In Tribute to a Friend

Dear Shulie, Amush

I've been wanting to tell you this for some time, but I realized it would be easier in a letter than over the phone.

Do you remember the mitzvah wedding we went to a little before Pesach? I remember it so clearly because it made an indelible impression on me. Let me describe it to you the way I remember it.

When we, a group of fifteen sem girls, got there, there were about ten real guests and another ten seminary girls. There was a drum playing beats that were impossible to dance to, and the kallah was talking on the phone looking sad.

And then we came, or rather you came. You were the one who made the difference.

You did not hesitate at all. You went right up to the kallah and pulled her onto the dance floor. We girls made a circle around you and her as you proceeded to make her wedding special. You made the entire wedding. As I watched you dance with her and her mother (or whoever those ladies were – we never actually found out) I was crying inside over the beauty of it all, as I am now over the memory of it.

I had never been to such a wedding, and you made it into whatever it was.

I've always been rather shy and reserved, but that wedding changed me. Whenever I go to a wedding, my memory of you being m'sameach that kallah challenges me to be you. Though most weddings are happier than the one we went to in Israel, there is still a need.

Since I came home, you wouldn't recognize me at weddings. Sometimes I don't even recognize myself in the girl dancing away in the inner circle.

You changed me Shulie.

But that's really not the end of it. Until that night I was always a little wary of you because our personalities are so different. But that night, Shulie, you changed my perspective. There was no way in the world that I, or anyone with my type of personality, could have done what needed to be done. What you did. It made me appreciate you so much more, and recognize that there is a need for every type in this world. I realized that while I would do a chessed for someone with (or without) a smile, you'd do it with a song and a cheer. When I would drag my feet do something, you'd dance to do it.

There is a depth to you that I saw for the first time that night, and it changed me and my view of the world.

This may seem like a random time to think of all this, but it's really not. About two weeks ago, someone I know made a chasuna. I wasn't invited for the chupa or the meal, so I wasn't going to go. But then someone told my mother that she had heard that there weren't going to be so many people there. So I went. But only in your zchus - only because I remembered how much of a difference you made at that chasuna in Israel. I can't say that I did as much for that wedding as you could have, but my presence definitely helped.

I wanted to thank you for everything, Shulie, for the influence you didn't know you had on me. And I ask you to continue doing what you have been doing so you can continue to inspire the world at large.
                                Love,
                                Musing Maidel