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Rabbi Emeritus Harold I. Saperstein actively served Temple Emanu-El for 47 years. Rabbi Saperstein was known and respected around the world as a leading Reform Rabbi. Regrettably, Rabbi Harold Saperstein passed away in November 2001.

Excerpts from the eulogy delivered by his son, Rabbi Marc Saperstein, the Charles E. Smith Professor of Jewish History and Director of the Program in Judaic Studies at The George Washington University, Washington D.C......

How many times did he do this: stand in front of a group of mourners and their friends, and articulate in the eulogy the meaning of a person's life for us. How often I remember him urging us not to focus on the grief or loss, but rather to appreciate and celebrate the richness of a person's talents and achievements. Now it is our turn to shoulder this awesome responsibiliity - and I feel so inadequate to the task.

Yes, he was a participant in the turbulent events of our century that many of us experienced only vicariously, by listening to him. His heart and soul were with the survivors of the concentrations camps, and Soviet Jewery, and Israel - but they were more than anything else with the members of this congregation. It is from this experience that he spoke in the Ordination Sermon at Temple Emanuel of New York that he gave to my class of new Rabbis in 1972. This is what he said to us:

"To the young groping and searching in the darkness of a world they never made; to those of mature years, so engrossed in their problems they have lost sight of their purpose; to the aged, whose eyes are dulled more by loneliness than by the years; to all of them you will have the opportunity of bringing the message that life is meaningful.

In a world thirsting for identity, you will have the exciting task of sounding the summons to your people to be Jews - strong and proud of their Jewishness, custodians of a heritage deep in its understanding of the human heart and lofty in its vision of humanity's goals.

In a time of moral confusion, you will have the privilege of drawing sustenance from the bottomless well of Torah, dealing with problems of the hour but deriving your strength from timeless sources."

Here he was sharing with a new generation of Rabbis what he found not just so challenging but so uplifting and fulfilling about his own Rabbinate.

What about the very last period of his life? Rabbi Norman Lamm, the President of Yeshiva University, in a eulogy for Rav Soloveithchik, who like Dad died of complications from Alzheimers after a period of severe decline, pointed out that in Jewish law, the pattern of respect for a scholar is similar to that for a Torah Scroll. He then noted that there may be a sefer Torah Shenisraf, a Torah scroll that remains in perfect condition and then is suddenly consumed in a conflagration - like some Rabbis who die suddenly at the peak of their powers ( Dad's uncle, Rabbi Adolph Lasker, first rabbi of this congregation, who died at age 36? was in this category).

But there is also a "sefer Torah she-balah," in which one letter after another becomes faded and disappears, until there is nothing left. But even thought that Torah scroll can no longer be used for reading in the synagogue, it must be treaded with dignity, and buried with respect. That was the fate of avi, morenu ve-rabbenu, our own "sefer Torah," our rabbi and teacher, as one memory after another faded, and one skill after another was lost, through the ravages of Alzheimers disease - to the point where the only source of joy he had left was being together with Marcia, his beloved wife of 60 years, reaching over to hold her hand, leaning over to kiss her. Yet he continued to be treated with the utmost dignity and love and respect by all around him, to the very end. Everyone in the assisted living home - residents and each member of the staff, addressed him as "Rabbi." And we continue this honor today.

There is in our tradition, however, a very different image, which emphasizes not what is lost, but what is permanently acquired in a lifetime. Describing the end of Jacob's life, the Torah says Va-Yakrevu yemei Yisrael la-mut- "The days of Israel [Jacob's other name] drew near to die." Now days are inanimate - how can they "draw near?" The Zohar, that classic text of medieval Jewish mysticism, takes this phrase literally and then turns it into a stunning metaphor: when the soul leaves behind the earthly body, each day on which a person has performed a mitzvah, draws near and is transformed into part of a multi-colored, radiant garment in which the soul appears before its Maker.

Think back over the days of his years from 1933 - how many mitzvot he performed. How many acts of religious devotion, of kindness and compassion; how may thoughts he implanted in the hearts of young and old through his sermons, his adult eduation and confirmations and high school classes, the wonderful children's stories - and no one told them better - all seeds that took root and eventually bore fruit in lives enriched by Torah. He may indeed have forgotten them, but these acts endure in some real and powerful sense. Think what a magnificent, radiant garment, composed of the days of his years, adorns his soul in our memory, and in eternity.

Milton Steinberg was a brilliant Conservative Rabbi at the Park Avenue Synagogue, whom Dad greatly admired, and who died tragically in 1950 at the age of 46 (a sefer Torah she-nisraf). One of Steinberg's sermons to which he frequently referred had the paradoxical title, "To Hold With Open Arms." It was about the nature of true love in our most meaningful relationships. You want to hold another, to comfort and protect, but you have to give the other space, you have to know how to let go. I remember when Dad taught me to ride a bike, running along side and holding onto the back of the seat in case I began to wobble. And then at one point he let go, and I was riding by myself. That was to hold with open arms.

In the final months and weeks of his life, we have tried to show our love by lettng go as well, recognizing that he was on some level withdrawing from this world of ours, connecting (we trust) with another, more permanent one, completing a process that is the inevitable circle of life. And today as well: we hold him, in our memory, in our love, as with open arms we bid farewell.