Suffice it to say, not everyone draws 700 people to a eulogy service.
Add the fact that the service, in keeping with the Shabbat traditions, started at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday night and lasted well into the morning without a soul leaving early.
Then you can get a glimpse of the kind of impact Devorah (Debbie) Rennert had on everyone she met.
After a fatal car accident on July 1, she left behind her husband, Rabbi Shmuel Rennert, and their 10 children.
Her funeral was a sight like none I had ever seen. After nearly two hours of eulogies, 700 people followed the casket and the hearse as it slowly left the service.
It was 2 a.m. The world was silent in a way it can only be in the middle of the night and yet, a sea of people surrounded me.
In the distance, Lake Michigan waves crashed against the shore as 700 people slowly and respectfully, with eyes tearing and hearts torn asunder, followed the hearse as it slowly turned onto Lake Drive.
The procession continued for several hundred feet on the street before the hearse finally accelerated away.
I stood, first in the street and then on the sidewalk for nearly half an hour afterward. There was too much to process, too many memories to catalogue.
I first met the Rennerts some 20 years ago when I was a freshman at the Wisconsin Institute for Torah Study.
It is likely that my memories of the Rennert family are much more vivid than those of other families at WITS because they actually lived in our dorm building, on a private floor, for an extended period of time.
I fondly recall the eldest Rennert child, Michoel, who was about two at the time, playing on the school’s front staircase. Rabbi Rennert swooped down and picked him up to bring him upstairs for family time.
And then there was Mrs. Rennert. One thing we noticed, even as young boys, was the sincerity she showed us all. We knew that she deeply cared for each and every person.
True sincerity for all people is a difficult enough feat, but she managed so much more than that. Not only did she care for each person, she was willing to do whatever it took, regardless of how difficult, to make that person’s life even a little better.
Her smile captures the depth of her sincerity. She was always smiling. Always. Yet whenever a person approached — in passing or to speak with her — there was a change in her smile. It grew wider and more exuberant.
I felt the power of her warmth when I joined WITS as alumni director last year. Shy by nature, my wife was nervous to attend her first WITS Chanukah party because she did not know anyone.
Her worry was not long founded. As soon as we walked in, Mrs. Rennert, who had not yet met my wife, greeted us and embraced my wife and toddler daughter.
How can one claim not to know anyone, when the true warmth and sincerity that is usually reserved for families was so evident in Mrs. Rennert?
She took my wife by the hand, and when my wife was ready, introduced her to dozens of other people.
In the meantime, I took my daughter in to listen to music. Upon my return, I was amazed to find my wife engrossed in conversation with Mrs. Rennert and a circle of other women.
With her loss, we are poorer.
I have been to a number of funerals in my life and none has been more tragic than this.
What can one say to 10 children who are newly orphaned? How my heart breaks for the four-month old who will never know his mother. What can heal the tear in this family?
As I looked into the eyes of the Rennerts’ two-year-old daughter at the eulogy service in Milwaukee, in the same building in which I had met her parents, I remembered her eldest sibling as he played on the steps two decades earlier.
And at the funeral in New York, at the gravesite, I looked into Michoel’s own eyes, as he recited the Kaddish for the very first time for his mother.
As the days after the tragic death turn into weeks, I can’t help but think, I am no Mrs. Rennert, but I can use her as a sterling example.
She truly lives on as all those who have been touched by her endeavor to treat people as way she did. Perhaps spreading her deep sincerity and caring will be her great gift, her lasting legacy.
Chaim Shapiro is alumni director at the Wisconsin Institute for Torah Study.
Loading ...