Goodbye, Uncle Jack. . .
This entire day has been a total loss. Literally. I received a call from Israel this a.m. (my time) from my cousin (his niece), telling me that my Uncle Jack had passed away this morning (Israel time). I had a close relationship with Dod* Yaakov (at least, I thought so), even though we had not spoken very frequently since we left Israel from our last visit almost exactly two years ago, March 2008, for our older son's wedding. But whenever we talked, even if it was months apart--it was as if we were both of us in the same room, sitting on his sofa and chair in his living room in the moshav which he helped found, philosophizing about family, life, G-d, values and Judaism. Since we saw him last, he had had a quadruple-bypass operation, and initially, I thought, had been doing well. He later apparently developed internal hemorrhaging (I don't know the full story), and the doctors were trying to combat that. Two and a half months ago or so, something deteriorated cognitively: he ...