This earnest student was getting more than he had bargained for

As my father and I made our way over to the hospital one morning, I mused over its surprising but optimistic name: Shaare Zedek. The gates of righteousness. Do all the patients and staff sport halos? I wondered with a chuckle. Are they required to present a character reference from their local rabbi? Are they tested for proficiency in good deeds and honesty?

A history buff, I know that the hospital was named for the old Jerusalem neighborhood in which it was built in 1902. The name of the neighborhood itself was taken from Tehillim: “Open for me the gates of righteousness.” Most commentators agree this is a reference to the gates of the Beis Hamikdash.

But early that bright and fresh April morning, I put history aside to study the printed form that informed my 84-year-old father exactly where in the labyrinth of corridors he needed to appear at precisely 8 a.m.

I could sing praises about Shaare Zedek Medical Center, the place where nearly all my children and grandchildren made their entry into the world. That busy morning, the nurses asked whether my father was fasting, cheerfully weighed him, and filled out paperwork, then gave him an open-ended nightgown and instructions to wait patiently until called.

My father is a naturally inquisitive man who has always risen to challenges. As a five-year-old child in Kelm, he rose to the challenge of reciting Kaddish for his father. Soon after, he rose to the intellectual challenge of a daf Gemara in the Telshe Yeshivah and later in the Mir.

How many daily challenges did he meet during the war, a lone Jew in Siberia’s work camps? How did he succeed in stoically facing the reality of the murder of his family, despite the nightmares that haunted him? A new world, a new language, a new livelihood, a new family — the only reality that remained familiar was his daf Gemara.