Speech
Eulogy for Isidore Strick (1974)
I knew I.S. about 21 years. When we first met, he was a young man, not much older than I am now. Yet for me, he filled a variety of roles, as I suspect I did for him; he was my friend – and when we corresponded, which was not infrequent, our remarks were full of good-natured banter; underneath the thinly veiled insults was a world of admiration! He was my brother, to whom I looked for advice; a father figure to whom I turned for solace and encouragement; and a student, to whom I taught Torah. I knew four generations of the family – from his father, the old man from Colchester (and what a good son Izi was!), to his nephews and nieces and their children. He had no children of his own, but was a fatherly person. He was patriarchal in his way. He was the focus of his family, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces. Yesterday was Shabbat Shuva. There are two great verses in the Bible concerning teshuva or return:a) in the PsalmsEvery human being, insofar as he is 0F ?1' ^ו^ or mortal, must ultimately submit to the divine command to ”return” to his earthly origin. For^^we like it or not, life is limited, and we know thatit must come*to an end. Man must submit to the command to return toearth.But someone who is more than just a mortal, someone who transcendsthe category of e }k ' ) ^ and achieves the category of Israel, a"thampion of the Lord/' such a person retums*^L*e in a different sense. He returns not only to the earth, but that in him which is ineffably precious returns -- ^גי v^t ^\Y\At S^yf^A••So we are gathered here at the remains of our dear friend Izi, Israel ben Avraham Zvi, not only to see him off as he returns to the dust of the earth which was his origin, but also, we bid him farewel with the words \ \ » return 0 Izi, 1 ’c C —because there was something in you which was admirable beyond words,and lovely and precious beyond telling.Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz used to say that the founder of Hasidism was called R. Israel Baal Shem Tov (the Master of the Good Name), be…
