After the Yizkor memorial service at Lincoln Park Jewish Center, I realized our “resident Kohen” was away on vacation. “Oh no” I thought. “Who’s going to do the Priestly Blessings?” I quickly scanned the congregation. My eyes caught movement from the back of the shul.
It was Dr. Katz, a retired physician in his nineties who had a penchant for speaking his mind and doggedly pushing people’s buttons. We had become friendly over the past few months, so I sent the gabbai over to ask if he would do the Priestly Blessings. After all, he was the only Kohen on the premises.
The gabbai returned, unsuccessful. “No can do, Rabbi. He refuses.” As the prayer service continued, I mulled over my choices. None of them satisfied me. So I turned to my Torah student and asked him to try where the gabbai had failed. He too returned empty-handed. “Sorry, Rabbi, he says his arthritis makes him too weak to stand on the podium and do the blessings.”
Once again, I sat in silence as I listened to the harmonic swish-swish of prayer book pages being turned and the loving words being mouthed in unison. Knowing that this was probably not the smartest thing to do, I got up from my chair and made my way down the aisle. The congregants stood up to let me take the seat next to Dr. K. He shook his head as I entreated him once more.
“Sorry, Rabbi. I won’t do it. I can barely stand without my walker and the arthritis is so bad, I can’t even lift my arms anymore.” Not taking no for an answer, I told him I’d appoint someone to help him. Begrudgingly, he acquiesced.
Later, during the Kiddush reception, he approached me with a strange look in his eyes. “Oh no, here it comes” I thought. But as he hobbled closer to me, I saw tears in his eyes. He placed a gnarled hand on my shoulder and drew me close.
“Rabbi, I want you to know that my wife used to always push me to do the Priestly Blessing. I had my reasons for refusing back then too, and she never let me get away with it. It’s been 10 years since she’s been gone and today was the first time since she died that I did the Birkat Kohanim.”
I had never seen him cry before, and as I struggled to find the right words he hugged me and said, “Thank you. Thank you for bringing my Molly back to me for one more day.”
One year later, I witnessed yet another miracle. It was a random Shabbat but one of my beloved congregants told me it would be his last. “Sorry, Rabbi, but I got offered a job and I’d have to work on the Sabbath.” He caught me off guard as we both stood socially distant from one another, our masks covering our faces.
He had been a model congregant (and, by that, I mean he didn’t fall asleep in my sermons) and I was just beginning to get to know him well. What was I supposed to tell him? That I’d love to see him whenever he could make it to shul? That there are many other mitzvahs he can do to bring Moshiach?
Covid has impacted so many people financially, and they were offering him a lucrative salary. Who was I to mess around with someone else’s parnasah (livelihood)?
Those who know me, know that I hate conflict and often bend over backwards to accommodate rather than alienate. But this wasn’t some trivial Facebook debate. This was the Sabbath we were talking about! I was on the spot. What was I supposed to do?
What would the Rebbe say?
This thought pierced my mind as I stood there, his eyes searching mine. I took a deep breath.
“My brother,” I began. “It is impossible that the Creator of Heaven and Earth would give His child a challenge they cannot overcome. The great Jewish poet Ahad Ha’am once said that more than the Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews. You must tell them you can’t work on Shabbat. And, if you need a letter stating you require religious accommodation, I will write one for you.”
During the subsequent week, he did not reach out to me. I worried if he would ever talk to me again.
Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed so hard?
The next Shabbat, after I finished praying the Amidah, I turned around to face the congregation and saw him in the second row. He smiled and waved to me. I snuck over to him and asked, “What are you doing here?!” He leaned close and said, “Rabbi, I turned down the job. Everyone else in my life was encouraging me to take it. You were the only one who was opposed. And I thought to myself, if there are Holocaust survivors like R’ Chaim Grossman who still show up to shul, then I certainly should. When my old job heard what happened, they offered me a raise to stay. Plus, they put in my new contract that I will never have to work on Shabbat.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Then he continued, “I want you to know that if you hadn’t given it to me straight, I wouldn’t be standing here today.”
Tears hit my eyes. In all my years as a rabbi, this is one of the top moments. I opened my mouth and told him that according to the Talmud there are those who acquire their World to Come in (just) one glorious moment.1
As the service progressed, I couldn’t control myself and I stood up in front of the entire congregation and, with his permission, told them what had occurred. I said that the Talmud, Berachot 6a, teaches that G‑d wears tefillin just as His children do. In our tefillin, it states “Hear O’ Israel, the L‑rd our G‑d, the L‑rd is One.”2 But, in His is written, “And who is like your people Israel, a nation unique on Earth.”3
This man inspired our entire congregation. He inspired me. It’s easy for me to come to shul on Shabbat. After all, I’m paid to do so. But, for someone like him, to make that choice, to give up being paid … all I can say is that there are many Torah readings centered on the “great miracles and signs” G‑d made for the Jewish people throughout history.
But this was a great miracle this man made for G‑d.
If you don’t believe this story, ask the congregants of Lincoln Park Jewish Center. They were there. They saw it with their own eyes.
It happened on a summery Shabbat not too long ago. I looked over at the empty blue-cushioned seat which Sidney Goldman used to occupy 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 nineties, the doctors refused to operate on his back. They couldn’t offer him pain meds because of how they would interact 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 someone once said, “Getting old ain’t 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 on his double-decker throne, often wearing a bedazzled Bucharian Kippah, his Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A. 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 our synagogue 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 passed away right before I met him, and then his middle son, Roy, passed last year. Still, he showed up to shul. Dedicated. Reliable. Perhaps to pray for their memory and souls.
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. Never hear him laugh at the “Rabbi Ferris jokes” I’d sprinkle throughout the service. Never 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 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. He had been well over 6-feet tall, with military-trained broad shoulders to boot, before the many years of gravity had taken 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 emblazoned with the words “In honor of Sidney Goldman’s 90th birthday” had once sat. But someone had stolen that scroll from us during the past year, and we had failed to bring 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 spot by the ark which his grandfather had stood countless of times. I knew many in the room were praying for Sidney.
And then it happened. A small moment. Yet miraculous.
Alan—the same man who turned down that lucrative job to honor the Shabbat—was called up for an aliyah (being honored to say a blessing over 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 when we were requiring reservations.”
I looked. And looked once more. Then I interrupted the Torah reading to announce what was written therein to the entire congregation. G‑d had blessed us to witness another 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:
“In Attendance,
Sidney Goldman.”
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