If you don’t believe this story, ask Brent H. Delman or Jack Schweizer. They were there. They saw it happen with their own eyes.
It was this past Shabbat. I looked over at the empty blue-cushioned seat which Sidney Goldman used to always sit on during synagogue services. Actually, it was two seats stacked one on top of the other and I called it his “double decker throne.” Since he was in his 90’s, the doctors refused to do the surgery to fix his back. They couldn’t offer him pain meds because they interacted with his other medications. So, instead, they offered him massages and sympathetic words of triteness. They did their best. But Sidney had to live with debilitating back pain day in and day out. As Judy Kaufthal’s father once told me, “Getting old is not for the weak.”
Nevertheless, this World War II veteran showed up for Shabbat services week in and week out. Rain, snow, boiling heat. It didn’t matter to Mr. Goldman. He’d be there, sitting in his double-decker throne, often wearing a bedazzled Bucharian Kippah, his Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A.’s cap, or some other cool hat (like the blue beret in the photo!) Sometimes, I’d catch him grimacing as he shifted in his seat. But, most of the time, I’d catch him praying as he said the words aloud and followed along expertly. He had been coming to Lincoln Park Jewish Center for longer than most of my friends had been alive.
Everyone who met him was impressed by how “sharp” his mind was. He had trained as an engineer, after the war, and built a successful entrepreneurial business. He had also built a beautiful Jewish family with his wife, Fey. She had passed right before I met him and then his middle son Roy passed last year. Yet, he still showed up to Shul. Dedicated. Reliable. Perhaps to pray for their memory and soul.
And, now, he had gone to join them. I looked back into my Siddur and then back at the spot bereft of his presence. I would never see him again. Hear him laugh at the “Rabbi Yehuda Ferris jokes” I’d sprinkle throughout the service. Be reminded by him to say the “Barchu” prayer when I forgot (he never did!). Or watch him talk to my four year old son as if it was normal for a man in his nineties and a boy in his single digits to share a bond of friendship and play.
“Jonathan,” I said to his grandson - Roy’s son - who now sat in the seat between where his grandfather and father used to sit. “Last Shabbat, your grandfather was in this world but not with us in Shul. But, this Shabbat, he is in the World of Truth and with us.”
The congregation patiently waited, allowing me to interrupt the service to publicly speak to a descendent of the Goldman patriarch.
“My FBI friends tell me that it’s common to find DNA of someone in the places they frequent most. And your grandfather sat right there so many times. So it’s possible his physical DNA - literally a part of him - is right there with you. How much more so, his spiritual DNA is with us here today.”
Jonathan nodded, strong and silent just like his father and grandfather. I knew the community ached for Mr. Goldman. He was a distinguished board member, a trusted friend and a giant of a man in more ways than one. Literally, he had been a few inches over 6 feet tall - with military trained broad shoulders to boot - before the many years of gravity took their toll on his physical frame. But never on his spirit.
I’d always turn to him for permission when doing something atypical or unorthodox in shul. “What do you think, Mr. Goldman?” I’d say. I knew if he approved, the rest would follow. “Why not?” he’d often respond, his eyes crinkling up as if he found it humorous that a young rabbi was seeking his approval.
Jonathan opened the ark, where a Torah scroll had once sat emblazoned with the words “In honor of Sidney Goldman’s 90th birthday.” But someone had stolen that Torah scroll from us during the past year and we had failed to return it home before Sidney was gone. “May the gates of Heaven be open to all your prayers,” I intoned as Sidney’s grandson stood in the same spot by the ark which his grandfather had stood countless of times. I knew many in the chapel were praying for Sidney.
And then it happened. A small moment. Yet, powered with profundity. Alan - you might remember him from the story I once shared about the Jew who turned down a lucrative job to honor the Shabbat - was called up for an Aliyah (being honored to say a blessing by the Torah reading). “Rabbi,” he whispered to me. “I pulled out a Siddur when I sat down in my seat today. And look what fell out of it. This must be from the Covid-19 services.”
I looked. And looked once more. Then I interrupted the Torah reading to announce what was written therein to the entire congregation. Yet - again - Hashem had blessed us to witness a miracle. For miracles do happen. Every day. Some are of Biblical proportions. And some are small enough to be discounted as mere coincidence. But, as my father taught me, coincidence is G-d’s way of remaining anonymous.
I waved the small slip of paper like the American flag at Normandy. And, aloud, I read the words humbly scribbled upon it.
“In Attendance, Sidney Goldman.”
Rabbi Levi Welton was raised in the BayArea. He holds degrees in science, film and education and is an ordained rabbi. He is a member of the Rabbinical Council of America and on the board of “Elijah’s Journey,” an organization that raises suicide awareness and understanding in the Jewish community. Rabbi Welton is the rabbi of the Lincoln Park Jewish Center. www.RabbiWelton.com
