B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
JULY 6, 2017
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giggled. “See?” Dovid jumped up, “they make each other happy, they have the best marriages specifically because it’s all real, it’s all kept quiet. It’s not for other people.” It was such a Dovid vort. I never knew anyone like him when it came to appreciating realness- or in being able to see deeper. For a period, we learned Nesivos Sholom before shacharis. Dovid prepared coffee and relished each wordhe loved when the author quoted short, powerful vertlach from earlier rebbes.
“That’s great,” he would enthuse, “that is so great.” At the end of that glorious year, we flew home together for bein hazmanim, neither of us certain of future plans. I went to Lakewood and he went to work, but we stayed in contact. One night, I met him a chasunah and he suddenly said, “I want to see what Lakewood yeshiva is like, I’m coming back with you.” He did, and we arrived in middle of the night. Of course, being Dovid he somehow found a spare bed and
someone who knew him and the next day he wanted to be led through the yeshiva, as if on a tour. Eventually, he moved to Manhattan. He told me about his shul. He loved it, because ‘it’s this beautiful huge place with a really great rabbi, an amazing talmid chacham, and very few members.” It was perfect for hima chance to give life to an older person, to blow his magic into a downand-out place. I remember how before I got engaged to my wife, I wanted him to
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meet her. I needed his approval, because in a weird way, I felt he knew the real me- he saw past the complexities. I wanted to make sure it was real. We stayed in touch over the years. Once, he was going through a rough time and he came to Montreal specifically to daven at the kever of an ancestor buried in my hometown. I don’t think I’d ever seen him in a dejected state until that day. Two winters ago, we spent some time together in Florida. I remember how he asked about my children, to see pictures. Then he said, ‘Thanks for not being uncomfortable about it, and being normal and showing it to me without squirming.” It was profoundly sad, because the most real person had become someone people play games with and he couldn’t handle it. The last time I saw him was when I came to be menachem avel eleven months ago. He tried to keep his chin up, teasing me about being afraid of his dog. He called me outside and, with the old light in his eyes, shared his mother’s favorite saying. ‘I only hope that Hashem is as happy with me as I am with Him.’ And then we parted ways. We texted a few times. He called me a few days before Shavuos this year, but I missed the call. I was busy. You know, life, the regular, work, family… I missed the call. And that’s all part of the tragedy. He gave this gift to so many of us- the ability to really see- and yet when it was time to see him, we failed. We looked with our eyes, rather than his. Rav Shlomo Freifeld once said that the two most beautiful words in the English language are: and yet. Dovid lived with the ‘and yet’, finding something deep and beautiful in dark times, dark places. I’m not there yet, but I can try a different sort of ‘and yet’. Dovid, you left us too young. You didn’t build the family you dreamt of. You never achieved the stability you thought was coming. And yet, you lived and gave life. You sent spirits soaring. You saw the secret holes in the hearts of the mighty and filled them, your smile and words sent so many on their paths. About Hashem, we say Ve’Ata mechayeh ess kulam. He sustains all. He gives life. And He who gives, has taken. Yehi shem Hashem mevorach me’ata ve’ad olam.