that this wasn’t just any shiva house is not because it was my rabbi we were consoling. But because the man we heard about, his father, the late Dr. Fred Rosner, was a superhero.
I’d say they should write a book or make a movie about his life but unless you plan on watching a ten hour movie, that won’t work. His life could not possibly fit into a movie or a book.
Here’s a very a shortened version.
The man survived the Holocaust, lost contact with his parents and family, was reunited, came to America knowing basically nothing about Judaism, and ended up becoming the father of medical ethics and Torah.
Honestly it feels weird trying to sum up this man in a paragraph.
In Judaism, we talk about mesorah, about how the Torah was passed down generation to generation. We hear about great rabbis like Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and it seems like ancient history. But then I hear stories about Dr. Rosner and how Rav Feinstein officiated his wedding and I realize that this man was a conduit of tradition. He was the link from the older Jewish world to our world.
I prayed with him in synagogue just a few weeks ago and he was a man who spoke to Rav Feinstein regularly.
It is hard to put in words how massive that feels to me.
Dr. Fred Rosner was born on October 3, 1935. He was a professor of medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the director of the Department of Medicine at Queens Hospital Center. He was also the chairman of the Medical Ethics Committee of the State of New York. He was, moreover, an expert on Jewish medical ethics and on the medical writings of Rambam.
Dr. Rosner was born in Berlin, Germany, where, at the age of three, he and his brother were on the last of the Kindertransport trains to the United Kingdom.
After the end of the Second World War, he immigrated to the United States and was an undergraduate at Yeshiva University. He qualified as an MD at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, with the first graduating class in 1959.
He was a diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine and was board certified in his specialty of hematology. Among his many awards were the American Medical Association’s Isaac Hays, MD, and John Bell, MD, Award for Leadership in Ethics and Professionalism; the Bernard Revel Memorial Award from the Yeshiva College Alumni Association for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts & Sciences; and the Lawrence D. Redway Award for Excellence in Medical Writing from the Medical Society of New York.
He published eight books on Jewish medical ethics, but all together, he wrote about 50 books. I took this photo at the shiva house where all of his books were lined up, maybe for the first time ever.
Some of his books include: an English translation of Julius Preuss’s classic reference work Biblical and Talmudic Medicine (reprinted in 1993) and the Encyclopedia of Medicine in the Bible and the Talmud (Jason Aronson, 2000).
He is also the translator and editor of Moses Maimonides’ Medical Writings (seven volumes published by the Maimonides Research Institute, Haifa), A Medical Encyclopedia of Moses Maimonides (Jason Aronson, 1998), and The Medical Legacy of Moses Maimonides (Ktav, 1998). Dr. Rosner was recognized as an authority on this giant of Jewish thought and medieval medicine.
I think you’re starting to get the picture. This man was a world of knowledge.
I have to take a pause here with all of his accomplishments and say one personal thing.
Rabbi Rosner is a world-renowned rabbi and Torah scholar. He teaches hundreds of thousands of people online and has an insane amount of knowledge. I’m honored to call him my rabbi.
Every year, twice a year, he gives a sermon that is so popular, people come from around the country to hear him.
In every one of those talks, which I’ve attended for years, Rabbi Rosner begins by thanking his parents and saying how blessed he is that they can be with him.
His mother passed away recently as well.
Even though I knew very little about the rabbi’s father, I knew what I knew, and hearing Rabbi Rosner start by thanking his parents always made me tear up.
Dr. Rosner was mentally sharp till his last moment, but physically it was hard for him to move around. But he never missed one of his son’s sermons.
It was also inspirational to watch the rabbi’s children care for their grandfather as if he was their own father.
The whole family from the youngest to the oldest are a perfect manifestation of what it means to be a Jew.
One more personal memory that always blows my mind.
When they would call Dr. Rosner up to the Torah for an aliyah, he would always make sure to bless his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. You could see the pride on his face when he said the word “ninim,” which means great grandchildren. It was just beautiful to see.
Back to his accomplishments.
Dr. Rosner also published almost 800 articles and thirty-nine chapters in books on all aspects of Jewish medical ethics and Jewish medical history, and on many other topics, including hematology, leukemia, anemia, immunology, and general medicine.
He was an internationally known authority on medical ethics, having lectured widely on Jewish medical ethics throughout U.S., and served as visiting professor or lecturer in Israel, England, France, Germany, Mexico, Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
The rabbi sat there telling stories about his father and I almost had to pull my chin off the floor. I could listen to these stories for hours.
I left with two main lessons.
The first one was that when we talk about the Torah being passed down generation to generation, Dr. Rosner was a living example of that. He brought the Torah from last generation to the children of this generation. He was a conduit of tradition.
The second thing I thought as I listened to the stories is, “What’s my excuse?”
This man survived The Holocaust, lost everything, came to America knowing almost nothing about Judaism, and ended up becoming the world’s leading expert on Judaism and medicine.
Dr. Rosner had every excuse in the book to question G-d and to abandon Judaism. He did not have an easy life. He also had every excuse to lead a lazy life. And he did exactly the opposite. He became a giant in Torah and never missed a second of learning or teaching Torah.
I mean that literally.
One man at the shiva house asked the rabbi permission to tell a story.
He said that many years ago, he was sent to pick up Dr. Rosner from a hotel and bring him to a venue where he was going to give a lecture.
He said he showed up ten minutes early to pick him up. Dr. Rosner said, “We don’t have to leave quite yet,” and he took a note pad out and began to write.
Seven minutes later, Dr. Rosner said, “Ok, we can leave now.”
He asked him what he had just written. “I was writing down a translation of some of Maimonides’ teachings.”
He had seven minutes to write and he was not going to miss that opportunity.
The last thing the rabbi said before I left was, “My Abba beat the Nazis. He now has several grandchildren fighting this war and he said that if he can beat the Nazis, we can beat our enemies today.”
What a remarkable man Dr. Fred Rosner was. I promise you that these words didn’t even scratch the surface.
Baruch Dayan Ha’emet. The world has lost a giant!
