Bernard Axelrad Scholarship Fund

As I walked down the aisle of the synagogue to my seat on the morning of the seventh day of Passover, I mechanically gazed toward the pulpit and a feeling of unease arose within me as the familiar figure of the Rabbi was not occupying his usual spot. During the more than 25 years that I had attended services at Congregation Mogen David, that had never happened before.

It was common knowledge that Rabbi Maron did not take vacations and I had seen him in good health only 12 hours earlier at evening services. Yet, so dependable and so reliable was the Rabbi that I sat down filled with foreboding and not daring to look for succor at the faces of the other congregants.

Sadly, my worst fears were confirmed.

Rabbi Abram I. Maron finally had left his beloved Congregation Mogen David after 50 years of continuous service. Though he had announced his "retirement" at the previous Rosh Hashanah services, I didn't for a moment believe it. Anyone who truly knew the Rabbi and his half century of total dedication to his congregation had to feel, as I did, that only the "Highest Authority" could truly retire this Rabbi.

For me the loss was particularly grievous. In my previous 25 years I had had only sporadic contact with him, but during the past year I had seen Rabbi Maron every day at my daily Kaddish recitations. Within the relaxed atmosphere of the small chapel where the daily prayer services were held, opportunity existed for more personal contact and, most important, for me to inquire about theological doctrine which perplexed or troubled me. Throughout that year I took advantage of every chance to ask questions, and Rabbi Mason patiently expounded on my sometimes contentious queries.

I lost in him not only a spiritual advisor but also an irreplaceable confidant, counselor and answer-man.

Ordinarily rabbis, and especially the current American crop, are not my idols. Call it an individual peculiarity, but I had been weaned on the Lower East Side among the European patriarchal rabbis who sat and studied Torah all day and answered shalos (questions) for whatever voluntary donation the neighborhood poor proffered (usually fifty cents). The rabbis of my youth (and continuing fantasy) were most pious and not occupied with material and monetary matters; they were content to commune spiritually with the Almighty and to forego worldly pleasures.

Rabbi Maron was unique, and the more I knew him the more I came to respect him and his singular manner of conducting his ministry.

His matchless devotion to his Congregation was legendary. He was a veritable one-man organization, and the scope of his activities was unbelievable. For starters, if you called the congregation office, his familiar voice answered the ring and then your subsequent query.

All arrangements for bar mitzvahs, weddings, Passover seders and High Holy Day tickets were made through Rabbi Maron personally. When one considers that the Congregation comprises well over 1000 families, then the magnitude of his unorthodox, ancillary services can be somewhat comprehended. I suspect he sought this quotidian contact with his flock and relished the closeness it engendered. Not for him a buffering complement of secretaries and support staff.

Rabbi Maron presided at services every morning and evening on weekdays and the Shabbat. He chanted the Torah reading every Monday, Thursday and Saturday, as well as on holidays, calling upon the men he specifically selected for aliyas (Torah reading honors) by their Hebrew names. With each diverse happenstance which gave rise to an aliyah, whether it was an 88th birthday, a 62nd wedding anniversary, the birth of a child or grandchild, prayers for a safe forthcoming journey, or gratitude for a successful recovery from serious illness, Rabbi Maron would render a suitable accompanying commentary.

It was a very salutary personal touch, as the beams from the honorees on the pulpit would attest.

He gave thousands of apt scholarly sermons to fit the occasion every Saturday and holiday. Not only did he perform the functions of several men each Sabbath, but required no occasional guest speakers to relieve him of the burden of a sermon.

All this was in addition to the more traditional rabbinical chores of performing wedding ceremonies, delivering the eulogy at funerals, consoling the bereaved, visiting the sick, participating at the brith of a baby boy and presiding at the ceremonial synagogue naming of a baby girl — as well as being available for counseling in matters both religious and secular. His services were quite expansive, encompassing far more than his immediate congregants as his reach extended to the parents and siblings of members. His availability was not circumscribed by artificial demarcations of nominal synagogue membership.

Rabbi Maron had a phenomenal memory and greeted most members by name. He would inquire about each of my four children, individually, regarding their current whereabouts and fields of endeavor. That was not special to me, but his normal mode with most people.

Accustomed as I was to the old fashioned type of rabbi of my youth, Rabbi Maron was an anomaly. Born in Sioux City, Iowa, and educated in the rabbinate in Chicago, his speech bore the unmistakable imprint of the Midwest. In his youth he had excelled at baseball and, for a while, was torn between a baseball career and the rabbinate. It is told that he missed a session or two at the Yeshiva while indulging in his love of baseball. He maintained a lifelong interest in sports and even at 75, he had the gait of the athlete.

The length of his service at Congregation Mogen David was, itself, unusual. In the course of his service he had occasion to preside at three generations of Bar Mitzvahs in the same family. In a profession where the rabbi's tenure is so ephemeral for such varied reasons as burnout, seeking higher salaries and benefits, and not getting along with the governing board, Rabbi Maron's longevity record is unsurpassed.

In his half-century of service as rabbi, he more than lent his imprimatur to Congregation Mogen David. He molded it and shaped it so that Rabbi Maron and the Congregation were as one.

If I had any criticism of my Rabbi, it was that he did not more actively seek and groom a successor. I do not envy the rabbi who follows him.

Next, I would like to share with you some of my personal experiences over the years which fashioned my view of Rabbi Maron.