Rabbi Howard Morrison

Dear Congregational Family,

I am truly blessed. I had the best mom and dad in the world. Many of you know of my mother's Yahrzeit because it falls out on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. I dedicate my sermon to her memory every year. My dad passed away June 7, 1999, the twenty-third of Sivan, some three months prior to my mom's passing. Tonight will be the twenty-second Yahrzeit of Ruben Morrison. In this week's Parsha, the tribe of Reuven is mentioned at the outset of the Torah portion, and the name Moshe permeates the Torah lesson. My father's Hebrew name was Reuven ben Moshe. While my dad was the third oldest of six siblings, like Reuven the oldest of Jacob's sons in the Bible, my father served as the oldest brother to his two immediate younger brothers. As an elementary school age child, those three brothers were being raised by a particular foster family in New York.

Not having a warm and fuzzy childhood, my dad expressed love and fun in his own way when my siblings and I were young. We knew he loved us. The hugs and kisses came, but to play ball with his two boys was not part of his DNA. Around the time I was completing high school, my dad truly became my best friend and confidante. As I was maturing, I understood him better and appreciated the background in which he was raised. As I ventured into university and a series of part time jobs, dad was my go to guy for just about everything. When I assumed the position of a part-time rabbi in the Bronx during my second to last year of rabbinical school, mom and dad visited me at my first shul. I still have a photograph to prove it. My dad had grown up not far from that shul in the Bronx during the 1920's and 1930's. My parents also saw me in action when I served as a full time rabbi in Union, New Jersey and Wantagh, New York. 

My father died a little over a year before I assumed my current rabbinical duties at Beth Emeth. He never got to witness the Bar Mitzvahs of his two grandsons in Toronto. Yet, so much of his spirit resides in my boys. Elie is known for his precision in the way he works as a meteorologist in Michigan. My dad, an architect and construction engineer, excelled in precision. Yonah is mechanically inclined and can envision a final product in his mind from the inception of an idea. So was my dad when he designed plans which would become a blueprint and soon after an actual building in the Boston area. 

My father trained to become a Chalutz in New Jersey at a Hachshara farm preparing to make Aliyah before he went to university and met my mom. Although he never did make Aliyah, his Zionism and love for Israel filled my childhood home. My own love for Judaism and for Israel comes from both my parents. These commitments are now shared by my grown children. Elie is an unofficial advisor to the only synagogue in Alpena, Michigan. Yonah recently completed three years in Israel as a lone soldier. 

My dad received very little Jewish education as a child because of the depression. Nevertheless, he was an observant Jew, a shul goer, and a virtual one man house committee in my childhood synagogue. He was my best friend. When people ask me about the most significant sources of Jewish inspiration and education in my life, the answers are Ruben and Helen Morrison, of blessed memories.

Tonight, I will proudly and sadly observe my father's twenty-second Yahrzeit. "Yhi Zichro Baruch - May the memory of Reuven ben Moshe V'Chaya be for a blessing."

With love,

Rabbi Howard Morrison - Avraham Tzvi ben Reuven V'Chana Fruma