This eighth day of Hanukkah is ordinarily one of happiness and intense light – when we kindle eight candles, we recite the full hallel and read about the multiple korbanot brought by the princes of Torah times. But with the passing of Rabbi Labaton, our day has been darkened. The light will never be the same.
Usually, eulogies are not offered on Hanukkah. But in the words of a contemporary rabbi:
מותר להספיד דברים קצרים על חכם וגדול בתורה לפניו.
It is permissible to eulogize in an abridged manner for a scholar and esteemed person in Torah. Rabbi Labaton surely qualifies.
With all the warning signs, I was in denial and did not prepare myself emotionally for this day to come so soon. He appeared, after all, to be invincible. My words therefore represent unbaked, raw thoughts formulated in the wee hours of the night.
For his family, he was a beacon of light, a guide, a strong pillar. For the Magen David -Deal community, Rabbi Labaton was an untiring community servant, dynamic leader and an exemplar of Torah values. For his students in synagogue, schools and countless other venues, he was a provocative, reflective, energetic, challenging teacher who seemed never to give up or give in to human frailty. For me, he was simply an extraordinary friend for close to 50 years – who will never be replaced.
Four years separate the two of us. But that mattered very little as we grew up in Beth Torah Congregation, pretending to be hazzanim, arranging youth activities and involved fully in synagogue life. In Magen David Day Camp, we were the young inexperienced teachers, anxious to make a difference. Our relationship intensified during the three years of overlap spent in Yeshivah University, when we would typically eat two to three meals together every day of the week except Shabbat. In our free time, we were advisors at seminars run by Yeshiva University and Young Shaare Zion, perused book stores in the Lower East Side, took long walks together, talking about Judaism, marriage, community, sports and everything in between.
During our adult years, our contact could not be as frequent. But I cherished the conversations we had on the phone once every week or two, the Friday lunches we ate together during the summers, the visits that we carved out to share our thoughts – get-togethers which were always fast and furious. For me, he was a sounding board, someone with whom I could speak without fear of rejection, a wealth of knowledge and support.
We were cut from virtually the same cloth. Indeed, I was often confused with him by people in and around the community. What an honor!
Rabbi Labaton greatly impacted my life. In those formative years and ever since, I learned an enormous amount from him.
He had a voracious appetite for knowledge, especially Tanakh and Jewish Philosophy. Early on, I was struck by his quest for truth and his unending honest journey to learn and teach the truth he learned. He was probing, analytic and incisive, constantly on some campaign. One thing that turned his stomach — simplistic and fundamentalist solutions to difficult issues. His world was one of complexity, grays, colors, dichotomies and paradoxes.
Rabbi Labaton had little interest in materialism, extravagant vacations or new gadgets. Books were his best non-human friends. In fact, anyone who visited his office just once knows that people were not granted seats; seats were reserved for his cherished books. My appreciation and love for books was undoubtedly a bi-product of his passion. I bought my first set of gemarot with him on Division Street in Manhattan; the philosophical books of the Rambam and many others came into my home under his influence.
He taught me and countless others that to be a good Jew you had to combine dramatically different values and attitudes. He was steeped in tradition and could quote at will from Tanakh, gemarot and Rambam but he insisted on learning from modernity and benefitting from contemporary knowledge. I remember his intense tefillot and insistence on a spiritual relationship with the Almighty at the same time that he would tolerate nothing but sophisticated meticulous scholarship. He was open to and tolerant of all stripes, but he had a well-defined moral compass that did not allow him to compromise on issues of principle. He had a magnetic personality and could be aggressive when needed but was exceedingly humble, modest and forgiving about his personal honor. Some of Rabbi Labaton’s guiding words were “creativity,” “dynamism,” “profound.” Yet he was punctilious in his commitment to Halakhah and reverent of the Sages of old. His world was one in which he delighted in the melodies of pizmonim, Sephardic reading of the Torah together with a reverence for the Hasidic masters (Emily’s ancestors), and lifelong colleagues identified with the Ashkenazic world.
The community came to know him as the founding rabbi of Magen David of West Deal. He was not just its rabbi; he was its soul. And its soul is gone. He never missed an opportunity to teach. His abiding lessons about tiqun olam (a Jew’s responsibility to repair the world) and Selem Elokim the community’s obligation to hear the silenced voice of the disadvantaged; each individual’s mandate to do sedeq umishpat – justice and righteousness; the need to learn the lessons of our painful past, including the Holocaust, and memorialize those lessons; the privilege each Jew has to form a personal relationship with the Almighty; the commandment to respect the indigent as much as, if not more than, the affluent – all these lessons have become part of the fabric of the West Deal community.
Over the last decade and a half, I have come to know another side of my friend – his indomitable spirit, his courage, his positive thinking and his upbeat can-do attitude. We spoke very little about his illness. He wasn’t interested in talking about his multiple treatments or surgeries. And even when I pressed him, he would regale me about how great life is. When I would come home from one of our fast-and-furious talks, Vicky would often ask me how he’s doing. I could only answer – “I think he’s fine.” We didn’t even talk about the cancer. Only in late August did he once refer to himself as sick, and that was in the context of talk about what he would do in his retirement years. Neither of us realized then that those days would never come.
But despite that, look at how many dreams he achieved – as a loving father, husband, son and brother; an always-there community rabbi; a builder of institutions; a gifted lecturer; an accomplished scholar with Semikhah and the long coveted Ph.D. Doctorate.
My life cannot be the same without him. I will miss his wit, his greeting me with his cheerful רחמים מן השמים, his deep understanding of the community and how to navigate this world, his instant ability to see through façade, and his love of wisdom.
But most of all, I will miss his friendship, a friendship I just assumed would live on forever.
And in a sense it will, because I will always continue to hear his voice, his humor, his passion resonating in me.
I have no words of consolation for his family:
His mother – Doris Labaton
His sisters & brothers – Sari, David / Robin & Eve
His wife – Emily
His children – Sara & Gabriel, Ovadia, Devora & Mica, Mordehai
His grandson – Ezra
But I hope and pray that our families will continue to share our lives together.
Rabbi Raymond Harari
