My Goodbye to David L.

When I was around David I was always wearing two hats; I was leading the community he helped me create and I was his personal friend. Over the past two days I had to juggle between my two positions, here and now I just want to be a friend. Today I am a survivor. Today I am a mourner. Today I want to cry. Today I want to be comforted. I hope I will be able to convey to you my feelings and emotions so we can all mourn together and maybe even be comforted together.

As a child I was taught to study a portion of Torah every day, usually the portion of that corresponds to the reading of the week at the synagogue. Sunday was a long day and an even longer night. As I sat on Monday evening to read my daily portion I realized I had skipped my Sunday reading. So I read: "These are the journeys of the children of Israel who left the land of Egypt in their legions, under the charge of Moses and Aaron" The Torah lists the 42 stops that the Jewish people made during their Journey in the desert. Our Sages ask why are all these stops listed now at the end of the 40 years? Apparently it is repetitive since they were listed as they were happening. One sage, Rabbi Tanchuma, the teacher of Consolation, answered: It is analogous to a king whose son became sick, so he took him to a far away place to have him healed. On the way back, the father began citing all the stages of their journey, saying to him, “This is where we sat, here we were cold, here you had a headache etc.”

I took it as a sign. I spent the next three hours reading email conversation I had had with David, I scrolled through all my saved text messages on my cell phone; I relived all the major events in my intertwined journey of the last six years. Six years I knew David. Six years that David allowed me to know him and in retrospect, six years that I allowed David to know me. This may seem like a short span of life for most of you, but for me the most revolutionary six years of my life; and David was there every step of the way.

David was at all my firsts. The first class I taught, and the next 100; the first time I had guest over for Shabbas and the next 200; (we would lay on the floor in the family room, gaze at the ceiling, and talk for hours...) the first spiritual group I led, the first house I bought; the bris of my first son; the first time I traveled with a group to New York; when we inaugurated the Friendship House and when we signed a purchase agreement to buy another one. He was my first emergency call and my first success story...(I define success differently than most people).

So as I continue the life that David started me on and sit at Starbucks where I first met David, as I teach my Thursday night class out of the 12 & 12 he gave me, as I look at the picture of us that David framed for me on my desk, as I continue studying with Justin for his bar mitzvah, as I look on my watch on Wednesdays at noon and wonder if we are on for lunch, as I sit on Monday nights at Eric's kitchen table and gaze at his empty seat; as I walk into a funeral and my tie is crooked; as I see again all the people that are in my life because of David; as I travel again on the roads of the past years and the as I look to the next six years and more, I will carry your voice in my ears, your face in front of my eyes, and your memory in my heart.

I love you, my brother.