Zvi Horowitz
son
I want to talk about our father and mother, about what I liked most about them.
When I had doubts about faith, in the reality of God I could sit with Dad and Mom at the Shabbat table and then on the couch, Shabbat clock had long since turned off the outside light, and I said all the thoughts that came to my mind and Dad and Mom so complementary philosophized with me so wisely that it was submerged In Dad's all-too-peppered sense of humor and in Mom's deep empathy and understanding.
In recent years I have used them so much. Only in their faces could I freely speak nonsense, for both father and mother had a combination of their own life experience and that of all their male and female students who kept coming and calling.
By six in the morning I would already hear my mother screaming in the excitement that at first worried me until I realized that another student was engaged. What a joy, just like her daughter is getting married. We will so miss Dad's Seder night until three in the morning with all sorts of weird things Dad puts on the table to get the kids and adults to ask questions.
And a Purim meal at home with the boys and students from the yeshiva.
How did you like to sit at the Shabbat table and study Parshas Shavua together, the laws you heard in a synagogue and of course the laws of slander at a third meal. And mother did not give up, she questioned and gossiped. You were too perfect until we were afraid the name would want you close to it.
The connection to nature was so important to you, after my mother called on Friday and said that you should not miss the bloom on Lupine Hill in the Ella Valley, and then Dad asked you to hang up because you do not talk on your cell phone when you are in nature.
So important was the connection of all parts of the people to you.
The immigrants you adopted and Dad's encounters with "an entire generation," and the encounters that Mom pushed between the studio girls and non-religious girls.
You are missing Grandpa and Grandma and Mami, who translated everything into English for her, and all the brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, grandchildren and granddaughter and all the family and hundreds of students who were helped by the wisdom, warmth and love you gave to everyone.
Your belief in the righteousness of the way, coupled with the warmth and miraculous love you radiated give us much strength to continue the apostolic race until redemption, just as you explained to me Dad, not long ago.
