Back in 1979, after my father, Irivng Porter, died, I wrote an essay called “The Death of a Father.” It was one of my best essays. I described how at his death bed, we heard the fluttering of angel’s wings as his soul flew higher and higher upwards to gan eden, heaven.
My brother died in Baltimore, on Shabbat, Nov. 15, and they say that one’s soul goes immediately to gan eden when you die on Shabbat, and I know it did. Everyone who knew my brother knew he was a very special person. He possessed gentleness, calmness, and patience plus a beautiful singing voice.
Over 1,000 people attended his funeral, 400 on Zoom, over 600 in the auditorium; 13 rabbis spoke, many in tears. Such was his loss.
We had at times the usual sibling rivalry “mom liked you more” kind of nonsense, but also my being the oldest and him being the “rabbi,” I at times resented him telling me what do. After his funeral, his wife, Shushy, told me “Jack, Shlomo loved you, and if he suggested things to you, it was always because he was thinking about you, to raise you to a higher level of mitzvot.”
Death brings up all kinds of feelings; there are no right or wrong feelings. Some cry, some laugh, some feel guilty — all are legitimate forms of mourning. I feel guilty that I didn’t attend his classes more to see how he led people to higher levels of observance.
My brother’s secret in dealing with Baal teshuvot (“masters of return,” or Jews who comes from more secular backgrounds and become more religiously observant), was that he himself was a baal teshuvah. He attended Sherman Elementary School and Steuben Junior High School, but then came under the tutelage of Reb Michel Twerski and his wife Feigeh, and then because of the influence of a friend, went to Chicago to study at the Hebrew Theological College in Skokie, and from there to Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore.
I had a friend, but he decided to join the local Habonim/Dror Labor Zionist group and thus, I went in another direction — such are the power of friends.
Because he could relate to baal teshuvot without judgment and in their own language, he was successful. He was co-founder of the Etz Chaim Center of Baltimore, one of the most successful kiruv (outreach) programs in the country and a past present of the Association of Jewish Outreach Professionals, teaching and mentoring dozens who do kiruv.
His technique was never to judge but to meet people at their level, and guide them with study to then move higher up in mitzvot; he could relate because he knew the culture of the 1950s like Disneyland and “Leave it to Beaver” with seniors, and “Saturday Night Live” with a younger generation. People could relate to him. He spoke their language.
We were also a family of ‘Hachnasat orchim.” Our home was open to all – visiting rabbis, mishulluchim (traveling fundraisers), even an occasional Jewish hobo – we had people like Rabbi Teleshevsky, the personal meshulach of the Lubavitcher Rebbe; Rabbi Cohen who could lift both Shlomo and I up with both arms; Rabbi Borack, and the greatest of all. Rabbi Kowalsky of Ner Israel with his beautiful silver beard and silver cane and powerful presence. He would say to the businessmen we went to — Max Karl, Max Kohl, the Afram brothers, “I collected from your grandfather, and I will collect from your grandchildren”.
Shlomo, my sister, Bella Smith, and I learned hachnasat orchim (the mitzvah of hosting guests with generosity) from our parents, so later we were able to handle the work and the stress of many people coming because we saw our parents doing it.
But the most important message our parents left us was to care for others and to reach out to people, and Shlomo and his wife and children did so to hundreds, maybe several thousands of people, during the nearly 50 years they were in Baltimore,
Our parents were great partisan fighters in the forests of Volynhia, Ukraine, and they lost many people — my mother for example was the sole survivor of her family — and yet she produced children and grandchildren that more than doubled those lost in the Holocaust.
But the greatest gift our parents left us was the gift of joy:
Zei Freilich, Yidn”—Be happy! Don’t mourn for me, would be my brother’s message but go out and organize!
I ended my eulogy with two short Yiddish songs that my father taught us:
“Zis a mechayah to zein a yid, dar far is mir shendik glick, Ich hob tzu dir kine teines nist, ich dank dir vos ich ben a yid”
“It’s a pleasure to be a Jew; not a burden. I have nothing to complain about to you, dear Lord, I thank you that I’m a Jew”
And a Zionist song:
Aheim, Aheim, Yidelach, Aheim, shon bald tzvei thouzen yuhr az mir zenen in galus ad hayom und az mire gitach a tish a greteh, vuzha los mir ach abeten, Aheim, Yidelach, Aheim kein Tzion, Aheim
“Go home, go home, Jews, go home (to Israel); it’s been 2,000 years that we’ve been in exile and as we give you a prepared table, why do we have to beg you to partake—go home, go home to Zion, your home”
That was my brother’s message: Be joyful as a Jew!
Jack Nusan Porter can be reached at porter_jack@comcast.met. His website is www.drjackporter.com.
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Rabbi Shlomo Porter remembered
Rabbi Shlomo Porter died on Saturday, Nov. 15. He was 78. He had led the Etz Chaim Center, an Orthodox network of Jewish programs in the greater Baltimore area that serves college students, young professionals, adults of all ages, and seniors. He was born in Milwaukee’s Mt. Sinai Hospital in 1947 and lived in Milwaukee until around 1962, when he left to attend school in Chicago, followed by Ner Israel Yeshiva in Baltimore.
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