Volume 67, Issue 8

Letter From Rabbi Bernard Siegfried a Month Prior to his Passing

A Full Time Job

In Memoriam: Rabbi Bernard Siegfried

by Rabbi Shalom Carmy

When the Gemara (Eruvin 65b) picks out situations that reveal character, one view is that a person is known by his humor. The Rav once differentiated between the high spirits that evaporate the moment reality intrudes, as when the siren of an ambulance startles revelers at a party, and the sober joy that is not abated when reminded of mortality. Our memories of Siegfried (that is how he was usually known in his student days – Dov Noah was a byproduct of the Mi she-Berakh’s in the last three years) are inseparable from his keen, often offbeat, sense of humor. However, he was not preoccupied with making jokes. He could say something hilariously funny and a moment later return to serious matters.

One incident captures both the strangeness and the strength of his character. Late last summer, when Dov Noah was waiting for his lung transplant, he dazzled me with a well-timed comedy routine involving impediments to getting an organ through customs, with special attention to the problems likely to occur when life-and-death needs conflict with the vacation schedule of a French bureaucrat. Overall it was a sobering conversation – the first time that I saw real fear in his eyes-the awareness that he might be running out of miracles. Yet after all the crazy oscillations, from terror to hope, and from reprieve to disappointment, for a few moments he took pleasure, and gave pleasure, in a humorous performance.

I am here as Dov Noah’s teacher, as a friend, and as a colleague. Looking back over twenty years it seems to me that what I just said about his sense of humor applied to other moods as well. There was a period, before he met Hadassah, when he experienced low spirits. So much has happened since then that I had completely forgotten about these episodes until after the shiva. But, at the time, though these feelings were troubling enough that he chose to speak about them, one got the impression that his center of gravity was not his transient state of mind, but the permanent goals of existence, the study of Torah and the creation of a worthwhile life. Character is betrayed in moments of dissatisfaction.

A couple of weeks before his death, Dov Noah favored me with a rare, lengthy e-mail message. The subject was philosophical. He wondered if he had thought anything original. Let me excerpt the gist of it:

Pascal’s wager: In case there is an afterlife I should live a good life anyway. 99.999% of world population has made that wager by not committing suicide. That means that they really do believe there is an afterlife. This might be an obvious point but I found it an epiphany. It means that all of human history is on our side of the God debate.

The premise of the argument is that life is difficult for the vast majority of people, often crushingly so. Therefore, were it not for our trust in the divine Master, who orders our being and sets us on the path of piety from which we are cannot deviate, suicide would be an attractive option. Thus, the near universal affirmation of life testifies to the near

universal, albeit unconscious, recognition that we are creatures called forth by G-d. This is not the place to evaluate the argument’s advantages and limitations from a philosophical perspective or to test similar lines of reasoning that resemble it. At a human level, it is the residue of an individual thinking for himself about the ultimate questions, bringing to reality a sharp, slightly macabre insight, and even with the sword at his

neck, refusing to sugarcoat the human condition. Though Dov Noah had much to live for-a wonderful marriage, the intellectual joy of Torah study, dedication to his students, most of all, perhaps, the fervent desire to contribute to his daughter’s development, he did not delude himself into believing that all of this, absent the Ribbono shel Olam, is sufficient to sustain the human spirit throughout our pilgrimage through this vale of soul-making.

There is a sentence, at the end of Dov Noah’s note, which could easily be overlooked because it sounds like a predictable sign-off line. Given the author’s character, and the nature of his situation, it deserves repeated reading:

Hoping to be in more contact, so we can work out what God wants from us. This is a fulltime labor.

Others have pointed out that Rabbi Siegfried’s talent in physics would have enabled him to pursue a lucrative worldly career. One younger talmid came to YU with a limited background, enjoyed a prolonged havruta with Rabbi Siegfried, and is now an effective Torah educator. He told me how grateful he is for the attention Rabbi Siegfried gave him despite the fact that his intellectual prowess drew offers from more accomplished fellows.

(He was not the only one: after I quoted this remark at the funeral, several individuals approached me, each one sure they had identified the person!). There would have been nothing inherently discreditable in subscribing to these goals.

For Rabbi Siegfried, however, Avodat Hashem was a full-time calling. He kept his eye on what was truly important for him. The life he constructed, his family, his job, his learning, revolved around the task of absolute commitment expressed in his last sentence. That is where he found the endurance to teach classes the day after being subjected to the most powerful, and the most debilitating, treatments in the medical arsenal. That is where he found the sensitivity to care so deeply for the family he left behind. Those of us who were his friends are left with the inspiration and the recollection, though the road we travel is now a bit lonelier. Many of his students, I am assured, realize that they have

encountered a remarkable individual, and witnessed a heroic struggle. Their lives, and ours, will be revisited by his meaning.

TNTsVH

This is a revised version of a eulogy delivered in Lamport Auditorium, December 31, 2002, 26 Tevet 5763.

What do you think? Click here to send a letter to the editors.
All content is copyright © Yeshiva University Commentator.