JMPN Sponsors Powerful Lecture

On Sunday April 12, the Jewish Medical Professional Network (JMPN) presented “Maimonides as a Role Model: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Medicine — lessons on ethics, holistic care, and integrating faith with science,” featuring Rabbi Michael Berger, Phd, dean of the Azriele Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration at Yeshiva University.

From a podium at The Dupree, Berger took the erudite room of primarily doctors on a logical motivational formal-style lecture that put into place “why Jewish practice is what it is as a roadmap to successful living.”

JMPN founder Dr. Michele Melamed labeled the evening “inspiring and illuminative.” She shared that online medical professionals were Zooming from Texas to Israel and Australia. She touted the topic as “the intersection of ethics, holistic care and the integration of faith with science from the perspective of Maimonides, a revolutionary forward thinker … “not afraid to challenge conventional norms. His beliefs were not limited, and this expansive prism with which he approached ideas took him through the halls of Torah, philosophy and medicine.”

Maimonides, a.k.a., Rambam, was a famous physician tending to royal courts where even legendary King Richard the Lionheart requested him to be his personal physician. Notwithstanding fame, Rambam was even more passionate about the Torah. His holistic perspective is reflected in his writings on asthma, nutrition, exercise, and other notions of healthy living. It was said that other than on the Sabbath, he worked 14-hour days and barely had time for his family.

Melamed continued, “Interestingly, what held true almost a thousand years ago still holds true today. This is why I founded the Jewish Medical Professional Network, so you never have to walk this demanding path alone. Here you’ll find mentorships that uplift you, relationships that sustain you, programs that sharpen both your clinical excellence, your values, and friendships that recharges when the pager won’t stop buzzing.”

Rabbi Berger told the AJT that although his job is in New York, he commutes from Atlanta. He also began by making light of his own mother being disappointed that he didn’t become a physician. Berger, who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of religion, previously taught at Emory, and served as headmaster of Yeshiva Atlanta High School. He is also the author of “Rabbinic Authority” and a leading voice in the study of medieval Jewish philosophy, particularly the teachings of Maimonides.

Audience member, Atlanta resident, and part-time rabbi at Etz Chayim Congregation (Huntsville, Ala.), Rabbi Chaim (Stephen) Listfield, labeled the lecture as “on point.” He explained to the AJT, “When you’re lecturing on the most celebrated Jewish mind in the past 2,000 years, you will find yourself discussing a physician who was in constant demand, a rabbi who wrote several of the most foundational books in Jewish law as well as in Jewish philosophy, and a communal leader who was concerned with Jewish communities worldwide. And, just to be clear, we are not talking about a committee; we are describing one individual. A man who is, arguably, the most celebrated Jewish mind of the past two millennia.”

He aligned with many questions posed by Berger: “What can we know about G-d Himself? Nothing! A human being can’t ‘know’ G-d.  We can’t even talk about G-d! G-d is awesome? G-d is all-powerful?  Those descriptors are human terms. We have an idea what awe is, or what power is — for humans. It’s a category error to try to think that those flesh-and-blood terms describe G-d in any meaningful way.”