Dahlia Rudavsky
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Traces of Dick
by Dahlia Rudavsky
In thinking of writing this piece, I realized that most of my interactions with Dick were entangled with real, physical things, though these interactions about "things" often had a spiritual origin. Dick's habit of linking the mundane with the sublime seemed effortless and was rather unusual, given the lack of connection that many of us experience between our workaday and Jewish lives.
For example, when I first became part of the drash committee, Dick approached me several times with suggestions of people whom I ought to recruit to give a drash. He would invariably have in mind an angle by which the individual could be convinced that the task was not as intimidating as they at first thought. Usually Dick's angle had to do with the person's work, or occasionally an unusual experience he had heard about. Dick's attention to the value of the everyday in generating spiritual insight produced some excellent drashot
I think Dick was always looking for the deeper meaning in things and events, perhaps almost unconsciously. One shabbas, after a service in which I had been the shaliach for shacharit, Dick commented that it had been a long time since he'd heard anyone use the melody for Hatikvah to accompany "v'havi'eynu l'shalom mey'arba kanfot ha'aretz," right before the shma, and he noted that Israel was still in one person's good graces-(this was a few years back). Frankly, I had not intended to send any such message, and doubt that those who choose not to use that particular melody mean to convey any alienation from Israel. But Dick's comment has stuck, and ever since, when I use the Hatikvah melody, I can't help but focus on the deep affirmation of the Jewish people's yearning for Zion that it embodies. Dick's comment made me more conscious of what I was doing.
We all probably know that Dick learned the bookbinding trade in his youth, in order to have a practical skill to fall back on should the rabbinate not work out. Accordingly, he was the fixer of all the minyan's torn and worn-out prayerbooks. I took this role of his quite seriously, and more often than not, would find Dick after services to deliver a prayerbook needing attention. Dick once quipped that it was uncanny how the prayerbooks needing help seemed to know how to find me. And I, in turn, knew how to find him.
I have a book at home that I inherited from my mother's library- Bialik's Sefer Ha'aggadah. The book remains in print, but this particular volume has sentimental value. Its binding is torn, and I asked Dick if he could fix it. Dick agreed to take a look at it to see what could be done. That was at least three years ago. Alas, bringing the book to be examined was not high on my list of priorities. Now, it's left on the shelf, a testament to the price of procrastination. When I see it, I remember that, like my mother of blessed memory, Dick is gone.
Last week at shul, Rhoda Grill came across a siddur with worn pages. Sadly she said, "What do we do now when we come across a book with worn-out pages?" (And will anyone remember how to tie the lulavim? Will commercial honey ever taste as sweet as "totzeret [Richard] Yisrael" that we watched flow into the bottle?) Dick has left gentle little mementos everywhere, without meaning to do so.
To end with sweetness: one autumn Shabbat, walking with me and my family through piles of fallen leaves on the way to the Israels' neighborhood, Dick looked around at the vivid colors and said, "You know, the Jews in Newton are living in Gan Ayden. When before in history could Jews live in such a beautiful place, and openly study Talmud, and nobody bothers them?" I often think of that, especially in this season.
In Song of Myself, Walt Whitman told his readers to "look for me under your bootsoles." Dick never said anything like that, but his touch really is all around us: in the siddurim, in the niggunim, in the autumn leaves, in our conversations with one another. And when we are able to appreciate being in Gan Ayden.
September 2000, Elul 5760