Until last week, we were fortunate to have an incomparable friend. With almost no opportunity to prepare ourselves, death has come as a thief in the night and robbed us of him, one who served so admirably as rabbi, husband, father, grandfather, brother, cousin, and friend. He died suddenly last Friday and it is my sorrow-filled task to bid him farewell. What can we say in the presence of this tragic, unexpected end? Words just seem too puny to assuage our grief.

When I first met him a lifetime ago, he was the new rabbi who had come to serve the Temple in Little Rock, and I was the young student attending his alma mater in Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College. I did not know it at the time, but over the years we would spend many hours together and become very dear friends. We often shared hotel rooms at conferences and workshops. I remember the nights we spent drinking vodka and talking into the wee hours about the issues in our lives and our work. For me, he was like one of our companion stars, giving me a sense of direction. Robert Louis Stevenson's words in his tribute to his childhood friend echo in my heart: "There falls along with him a whole wing of the palace of my life."

We fell back upon each other when we were feeling ill-used. We turned to one another when we had something to celebrate;a few years ago it was a great honor for me to join Lazar and Suzanne in marriage, and more recently Kanit and I were the first couple to be married by Zeke here in Iowa City. He was a friend who knew the secret of friendship and who was able to be confidant, confessor, teacher, and prophet.

His genius was for friendship. He brought with him a near reverence for other people's feelings. When there was grief, he was supportive, but when there was celebration he contributed to it. He went out of his way to attend the simchas, events like bar and bat mitzvah, and weddings, for friend and family alike.

Most of us are too busy to do the important things in life. Our schedules are too full to help our friends. Our hunger for success leaves no space for others. Our jobs demand that we neglect our families. Zeke made a priority of family. Yesterday, Rachelle told me, "He was the best possible dad." As doting grandparents, he and Irene would attend PTA meetings, or any other event the grandchildren were involved in, as well as taking them to places like Philmont's Sangre de Christo mountains in New Mexico for summer vacations. But it was not just for the sake of entertaining the kids or out of a sense of obligation that Zeke participated so fully with children and grandchildren. He believed it was a way of passing on an important heritage that he would gently interpret whenever those rare teachable moments arose. His family consider themselves blessed by his role as father to Rachelle and Lazar, husband to Irene, father-in-law to Susanne and Uriel, and grandfather to Oren, Jacob, and Doron. The love, affection, and admiration that Zeke and Irene shared for each other endured through the years as they approached their 50th anniversary. When visiting us in the Caribbean shortly after Zeke retired from the congregation in Albany, Irene told us,"I've not only uprooted my home, I've lost my rabbi, too."

Zeke had an instinctive love for other people and a smile that drew others to him. He loved his work and was an outstanding rabbi. He told me once he thought the best part of being a rabbi is getting paid to do what people are supposed to do be doing anyway. Zeke was one of those who live and give and feel more in 10 minutes than many people do in 10 years. This must have been what Emerson, the transcendentalist, had in mind when he wrote, "Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical. Moments of insight, of fine personal relations, a smile, a glance; what ample borrowers of eternity these may be." In many respects, he composed his own eulogy by living the way he lived.

His caring for others and affirming the value of life was not limited to friends, family, or congregants. He was well known in interfaith circles and honored for his contributions to ecumenical affairs. In the field of civil rights, he spoke out, giving hope to the victims of discrimination and challenging those in power to act justly. In the synagogue, he taught, like Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, the precedence of caring for the downtrodden and the disenfranchised over ritual and symbolic acts. And, because he was so far ahead of his time in his vision of the rabbi's role and the synagogue's activity, evoked the ire of those who feared change, sitting comfortably and well-fed in their lavish homes.

He stood for what he believed and like many rabbis of an earlier generation, he thought part of a rabbi's role was to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Risk-taking in congregations of any faith can be a dangerous affair, and Zeke went out on a limb over issues that today are widely accepted: things like officiating at interfaith marriages, introducing Hebrew back into the liturgy, honoring the onset of adolescence with the long-abandoned Bar Mitzvah ceremony.

Being a visionary, often spells trouble. Many rabbis experience times when the wolf seems about ready to break down the door. Zeke knew all too well of the lust of that pursuit within the synagogue. Still, all that pales in significance when we reflect on the influence and goodness of his life. It is the residue of that goodness that fans out today like ripples on still water and will continue to do so to all eternity.

Rabbinic tradition teaches that when we are born and when we die are not so very important; but it is of supreme importance how we live the years in between. His example of strength, perseverance, and tenacity on the one hand, and love, warmth, and compassion on the other, remain with us and within the communities he served. Your presence here today, and the thoughts and prayers of the many who could not be here, testify to how much his character touched other lives.

Adlai Stevenson's eulogy for Eleanor Roosevelt closes with these poignant words: "So we must say farewell. We are always saying farewell in this world, always standing at the edge of loss attempting to retrieve some memory, some human meaning from the silence, something which was precious and is gone." What we have lost, what we wish to recall for ourselves to remember is what he was himself.Today we weep for ourselves. We are lonelier; someone has gone from our life who was like the certainty of refuge; and someone has gone from the world who was like the certainty of caring.


As difficult as is this hour, we are comforted by the knowledge that Zeke has entered so much into our lives that he is with us, and will continue to be with us, in our daily activities--to inspire us, to stimulate us, to encourage us on. We count his days as a blessing.