“The one thing that was hardest for me was to watch him struggle to function on his own. For him self reliance was essential and it was hard to see him lose that”
This is more or less the main core of what Amir said at the funeral of his father this past summer. As I write these lines and think back over the last twenty years I think to myself that this is really the esprit de corps of family Lopatin. You are all independent thinkers and doers. Yet, at the same time meurav im habriot; proud yet warm, loving and encouraging, never aloof. Amir certainly didn’t fall short in that.
My memories of Amir are mainly of his childhood. He was always very quiet, but I could tell from the look on his face that he was absorbing like a sponge. At a very young age he already gave an impression of being a baal sechel (one whose actions are dictated by intellect rather than emotion). His maturity level was adultlike. Even when he played a game he seemed to be analyzing it scientifically, his head tilted to the side and a thoughtful expression on his face. As a twelve-year-old, seven-year-old Amir seemed to me like a cute little professor, round glasses and all. It seems funny to me that he grew up to be an athlete as well. An ocean of tears would not sufficiently express how we feel. If the true gauge of quality of life is the impact one has on the world around oneself, than I think that Amir lived a life that many an old man can be jealous of.
This weeks parsha(portion of the bible read in synagogue on shabbat) parshat Shmini speaks of the untimely death of Nadav and Avihu, the two saintly elder sons of Aaron Hacohen. About them God says, “bekrovai ekadesh,” I will become holy from [the death of] those who are closest to me. This means that sometimes God takes the “good ones” in a shockingly tragic way in order to stir the rest of us. Bemoto tziva lanu lehitbonen bachaim. In his death he commanded us to contemplate the meaning of life. By doing so we transform his death from a “freak accident” into a kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of God’s name. The Chafetz Chaim, Rav Yisroel Meir Hacohen of Radin (1828-1933), is the most revered figure of Israel in the past hundred years. Even during his lifetime he was referred to by all Jews throughout the world as the “Saba Kaddisha,” holy grandfather. He was a spiritual giant, a man of sublime purity. His pure absolute faith in God and the truth and eternity of His Torah permeated his entire existence. Virtually every Jewish home in the world, no matter how moderately religious and no matter how small its library, contains one or more of his classic works of Jewish law or ethics. The first edition of his Artscroll biography (page 328) contains a dramatic account of the death of his beloved son Avraham at the age of twenty three. Here is an excerpt:
“Calmly and steadily he went straightway into his house and sat down to observe shiva, the seven days of mourning. Not a teardrop appeared on his face, not a groan could be heard from his mouth. ‘The world,’ he said, ‘has lost a Torah scholar of stature.’ When he was eighteen, he was already expounding Torah innovatively like one of the great luminaries! Then he added, ‘Hashem gave, and Hashem has taken away; blessed be the name of Hashem (Job 1:21) from now to eternity. Now I know that I am a Jew.’ Then he told the story related in Toldot Adam (chapter 16). At the time of the Inquisition in Spain in 1492, the vicious bloodthirsty men of the church slaughtered the two beloved precious children of a pious, devout Jewish mother before her eyes. The courageous woman lifted her eyes to heaven, and with an unflinching heart she whispered in prayer: ‘O Master of the world, it is true I always bore you love. Yet as long as I had my two dear, priceless children, my heart was divided in two. There was still a place there reserved and contained for my children. Now that they are no more, my whole heart is a dwelling-place for my blazing love for you…Now I can truly obey the commandment to love Hashem your God with all your heart and with all your soul’ (D’varim 6:5)….And the Chafetz Chaim passionately exclaimed, ‘O master of the world, the love I bore my son till now, I henceforth give over to you!'”
May the memory of Amir live with us forever.