Obituary: Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Sprecher, ztz”l, beloved husband, father, grandfather, doctor and lecturer of Talmud

The levaya of Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Sprecher took place today at Shomrei HaDa’as in Borough Park, Brooklyn. The speakers included, among others, his brother Mendel, his son, and Rabbi Lipa Geldwerth of Congregation Kol Torah. Sprecher, a prominent radiologist and lecturer of Talmud, passed away the night before on March 15, 2017.

Sprecher, warmly beloved by his community and friends for his care and compassion, gave a daily lecture on Talmud (daf ha-yomi) at Congregation K’hal Sasreganin. He opened his home to Torah scholars who would deliver shiurim and lectures for the community in his spacious library.

Sprecher was an editor of Yeshurin and on the editorial board of Hakirah: The Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought. He was also an outspoken advocate for the security of the State of Israel.

He republished, with a new introduction, Rabbi Meir Dan Plotzki’s Sha’alu Shalom Yerushalayim which discusses Friedlaender’s fraudulent mesechtot on Yerushalmi Kodashim.

He was perhaps most widely known for his article in Hakirah Mezizah be-Peh — Therapeutic Touch or Hippocratic Vestige which reiterated the risks to babies from oral suctioning performed during a brit milah. He also documented the responsa of leading Torah scholars, including the Hatam Sofer, who had ruled that oral suctioning during a brit is not a halakhic requirement.

Sprecher’s intellectual capacity was legendary and his expertise in radiology was sought worldwide including by the late rebbe of Lubavitch, ztz”l as well as by the late rebbe of Gur, the P’nei Menachem, ztz”l.

One of the eulogizers at the levaya spoke about how Sprecher would teach himself foreign languages so that he would be able to read scholarly books published in those languages.