This is altogether too soon to be here once again in mourning. After our Aba and Saba left our lives seven months ago, Ema (Savta) truly lost her anchor in life. She simply had never been able to imagine living without him.
But today we need to tell you about our Ema and Savta as she had been: a woman of regal bearing and sharp intellect, a woman of independent mind and spirit. She served as a leader in the Jewish community in a lifelong partnership with Judah, the love of her life. She was raised by parents who dedicated their lives to the renewal of the Hebrew language; her father and brother were both gifted literary critics and essayists. Her family was the “yichus” into which my father married.
Her leadership qualities emerged early: after receiving bachelor’s degrees from both Hunter College and the Jewish Theological Seminary’s Teachers’ Institute, she became the executive secretary of the Rabbinical Assembly. (When a man was hired for the position after her departure, the title was changed to “executive director.”) Through her work in this position, she met and married our father. As was customary at the time that they married, she took on the profession of “rebbetzin”, in which she took pride and excelled. At Kehillath Israel in Brookline, where she began her career at 24 as rebbetzin, she played a leadership role in the congregation even while she was raising the three daughters who were born there. But she needed even more intellectual challenge in her life, so she took courses toward a Master’s degree in Jewish studies at Brandeis University. She loved the courses – I remember her being especially enthusiastic about her Jewish philosophy courses with Professor Simon Ravidowicz.
And she grew even more fully into her leadership role after our move to New York and the Park Avenue Synagogue, to which she and our father devoted thirty years. Within the synagogue and its various organizations, she taught and lectured, she reviewed books, she provided a model of a Jewishly educated woman. She took on challenges outside the synagogue as well – she worked as research assistant to Professor Louis Finkelstein z”l, the Chancellor of the Seminary, comparing different versions of the Siddur. I remember our dining room table being covered with 10 or 12 different Siddurim, each open to the same tefillah, the same prayer, so that she could compare the texts. She loved that work – seeing the differences in language among the texts and being able to work in Hebrew – it was a dream assignment for her. Later on, she used her literary skills and creativity in developing the beautiful annual calendar diary for the Women’s League. She saw it as a perfect chance to transform a functional tool like a calendar and date book into an educational tool and an artistic keepsake.
She had a talent for transforming other seemingly mundane, functional events into educational and creative triumphs. Her culinary and baking skills made weekday family dinners (always with three courses) into precious times of family conversation and enjoyment. But these skills went much, much farther, as many of you know. Her marvels of varied Jewish foods, flaky pastries and yeast cakes, always presented elegantly, taught volumes about how Shabbat and Jewish holidays should be enjoyed. I’m convinced that the spaghetti and meatballs, cole slaw and brownies that she served to the teenagers who attended class with my father at our home in Brookline played a big part in firing up their interest in Jewish learning. The graduates of those dinners and classes became a “who’s who” in Jewish professional leadership in this country.
Like our father, she was a role model in the sphere that was most precious to her, that of family and loved ones. She showed us how it should be done. From caring lovingly for our father’s sister, Gertie a”h, while she lived with us during her cancer treatments in New York, to tending to her mother, Rose Ribalow a”h during 35 years of widowhood and her brother Uri z”l during his long illnesses, to spending a day every week helping our cousin Debby with her two young children, to providing for every need of mine and my sisters over our lifetimes, to lavishing (and I mean lavishing!) attention in every conceivable way on her grandchildren, she left absolutely no doubt about how extravagantly she loved her family. She was a professional at this as well.
And in her later years, when her physical limitations made it difficult for her to do for others, we, her children and grandchildren, have tried to live what she taught us. We were privileged to be able to do what we could to ease her life. And when mentioning this, I must pay tribute to the women who cared for our father and mother with unmatched dedication, skill and love, Joyce Miller-Gidden and Yvonne Wongsong. They attended to our father’s and mother’s needs with dignity and respect up until their very last moments. And our thanks as well to Sandra Nedd and Patricia Brown who also helped my parents with devotion. they have our everlasting gratitude and thanks.
I have one closing message for our mother. One of my early memories is of Ema at the age of 31, mourning the untimely loss of her father. I remember saying to her (in Hebrew, the language that we spoke at home): “Al tivki, Ema, al tivki” – Don’t cry, Ema, don’t cry. In the years since then, there have been many, many happy occasions, but grief as well for many lost loved ones. But nothing matched the terrible grief and loss that she felt for the last seven months. I can say to her now: “Sof labechi, Ema, sof labechi” – your tears are over.
Yehi Zichra Baruch.
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