Ramaz expressed gratitude to Hashem for giving him his son for an additional 32 years
As over a thousand people jammed into the Anshe Emeth shul in Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood, a crowd of 25,000 mourners outside clamored to gain entry to the funeral of their beloved rabbi of 12 years, Rabbi Samuel (Shlomo Zalman) Margolies. He had perished following injuries sustained in a car accident. Promptly at 2 p.m., the coffin arrived and the deceased’s father, the renowned Rabbi Moshe Zevulun Margolies (the Ramaz), rose to speak.
He spoke with emotion as a river of tears streamed down his angelic face. The younger Rabbi Margolies was born in Russia 39 years prior and had immigrated to America with his family in 1889 at the age of 11, when his father was the rabbi of Boston’s Baldwin Place Synagogue. Unable to adjust to life in America, the Ramaz returned to Russia. Arriving at his previous position in Sloboda, he sensed a hostility in the atmosphere, as the barb “American rabbi” had now attached itself to him. Left without a pulpit, he reluctantly returned to the US to embark upon a storied rabbinic career spanning nearly half a century in Boston and New York.
His two young grandsons at his side, Ramaz continued his eulogy. As a boy of seven, Samuel Margolies had fallen ill with pneumonia. The doctors gave up, but his parents pleaded with the One Above for salvation and the boy recovered. Ramaz then expressed gratitude to Hashem for giving him his son for an additional 32 years, and reminded those present that although his son was taken away in the prime of life, he had accomplished as much as an average man of 70.
When Samuel Margolies was just 12 years old, he was sent from a Boston public school to Telz, where his great-grandfather, Rav Avraham Margolies, had served as av beis din. After several years as a student of Rav Eliezer Gordon, he returned to the United States and attended Harvard, while serving as an understudy to his father in the Boston rabbinate.
Create a free account to keep reading.
