My cousin Julian Newman died tragically last week after a long battle with depression. He was a young 30 years old.
Julian and his sibling Rena Yehuda are the two children of my first cousin Heidi and her husband Dave. As a child, I remember my mom talking to her older sister Judy Goldfein, Heidi’s mom, at least once a day—and that was back in the days when you had to pay for long-distance calls on your landline. They were very close, which probably led to the Goldfein girls being the cousins we were closest with.
That became even truer when Heidi’s family and mine wound up living walking distance from one another in Skokie/Evanston. Dave gave my kids music lessons. Our families, including Heidi’s sister Natalie, who also lives in Chicago, often have Shabbat dinner together. And our extended family managed to draw closer during and after the pandemic with the advent of “Zoom Kiddush,” a Friday afternoon gathering that has continued all these years later.
All of which is to say, this is a really heavy loss.
As it is customary and appropriate to teach Torah in memory of the deceased, both in their honor and for the comfort of the mourners, here are, as our grandfather Hymie might have put it, some words about Julian, some words of memory, and some words of Torah.
Julian was a devoted son, sibling, nephew, family member, friend, neighbor, and citizen. He loved languages and travel to foreign countries. He was fluent in Russian, which he studied as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He earned a master’s degree in international relations in 2025 and had hoped to work in government or an NGO, but the timing didn’t work out (see: Trump Administration). He played chess competitively—and one of the best moments of shiva has been seeing a group of his chess buddies share stories about him with his parents. He was a cyclist, a gardener, and a cook. He tutored immigrants in English.
Julian loved learning. As I have heard more stories about his curiosity and intellectual appetites, I found myself reminded of a teaching of Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa on this week’s Torah portion, which includes the words, “In order that you may learn to live in awe of YHVH your God all of your days” (Deuteronomy 14:23). Simcha Bunim teaches: “‘In order that you may learn’—this, the study of Torah, is the foundation and essence of a person’s tikkun, their refinement. By means of this study one can arrive at awe of the Divine, and from there one can ascend to the level of completion—the understanding that ‘the whole Earth is filled with the Divine Presence’ (Isaiah 6:3), that the spark of life in every single thing is from divinity.”
This kind of consciousness reflects an understanding that everything is interconnected. As Marge Piercy puts it in ‘The Seven of Pentacles,’ one of my favorite poems of hers:
Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
And, a little later:
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.
When they were little, I remember visiting Julian and Rena’s house and meeting “Archie, the Hamster of Joy.” He lived in a cage in the kitchen, burrowing away like a hamster does. Today, outside the kitchen window is a garden that Julian planted with his sibling and brother-in-law, Ed. We’ve all been marveling this week at “Julian’s sunflower” that has grown to be over six feet tall.
This sense of interconnection is maybe what I’m finding most pervasive: More hugs, more hand-holding, more expressions of love than we probably made last week. If Julian’s death leads us to be more loving, it might be a small measure of tikkun for all the pain and heartache.
Another teaching:
The parasha opens with the words, “See, I place before you today blessing and curse” (Deuteronomy 11:26). Rabbi Baruch of Mezhibezh comments: “‘Anokhi, I’ — it’s as if the Holy One were saying, ‘I give myself into your hands.’ As the Sages said (Shabbat 105a): Anokhi is an abbreviation for ‘I wrote and gave myself.’ Thus the blessing and curse are in your hands… This is also found in the Midrash: “The Holy Blessed One said to Israel, ‘I have sold my Torah to you—and, as it were, I have sold myself over to you;’ this is implied from the verse, ‘And they shall take [literally ‘acquire’] for Me an offering’ (Exodus 25:2).”
In moments of tragedy, those of us raised with a dualistic notion of God (e.g. old man in the sky who rewards and punishes) can quickly find ourselves in a theological cul-de-sac as we try to explain the unexplainable. “Why would God do this?” or “Where was God?” One of the many virtues of the less dualistic approach of Hasidism is that it reorients us away from this impossible, painful question. The Holy One is here and always has been, with us in our joy and our suffering, in our strength and our weakness, in our communal moments and our loneliness. When we perform acts of compassion, love, and healing, we reveal more of the Holy One in the world. I’m pretty sure Julian knew that, and I’m quite sure he’s teaching us that now.
Which brings me to a final teaching on the parasha. It comes as a comment on one of the Torah’s stirring verses about giving tzedakah: “You are to give, yes, give to the poor person; your heart is not to be ill-disposed in your giving to them, for on account of this matter YHWH your God will bless you in all your doings and in all the enterprises of your hand.” (Deut. 15:10)
The Maggid of Dubno comments: “This is the meaning of ‘your heart is not to be ill-disposed in your giving to him’: Do not investigate after him with a bitter or begrudging heart to see if he is worthy, or whether it is impossible for him to earn a living in another way. For regarding this too, let your heart not be grieved, and say: It is worth it for this alone—that you are not acting as a fault-finder—so that Hashem will also bless you without inspecting your actions. For if the Holy One were to scrutinize strictly according to the attribute of justice, who could stand justified?”
Naton titen lo— “Give, give,” says the verse, parallelling the words “patoach tiftach et yadcha,” “Open, open your hand” two verses earlier. The spiritual motion of tzedakah mirrors that of prayer or Torah study—open, giving, generous, flowing, loving. Far too often, the natural font of hesed, love, within us is choked off. The world and its forces of separation have a way of making that happen, even as deep down we all know that everyone is fighting a battle we know nothing about. So we have to work at it, opening our hearts, our hands, our mouths, to allow love to flow. Among all the many reasons we practice, that may be the most essential.
Marge Piercy puts it best:
Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.
Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.
May we love and support one another to make it so.