Sylvia Gardner* was a persistent woman. She left four messages for me one morning this past September. When I finally returned the call she got right to the point. “Rabbi I must come in and see you. Can I come right now? Trust me Rabbi this is important.” Although I was in the middle of preparing the daf thinking about the halachah shiur for first night of Rosh HaShanah and worrying if the honey I distribute on the first night of Yom Tov would arrive in time I could tell from her tone of voice that this was urgent. “Mrs. Gardner come right over now.”

Sylvia Gardner was a woman in her 60s who lived alone. I assumed she was divorced since for as long as she’d lived in the neighborhood she’d never mentioned her husband.

Sylvia Gardner rarely called me and for her to insist on seeing me before Rosh HaShanah certainly kindled my curiosity.

Sylvia arrived. Before I could say “How are you?” she blurted out her question. “Rabbi is it permitted to sue a Jewish doctor for malpractice? Can I take a Jewish doctor to court?”

“Mrs. Gardner what are you talking about?”

“Rabbi you know Dr. Goldberg* who I’ve been seeing for over six years? Well he failed to diagnose a potential health risk and I want to sue him for malpractice.”

I was blindsided by Mrs. Gardner’s question.

I attempted to inquire further and soon realized she was not capable of providing any clear-cut proof of his medical incompetence. However all of my attempts to calm her down were fruitless. She was determined to sue Dr. Goldberg.

Finally in desperation I challenged her by asking “Mrs. Gardner do you really think that it would have made any difference to your health if he had diagnosed your condition three weeks earlier?”

“I don’t care Rabbi; I just want to sue him for malpractice!”

Something was wrong here. Why was normally mild-mannered and serene Sylvia Gardner so bent on suing Dr. Goldberg?

“Mrs. Gardner I know you want to sue him. But why do you want to sue him? You don’t need the money and it won’t improve your health.”

At this point Sylvia Gardner became a little teary eyed.

“I have been seeing Dr. Goldberg for six and half years” she said. “He is always in a rush and he never allows me to ask all my questions. However although that gets me mad I know he’s busy and I let it go. However at the last appointment that I had with him the one at which he admitted that he’d misread one of the blood tests his wife called in the middle of the appointment. When he answered the phone in the outer office I heard him say “Leah I can’t talk now ‘what’s her name’ is here. You know who I mean the old lady with the gray sheitel who asks a lot of questions.”

“Rabbi if after six and a half years the doctor still does not know my name if all I am is the old lady with the gray sheitel who asks a lot of questions then that doctor deserves to be sued for malpractice!”

I looked at Mrs. Sylvia Gardner and all I could think of were the words of David HaMelech in Tehillim: “He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name” (147:4).

Sylvia Gardner jarred me from my stupor as she stated again this time crying: “Rabbi … he doesn’t even know my name!”

*Name has been changed.