And this is what I said.
Dear Rabbi-
Well, you did it. You finally managed to get us all here when it wasn’t the High Holidays.
I guess, deep down, I knew this day would come. But standing here now, it all feels backwards. I should be down there. You should be up here. This is where you belong. This is where we always looked for you, to lead us, to enlighten us, to sing to us, to quiz us, to tell us everything from Jewish law to what page we were on.
There was, in the construction of the universe, us down here, God up there, and you in between. When God seemed too intimidating to face, we could first come to you. It was like befriending the secretary outside the boss’s office.
But where do we look for you now?
Eight years ago, you came to me after a speech I gave, and you said you had a favor to ask. The favor was this: would I speak at your funeral? I was stunned. To this day, I don’t know why me.
But once you asked, I knew two things: I could never say no. And I needed to get to know you better, not as a cleric, but as a human being. So we began to visit. In your office, in your home, an hour here, two hours there.
One week turned to a month. One month turned to a year. Eight years later, I sometimes wonder if the whole thing wasn’t some clever rabbi trick to lure me into an adult education course. You laughed and cried in our meetings; we debated and postulated big ideas and small ones. I learned that, in addition to robes, you sometimes wore sandals with black socks-not a great look-and Bermuda shorts, and plaid shirts and down vests. I learned that you were a pack rat of letters, articles, crayon drawings, and old “ Temple Talk ” newsletters. Some people collect cars or clothes. You never met a good idea that couldn’t be filed.
I once told you I was not like you, that I was not a man of God. You interrupted and said, “You are a man of God.” You told me I would find something to say when this day came.
But it is here, and you are gone.
And this pulpit seems as empty as a desert.
But all right, here are your basics, for any good eulogy should contain the basics. You were born in New York during the First World War, your family endured terrible poverty, and your father once rode the rails to Alaska - and never broke the laws of keeping kosher. Your grandfather and father-in-law were rabbis-you had rabbis all over your family tree-and yet you wanted to be a history teacher. You loved to teach. In time, you tried the rabbinate. And you failed. But a great Jewish scholar said two words you would later invoke many times with many of us: “try again.”
And you did. Thank God you did.
When you were ordained, the popular thing was to go west, to California. There were rich and growing synagogues there. Instead, you went two hours down the New Jersey Turnpike, to a congregation on its last legs, operating out of a converted house. You did it because, like Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, you felt an obligation to stay near your family. And like Stewart’s character, you never did get away from this place. Instead, you built this temple. Some would say you carried it on your back.
Under your loving care, it grew from that converted house to a blossoming synagogue pitched between two churches-not exactly the easiest geography. But you always made the best peace. When a Catholic priest from across the street insulted one of our members, you demanded he apologize. When he did, you accepted, as his penance, a gesture. You waited until the Catholic schoolkids were in recess, playing in the schoolyard, then you and the priest strolled around the perimeter, arm in arm, showing that different faiths can indeed walk side by side, in harmony.
You stood up for us that way, you stood tall for us, you built our membership, you built our school, you built a sacred community, you built until we burst at the seams. You led marches and excursions. You made house calls. Endless house calls.
You were a clergyman of the people, never above the people, and people clamored to hear you, stuffing in for your sermons as if to miss them would be a sin in itself. I know you always hated how there was a noisy rush to the exits after you finished. But Reb, think of how many synagogues in which that happens before the sermon starts!
After rabbi-ing through six different decades, you finally stepped down from the pulpit, and instead of moving to Florida, as many do, you simply took a seat in the back row of this sanctuary. It was a humble act, but you could no more move to the back row than the soul could move to the back of the body.
This is your house, Reb. You are in the rafters, the floorboards, the walls, the lights. You are in every echo through every hallway. We hear you now. I hear you still.
How can I-how can any of us-let you go? You are woven through us, from birth to death. You educated us, married us, comforted us. You stood at our mileposts, our weddings, our funerals. You gave us courage when tragedy struck, and when we howled at God, you stirred the embers of our faith and reminded us, as a respected man once said, that the only whole heart is a broken heart.
Look at all the broken hearts here today. Look at all the faces in this sanctuary. My whole life, I had one rabbi. Your whole life, you had one congregation. How do we say good-bye to you without saying good-bye to apiece of ourselves?
Where do we look for you now?
Remember, Reb, when you told me about your childhood neighborhood in the Bronx, such a crowded, tight- knit community that when you nudged a cart, hoping an apple would fall off, a neighbor five floors up yelled out the window, “Albert, that’s forbidden.” You lived with the wagging finger of God on every fire escape.
Well, you were our finger, wagging out the window. How much good have you done simply by the bad we have not? Many of us here have moved away, taken new addresses, new jobs, new climates, but in our minds, we kept the same old rabbi. We could look out our windows and still see your face, still hear your voice on the wind.
But where do we look for you now?
In our last visits, you spoke often about dying, about what comes next. You would cock your head and sing, “Nu, Lord above, if you want to take me, maybe take me without too much paaaain.”
By the way, Reb, about the singing. What gives? Walt Whitman sang the body electric. Billie Holiday sang the blues. You sang…everything. You could sing the phone book. I would call and say how are you feeling, and you’d answer, “The old gray rabbi, ain’t what he used to be…”
I teased you about it, but I loved it, I think we all loved it, and it comes as no surprise that you were singing to a nurse last week, preparing for a bath, when the final blow took you from us. I like to think the Lord so enjoyed hearing one of his children joyous-joyous enough to sing in a hospital-that he chose that moment, you in mid-hum, to bring you to him.
So now you are with God. That I believe. You told me your biggest wish, after you died, would be that somehow you could speak to us here, inform us that you had landed, safe and sound. Even in your demise, you were looking for one more sermon.
But you knew there is a maddening yet majestic reason you cannot speak to us today, because if you could, we might not need faith. And faith is what you were all about. You were the salesman that you cited so often in a Yiddish proverb, coming back each day, knocking on the door, offering your wares with a smile, until one day, the customer gets so fed up with your persistence, he spits in your face. And you take out a handkerchief, you wipe the spit away, and you smile again and say, “It must be raining.”
There are handkerchiefs here today, Reb, but it is not because of rain. It’s because some of us can’t bear to let you go. Some of us want to apologize for all the times we said, through our actions, “Go away,” for all the times we spit in the face of our faith.
I didn’t want to eulogize you. I was afraid. I felt a congregant could never eulogize his leader. But I realize
