Eulogy: Hadassah R. Levin (1921–2013)

Eulogy: Hadassah R. Levin

(May 14, 1921 – February 9, 2013)

I want to express today a little bit of the feelings of gratitude that I feel toward my mother, Hadassah Ruth Routtenberg Levin.

She was the youngest of five children of Harry David (Tzvi David) Routtenberg and Dora Garmaise Routtenberg.  She was one of 45 first cousins of the Routtenberg-Garmaise clan in Montreal, Canada.  She would count her cousins' names to put herself to sleep.

Her siblings included Rabbi Hyman Routtenberg, Rabbi Max Routtenberg, Connie Chodos, and Horace (Sonny) Routtenberg.

She grew up in Montreal, graduating Strathcona Academy in 1938.  On a visit to her brother Max in Reading, PA she met Emanuel (Manny) Levin, whom she married on August 10, 1941.  After a few years in Reading and Harrisburg they settled in Philadelphia where they lived for the rest of their lives (not counting travel).  I was born in 1946 and my brothers Joseph and Victor in 1948.

After seeing her family through school, she went back to school herself in the mid-1960s, getting her BA in Sociology at Temple University and her MSW at Bryn Mawr.  She worked at Phildadelphia Family Service until her semi-retirement around 1990, after which she continued for a while longer in private practice.  After living for 47 years on Rodgers Road in Elkins Park, she moved in to Martins Run in 2003, where she was active in many committees (including welcoming and para-chaplaincy) until her decline in the last few years.  Her last illness (pneumonia) was brief.

It will take me a long time for my feelings to sort out.  There are feelings of loss and feelings of gratitude, mingled like currents of warm and cool water on the bay in Cape Cod where Mother visited us one summer, when she rented a cottage and I used to lead a bike caravan with our children David and Rachel to ride up to visit her.  This memory mingles with the times she would take my brothers Vic and Joe and me to Brant Beach on Long Beach Island, NJ to spend a couple of weeks during the summers when we were small and lived in Overbrook Park (Philadelphia).  We still have those soundless 8-millimeter home movies—long since converted to digital—of her looking so young in her bathing suit, and us little boys playing in the sand.

The warm and the cool.  The feelings of loss and the feelings of gratitude.

Let me focus on the gratitude.

This came to me yesterday in the car when my daughter Rachel observed wisely that one of my mother’s greatest achievements was in helping me become the person I became.  (This goes of course for all three of her children, but my daughter had me in mind because that’s the one closest to her experience.)

That is to focus on my mother’s role as educator of her children.

I am still trying to figure out exactly how she did it, but I think part of the key was her striking the right balance—at least for me (I suppose I can speak only for myself) of a lot of contradictory elements.

There was first of all the balance of directiveness versus letting things take their course.  She would introduce things to me then sit back while I made of them what I would.  

At some point a piano appeared in our house.  It sat there for a while, then I started tinkering with it, and pretty soon she had arranged for me to take piano lessons from her friend Rose Berman up the block.  I was seven years old at the time.   From that point on, the music increased in our house until all three of us boys were playing musical instruments, in solo or in combination with each other, from the time we started for as long as we were in the house, and longer. 

Or the Bible.  I wish I could ask her now, how it came about that I started reading the Bible and immersing myself in its stories as a young boy, starting the religious obsession that eventually landed me in rabbinical school.  But I am sure the Bible wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for her.  And I always found her a willing partner in conversations about God, Judaism, and the meaning of life.
 

I learned much later that her own feelings about Judaism and religion had a lot of ambivalence over the years.  She came from a religious family in Montreal.  Two of her brothers were rabbis.  She and her sister were the rebels against religion in the family, in their small way.  She once said she kept kosher originally for the sake of her parents, then for the sake of her children (especially for me, the religious fanatic when I was an adolescent, going to Camp Ramah and Akiba Academy of my personal choice).  But I think she modestly understated her own religious identification.  When her kids were grown and out of the house she studied Buber and religious existentialism with Maurice Friedman (while studying for her BA at Temple, prior to her MSW at Bryn Mawr), and was a devoted participant in the Beth Sholom choir.  Looking back, I think there was a bit of benevolent cunning about her, as she planted the seeds then watched them sprout.

Or maybe there was another balancing act here — the balance between Jewishness and mentshlichkeit.  In her own family of origin she rebelled against the strictness of Orthodox Jewish observance and wanted to be more a part of the general culture of the 1930s, of swing and big bands, social parties and political parties, movies and romance.  At times she thought I was too one-sidedly devoted to intellectual and Jewish pursuits, and encouraged me to play outside more, to take care of my physical wellbeing and appearance.  

I felt my own pursuit of excellence was a legacy from both my parents.  They both valued intellectual achievement.  They both had high standards.  But especially from my mother I got the message not to be too one-sided, to have time to relax and enjoy life.  She knew how to have fun, and I think I learned from her that excelling in what you do, but remembering also to have fun doing it, are equally important.

There is a lot more that I learned from her, but this is enough to try to digest for right now.

Thank you, Mother, for everything you have given me.