Watching the biography of Rabbi’s career unfolding before my eyes was a poignant experience.  In ordinary language, “career” describes an external accomplishment.  But for both of us the Rabbinate was a sacred unfolding of the value of life, both public and personal. Rabbi never wavered in his belief that moral purpose is the ethical core of our tradition, embedded in the first words of Creation that we read over and over:  and it is good, good, good.

And that recognition had consequences for him: it mandated continual energy to be poured into the enhancement of the value of every human being, in every circumstance of life – whether to sustain existence, augment its safety, increase its joy or comfort against its end.

 He was well aware that the Holocaust had shifted moral responsibility in the covenantal relationship to a greater role for the human being, but he worried lest we forget the inviolable sense of the sacred in the process. Therefore he developed his perception of “Godliness.”   It resulted in a shift from vertical instruction in the congregation to the horizontal exploration of meaning in discussion, question and answer sessions with all present.  Prayer, prose, poetry, song –  everything had to testify to its meaning.

It was not merely his thinking that gave testimony to sanctity; it was his wholly unconscious way of dissolving the empty space between himself and any other — young or old, Jew or Gentile, engaged or distant. When he spoke to you,  no one else existed in public or private expressions.

We have yet to catch up to him. This website is meant to be our guide.