Some of the eulogies for my father touched on his role as "Shabbos Doctor" in the community. I sometimes wonder how true that label is particularly in the last few decades when medical liability has gotten so complicated. I think he sometimes hesitated to give medical advice without the proper protocols in place. But people in the community did get comfort from knowing a doctor was nearby, at the very least he might say to go to the emergency room or to go home and not worry about it too much.

One Shabbos, Mr. Mandel (at the time Director of the Univ of Maryland Hillel and father of Kobe Mandel who was later murdered in Israel) brought his youngest son to our house on Shabbos. The boy was about four or five and it seems he had gotten a little red ring-shaped plastic toy stuck on his finger. You know how those plastic toys are, for some reason they'll slide down on the finger and over the knuckle but won't go back the other way. It looked awful silly but attempting to remove the toy was causing the boy great pain. The only alternative to my father's medical attention, I guess, was to wait until the end of Shabbos -- with the boy's finger stuck awkwardly in the air all the while-- and then crack it open.

Anyway, my father went into the kitchen and brought back some butter. He applied it until it melted and the little red toy slid off the finger immediately. It was a folksy way to solve a problem: less with medical know-how than with common sense and practicality. Like a small town community doctor might do.