toys-filling every pew from front to back.
I swallowed a lump. Henry was right. At that moment, it didn’t matter what name you used. God is good.
“Dear friends. I’m dying.
“Don’t be upset. I began to die on July 6, 1917. That’s the day I was born, and, in council with what our psalmist says, ‘We who are born, are born to die.’
“Now, I heard a little joke that deals with this. A minister was visiting a country church, and he began his sermon with a stirring reminder:
“‘Everyone in this parish is going to die!’
“The minister looked around. He noticed a man in the front pew, smiling broadly.
“‘Why are you so amused?’ he asked.
“I’m not from this parish,’ the man said. ‘I’m just visiting my sister for the weekend.’”
FEBRUARY
Goodbye
The car pulled up to the ShopRite. It was the first week in February, snow was on the ground, and the Reb looked out the window. Teela parked, shut the ignition, and asked if he was coming in.
“I’m a little tired,” he said. “I’ll wait here.”
Looking back, that was surely a clue. The Reb adored the supermarket-for him to pass it up, something had to be wrong.
“Can you leave the music on?” he asked Teela.
“Sure,” she said. And while she shopped for milk, bread, and prune juice, the Reb sat alone, in the snowy parking lot, listening to Hindi chants. It would be his last private moments in the outside world.
By the time they got home, he looked sluggish and felt achy. Calls were made. He was taken to the hospital. The nurses there asked him simple questions-his name, his address-all of which he answered. He couldn’t remember the exact date, but he knew it was the presidential election primary, and he cracked that if his candidate lost by one vote, “I’m gonna kill myself.”
He stayed for tests. His family visited. The next night, his youngest daughter, Gilah, was with him in the room. She had tickets to Israel and was worried about leaving.
“I don’t think I should go,” she said.
“Go,” he said. “I won’t do anything without you.”
His eyes were closing. Gilah called the nurse. She asked if her father could get his medication early, so he could sleep.
“Gil…,” the Reb mumbled.
She took his hand.
“Remember the memories.”
“Okay,” Gilah said, crying, “now I’m definitely not going.”
“You go,” he said. “You can remember over there, too.”
They sat for a while, father and daughter. Finally, Gilah rose and reluctantly kissed him goodnight. The nurse gave him his pills. On her way out, he whispered after her.
“Please…if you turn off the lights, could you stop by once in a while and remember I’m here?”
The nurse smiled.
“Of course. We can’t forget the singing rabbi.”
The next morning, shortly after sunrise, the Reb was awakened for a sponge bath. It was quiet and early. The nurse bathed him gently, and he was singing and humming to her, alive with the day.
Then his head slumped and his music stopped forever.
It is summer and we are sitting in his office. I ask him why he thinks he became a rabbi.
He counts on his fingers.
“Number one, I always liked people.
“Number two, I love gentleness.
“Number three, I have patience.
“Number four, I love teaching.
“Number five, I am determined in my faith.
“Number six, it connects me to my past.
“Number seven-and lastly-it allows me to fulfill the message of our tradition: to live good, to do good, and to be blessed.”
I didn’t hear God in there.
He smiles.
“God was there before number one.”
The Eulogy
The seats were all taken. The sanctuary was full. There were mumbled greetings and tear-filled hugs, but people avoided looking at the pulpit. You face front for any funeral service, but you are rarely staring at the empty space of the deceased. He used to sit in that chair…He used to stand by that lectern…
The Reb had lived a few days beyond his massive stroke, in a peaceful coma, long enough for his wife, children, and grandchildren to get there and whisper their good-byes. I had done the same, touching his thick white hair, hugging my face to his, promising he would not die the second death, he would not be forgotten, not as long as I had a breath in me. In eight years, I had never cried in front of the Reb.
When I finally did, he couldn’t see me.
I went home and waited for the phone call. I did not start on his eulogy. It felt wrong to do so while he was still alive. I had tapes and notes and photos and pads; I had texts and sermons and newspaper clippings; I had an Arabic schoolbook with family photos.
When the call finally came, I began to write. And I never looked at any of that stuff.
Now, inside my jacket, I felt the typed pages, his last request of me, folded in my pocket. Nearly eight years had passed in what I once thought would be a two- or three-week journey. I had used up most of my forties. I looked older in the mirror. I tried to remember the night this all started.
Will you do my eulogy?
It felt like a different life.
With a quiet grace, his service began, the first service in sixty years of this congregation that Albert Lewis could not lead or join. After a few minutes, after a few prayers, the current rabbi, Steven Lindemann-whom the Reb had graciously welcomed as his replacement-spoke lovingly and beautifully of his predecessor. He used the haunting phrase, “Alas for what has been lost.”
Then the sanctuary quieted. It was my turn.
I climbed the carpeted steps and passed the casket of the man who had raised me in his house of prayer and in his faith-his beautiful faith-and my breath came so sporadically, I thought I might have to stop just to find it.
I stood where he used to stand.
I leaned forward.
