“You can’t run away from [adversity]. You do what you have to do, no matter what it takes, as long as it’s honest.” – David Loeb Kahn (David Loeb ben Natan v’ Frieda Leah)

In honor of David Loeb Kahn, my wife’s beloved grandfather, I’m reposting here three pieces I wrote about his life for his 100th birthday celebration at Keneseth Israel synagogue. These vignettes presented his life corresponding to some of the blessings we say during Shabbat (Saturday) services, and were read at that time.

1. P’sukei D’zimra/Shacharit – Verses of Praise/Morning Blessings

In 1920 David was 10, living with his family in Kamenka, in the middle of the Ukraine. Later that year, the family would begin its two-year journey to the United States. Kamenka had only one synagogue, and Nathan, David’s father wanted to share his love of Hazzanut with his son. Nathan took David to different synagogues to hear the cantors of the day. One trip was to Odessa, perhaps to firmly fix in David’s mind the traditions they would be leaving behind for the Golden Medina.

In this third year of the Russian Revolution, Lenin and Trotsky were building their soviet empire. South in the Crimean peninsula, the tide was turning: the Reds were decisively beating the Whites. Just that February Bolshevik forces had marched into Odessa. Later that year a special congressional report commissioned by President Wilson would estimate that by September 29,000 Jews had been murdered in Ukrainian pogroms.

It’s this context of revolution and pogroms that makes it all the more remarkable that Nathan took his first born on the long, 225 mile coach journey through the dusty towns, farms and fields to Odessa, just so they could share the soaring melodies and operatic style of the Hazzanut of the day.

The journey would have taken perhaps 10 hours in a bouncing horse-drawn coach with squeaking springs. They would roll by quiet fields, forests and villages, then stark evidence of past battles, and marching soldiers and horse-drawn artillery. Upon arrival at last the tired boy and his father would have made their way through Jews’ street to a hotel, perhaps passing young socialist and Zionist Jews arguing. Then they would have washed and walked to shul.

What would young David have made of the crowded city, narrow streets and leaning buildings, of the Chazzan with his long beard and tall Chazzan’s cap chanting the service, of being given this gift of time with his father, while his mother and sisters stayed home. How would this island of spirituality, this liturgy set to music and sung in the classic operatic style, in the close, warm air of the synagogue, have affected the young heart of a boy who had seen brutality he still won’t talk about to this day?

You can ponder these questions while Cantor Hordes sings a tune sung in the style of the Hazzanut David might have heard in Odessa.

2. Torah Service: Dave’s Second Trip to Israel

In 1999 the Boston Globe ran a photograph of Dave and Ron at the Wailing Wall. It’s likely other newspapers ran the picture, and it may have been shown on national television.

Dave was 90, and this was his second trip to Israel. The first, with Reva, took place shortly after the ’67 war. This trip, to a country he found amazingly changed and progressed, was with his sons Arnie and Ron. It included a visit to the source of the Jordan River, where Dave hiked down a long, rough trail cut out of stones, passing tourists in their 50s, 60s and 70s who had stopped to rest.

But the afternoon before the Boston Globe photo appeared, Arnie had not yet arrived in Jerusalem. Dave and Ron went to the Wailing Wall. Within a few minutes, Dave was praying. Around them, Ron saw, but didn’t register, the small number of tourists, and the large number of media vans, their microwave antennas extended and ready.

Word about an impending Palestinian protest had reached many people, but not them. At one o’clock services at the Dome of the Rock concluded. Palestinians came out of the mosque and began dropping stones on the people gathered at the wall.

Dave and Ron, along with others in the crowd, ran toward the safety of a tunnel, some raising hands and some raising chairs over their heads. They were guided through the dark to the Via Dolorosa. Unharmed, Dave and Ron returned to the hotel.

The next morning, Ron’s wife Suzi called, asking if they were all right. She had opened up the Boston Globe to see a picture of the two of them, hands over heads, with people throwing stones from above.

We won’t reflect long on the irony of, in Eretz Israel, people throwing stones at a David rather than the other way around. According to Ron, Dave took the event in stride. Our honored guest has 40 years on the State of Israel. But though the country in this recent incarnation hasn’t been around as long as he, it too, has learned to take things in stride. Please join us as we recite the Prayer for the State of Israel

3. Musaf (“Addition”) – Dave’s Additional Blessings

We have arrived at Musaf. Musaf means “addition.” There are many reasons for this additional service. One reason given is to remind us of the Musaf sacrifice of temple times. But here’s a reason that will resonate with most synagogue goers today: As you know, most people don’t come to Shabbat services on time. Musaf is a “second chance” service. The blessings you missed the first time, you get to catch at the end.

The parallel between Musaf and David Kahn’s life is hard to miss. Psalm 90 states, “Y’mai Sh’notaynu Bahem Shivim Shanah.” Although Shivim Shanah simply means “70 years,” this line is often whimsically translated as, “The days of our years are threescore and ten.” Clearly, Dave is in his Musaf. As he has outlived most ordinary mortals, it’s appropriate to reflect on how he has used the additional thirty years of blessings he has received.

First, I would like to point out that to this day, at 100 years of age, David still writes his monthly check to pay his KI dues. Don’t you think it’s time KI cut him some slack?

Two other Biblical passages are worth reflecting on at this time: First, the promise that Hashem gives to Abraham in Genesis 12: “Go forth from your land, from the place you were born, from your family’s home and go unto the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and your name/legacy will become great, and you will be a blessing.”

You’ve heard how, in the Shacharit of his life, David Loeb ben Natan v’ Frieda Leah left his birthplace of Kamenka, Ukraine for a new land, where, like Abraham, he has been blessed, his family grown, and his deeds renown so that now, in his Musaf, he dwells among his family in peace.

You’ll recognize the other quote as well: “Hinei Ma Tov Umah Naim Shevet Achim Gam Yachad”: “How wonderful and pleasant is it as family dwells together.”

David was married 66 years to his beloved Reva, of blessed memory, who he married on Purim, in 1933. She passed away in 1999. They met in Louisville, on a double date, and Reva was not his date. But the engaged couple faced their first obstacle before they wed, when David was laid off from his job in Levy Brothers department store. It was the Depression, December 1932. Jobs were scarce.

He likes to recall how Reva ran to her parents Abraham and Rachel, crying, “Poppa, what will we do? We’re going to be married and David doesn’t have a job!”

Abraham pointed to the kitchen table of their apartment on Preston and Walnut St., and said, “Tochter, you see that table where we eat breakfast every morning? That’s where you and David will eat.” Then he pointed upstairs to her bedroom. “That’s where you and David will sleep every night.” And so they did, for ten years, until the children needed room to play and in 1949 they built a house on Deer Park, all the way out “in the country.”

What a blessing it is to have family.

Reva and David have two sons, Arnie and Ron, who he has seen become successful, and involved in Jewish life and worship.

He has watched his grandchildren, Cindy, Dana, Stacy, and Jeff, grow up and embark upon their adult lives, families and careers.

And he has seen the birth of four great-grandchildren, Daphne, Chloe, Nate, and Annabel. Two years ago he attended Daphne’s bat mitzvah in St. Louis.

In the Musaf of his life, David has extended his family even further. He has met relatives from Argentina, born after Nathan’s brother emigrated there, and distant cousins who emigrated from the Ukraine to the San Francisco area, discovered through Arnie’s genealogical detective work.

A life as long as David’s, even one as blessed, is not without its challenges. He endured the pogroms of his youth, the two year journey to America, and, after arrival, the difficulty of learning English. There was the layoff from Levy Brothers before his marriage. He owned his own business, Kahn’s Five and Dime, later called Star, but lost the store in 1964 to eminent domain and urban renewal.

And of course, one penalty to the blessing of long life is the grief of outliving his wife and most of the family and friends of his generation. As far as facing adversity, David advises,

“You can’t run away from it. You do what you have to do, no matter what it takes, as long as it’s honest.”

David’s commitment to family, friends, his extended family at KI and the Jewish community can be recognized through the help he has given – morally, ethically, financially, through advice and volunteer service over the years. We can list all those many contributions, but David says he doesn’t like to pat himself on the back.

I will say he served as vice president and as head of the religious committee for many years. He was offered the president’s job, but Reva, knowing how much it would make him worry, (something to which I’m sure any former and current president can attest), told him, “If you take it, I’ll never be able to sleep in the same room with you.” He turned it down.

He served until recently on the Chevra Kadisha, and was instrumental in training others in how to perform this holy service to tend to the bodies and souls of the recently deceased.

There has perhaps been one major change in this Musaf period of David’s life. The patriarch of the Kahn clan who has helped so many, has learned to accept help from the family he has led, and in many ways still leads. Family and friends, his extended KI family and clergy of this synagogue and others, call, visit, help take him to minyan, services, and errands. And in this way he who has helped his family and community is now helped in his turn.

David is a blessing to all, and has remained so, become even more so, by the example of the ways in which he has realized his Musaf blessings during his addition portion beyond his three-score and ten.

“You can’t run away from it. You do what you have to do, no matter what it takes, as long as it’s honest.”