The lessons of old play a prominent role in the personal and professional life of Dr. Aaron Feingold.

Twenty years ago, the cardiologist began collecting memorabilia that documents the history of Jewish medicine. His collection covers a wide span of history and contains medical books and texts that date back to the 1400s, along with publications and artifacts from the 20th century.

But each item in the collection underscores Feingold’s belief that his Jewish heritage has determined and shaped his career as a physician.

“In the old country, the Jews worshiped their rabbis; in this country, the doctor was the community idol,” said Feingold, a Marlboro resident who is president and senior physician of Raritan Bay Cardiology in Edison.

“People would follow a doctor on New York City’s East Side as he walked down the street, kiss his hand, sob, and call down God’s blessing on his head as though he were a savior,” Feingold continued. “Although this description may appear somewhat dated, it portrays the regard in which physicians were held under certain circumstances, and it implies the power that they had over many of their patients.”

But the power of a physician necessitated a strong personal belief in ethics and responsibility, said Feingold, whose own belief was heightened by an epiphany he experienced during a three-month visit to Israel in 1970.

The then 19-year-old college junior, who grew up in Hillside, was pursing a political science degree and had not yet considered a medical career. He signed on for a trimester of independent study on a kibbutz in the Jordan Valley. He happily toiled through the rainy season of a Galilean winter, absorbing everything he saw, and looked for deeper meaning everywhere he went. Midway through his stay at the kibbutz, Feingold felt a sense of enlightenment.

“An idea pushed into my head one day that the only career in life that would meet my current existential dilemma was to be a doctor,” he recalled. “Not wanting to be a rabbi, I reasoned that the only ‘ultimate good’ was to help people stay alive through medicine.”

Although he didn’t realize it at the time, his epiphany was part of the Jewish medical tradition and continuum, Feingold said.

“It is said that 213 of the 613 commandments in the Torah deal with health, and one of the most compelling passages is ‘therefore, choose life. We look to the past to know where we are going in the future, and the power of Jewish medicine has been historical truth since biblical times. Our heritage inspires us to move forward with strength and vision.”

As he completed Chicago Medical School in 1976, an internship and residency at New York Medical College in Valhalla, and a fellowship at New York University Medical School in New York City, the connection between his profession and his faith grew stronger.

He began to assemble historical material that eventually became the basis for his 1994 book, Three Jewish Physicians of the Renaissance: The Marriage of Science and Ethics. The book tells the stories of Amatus Lusitanus, Jacob Zahalon, and Abraham Zacuto, all of whom lived lives that were “complicated by extreme strife and persecution directly related to their Judaism,” according to Feingold.

“Their religion clearly set them apart and reinforced their belief in medicine as a profession,” he said. “It deeply intertwined their ethics and medical science as one. Despite persecution, adversity, and oppression, their stories illustrate how Jewish physicians brought Jews, as well as humankind, to a higher scientific, moral, and ethical level.”

The connection between medicine and faith can be seen in his affiliations: He is medical director of the Central Jersey Jewish Home for the Aged; president of the American Friends of Beth Hatefutsoth, the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv; and a member of the board of trustees of the American Physicians Fellowship for Medicine in Israel.

Feingold has also assembled a collection of documents, books, and artifacts that link medical ethics and physician responsibility to the Jewish faith (the collection has been on display in museums in the United States and Israel). The oldest item in his collection is the Canon of Medicine from Avencenna, which was printed in Hebrew, translated from Arabic, and published in Naples in 1492. It was used as a medical reference source for centuries and reveals the concerns, fears, and anxieties of the age; the themes continue to ring true centuries later, Feingold said.

“Like responsible physicians then and now, the doctors in the 1400s were worried about prescribing the right cure and about the effects of illness and treatment on their patients,” he said. “The links are part of the continuum, and this kind of historical perspective has always reinforced my belief in my career. Then and now, the belief in the ethical aspect of the practice of medicine strengthens my belief in what we do as doctors.”

The collection now encompasses more than a dozen 16th-century woodcuts and etchings of Jewish physicians, 100 medical texts, 60 postcards that depict both famous and little-known Jewish hospitals throughout the past 100 years (including the Jews’ Hospital in New York, which was founded in 1852, had an annual budget of $42,000, and was eventually renamed Mt. Sinai Hospital), and 25 business cards from Jewish physicians here and abroad (including a card from Dr. C. Levy, a specialist in general chronic diseases — and also of the eyes).

There are documents certifying the 1876 founding of the Jewish Home for Tuberculosis in Goshen, NY, and the Jews’ Hospital in London in 1856. Other documents from the files of Jewish hospitals in the northeastern United States in the 1800s discuss patient occupations; bakers, teachers, traders, and tinsmiths were among those treated.

There are centuries-old mortars and pestles that carry Hebrew markings, pharmacy coupons that were dispensed in European ghettos during World War II, smallpox vaccination cards that were issued to Jews living in Prague during the 1930s, and medical records that were recovered from Theresienstadt. There are several Jewish stars and armbands emblazoned with the words Juden Arzt: Jewish doctor.

There are also close to 100 boxes of artifacts and documents that haven’t seen the light of day since Feingold acquired them decades ago. He sheepishly admits that it’s time to make a thorough inventory of the entire collection.

“Jewish doctors have been called the transmitters and translators of medical knowledge across borders and continents and through the millennia,” Feingold said. “This knowledge has helped the world. Using Maimonides as an example, Jewish doctors through the ages have used their power to intercede for the Jewish people with sultans, popes, kings, emperors, and politicians. Their strength and their standing in the community gave them unique power and influence with the mighty. Looking back at such physicians, we see a portrait of humility and direction for the use of our power today.”