As a postscript to our earlier report about Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and his return home following surgery, it is interesting to note that yesterday, the morning after the operation, Rav Elyashiv expressed his desire to thank Dr. Daniel Clair, the American surgeon who traveled 6,000 miles to tend to his health.
Turning to those near him, Rav Elyashiv asked how one says thank you in English. When Dr. Clair came to examine him, Rav Elyashiv turned to him and said, in English, “Thank you!”
Also noteworthy is that it has been related that Dr. Clair, chairman of the Department of Vascular Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, in agreeing to undertake the trip to do the risky procedure he had performed seven years ago, forfeited tens of thousands of dollars and days of work by spending half the week in Eretz Yisroel.
Dr. Clair, after examining Rav Elyahiv for a final time yesterday, left Eretz Yisroel to head back home to the United States.
{Yair Alpert-Matzav.com Israel}
This is wonderful news for a true leader of our generation. Thanks Matzav for keeping us posted.
Here is a link to a story on Dr. Clair and the Rav from the newspaper in Cleveland.
http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2011/06/headline_here.html
The Rav should continue to have a refuah shlema. But your story that the Rav did not know how to say “thank you” in English is hard to believe.
Beautiful story!
This doctor is the top of the tops. Vascular surgeons were always among my favorite people in my studies. But that said, anyone who wants to thank the surgeon should simply make a donation to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation or any one of the number of vascular surgery socieities. It might be a nice way to improve the care of future patients. Thanks.
American Reader , thanks for posting that article. Intresting to read from a diff point of view.
Couldn’t they say Rabbi Elyashiv? why did the newspaper have to say Elyashiv?
What struck me strange was not the non-Jewish paper refering to Rav Elyashuv w/o his title, but that a man of the stature of Dr. Clair felt “like a rock star.” What a sad comemment on American society. Rock stars should say that they feel like a cardiovascular surgeon!