Recently, Oak Park lost a great man who made a tremendous impact with little notice, as he always wanted. Howard Lyle Einhorn MD, known to friends, family, and patients as “Howie,” was always a man to question-until-proven any sort of fact or comment. He joined his father’s medical practice at Gottlieb Hospital and carried on that practice until retirement a month before his death on Feb. 26. My guess is that he loved the practice of internal medicine, his patients, and the challenge of finding solutions to patients’ individual and unique medical problems so much that he just could not let himself retire.
Howie’s office was well known with a waiting room that was more like home so that any patient could find comfort when they entered it. Long before cultural competence was a watchword in medicine, Howie committed himself to the care of the Hispanic community by having cultural knowledge and fluency in Spanish.
His patients feel a great loss, almost as if they lost a close family member. Howie was greatly admired by colleagues for his medical skill and commitment to patients. He took very seriously the Hippocratic Oath to the point that he would provide medical care for his patients even if changes in circumstances limited their ability to pay.
Though Howie was raised in a religiously Jewish family, he charted his own spiritual course as an adult. But he always kept to the profoundly Jewish value of caring and supporting others, being present at times of greatest need. His life was a bold demonstration of the Ten Commandments, the SHEMA, and the command by Rabbi Hillel to care for others as the Torah’s greatest command. Howie exemplified the Prophet Mikah: “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God.”
Howie was not a stereotypical religious Jew, but in my eyes he was a religious Jew because his life represented the strongest demand that the Torah and Judaism challenges us with, to live every day following God’s command to care for others and to make the Earth better by your actions. Wherever Howie walked he made the world a better place; he was a good Jew and a man that set an example for us all.
May his memory be for a blessing.
Frank Vozak
Oak Park
