You were always there

Eulogy

Paul J. Reichenbach יעקב שאול בן אברהם

Thank you all for being here with us— our Reichenbach family, and the extended family my father built over more than fifty years.

In so many ways, I could not be more different from my father. Though the older I get, the more people tell me we look alike.

I got screwed out of the six-foot-three part, that's for sure. I'm five-nine on a good day.

I didn't get his legendary voice. I didn't get his prodigious memory. Or his ability to keep up with someone he met once on a sunny day in 1974, after eating lobster at such-and-such a restaurant.

But I like to think I got a little of his heart.

People called him the Voice of God. Mostly because of that booming baritone, coming over the loudspeakers at NFTY conventions and Biennials.

But I think there was another reason. Behind that voice, and his endless ability to schmooze, was a promise.

People trusted my dad not just because he knew what to say, but because he meant it. And because he followed through.

He seemed to know exactly what to do when parents called in the middle of the night— when a flight was canceled, or missiles were falling. He could help people feel that someone was taking care of them.

But sometimes, at home, it was harder for him to find the words. To sit with me—with us, as a family— and say what he was feeling.

He liked to spoil us. That was one way he showed us how much he cared. But the most important way was simply being there.

I was the youngest, and I struggled from a very early age— with learning differences, with impulsive behavior, and later with severe anxiety and depression.

Sometimes I felt that, with me, Dad had found the one place where he didn't have all the answers. Where he couldn't make everything better with a midnight call to his contact at Tower Air. Back when that was a thing.

But even when he couldn't fix it, he always let me know he cared. Deeply.

He never said an unkind word to me. And the harshest punishment I ever got from him began with a gift.

He gave me his old Cub Scout knife, so happy to share something from his own childhood.

I went straight outside and decapitated every single flower bud the landscapers had just planted.

Then came the full-name call: “DANIEL DOLPH REICHENBACH! COME HERE THIS INSTANT!”

I always knew I was in deep shit when my family used my first name. I've always been Dolph to them. Especially to Dad.

He sat me down on the front steps, held my hand, and gave me a literal slap on the wrist.

But what stayed with me was the look on his face— how much he hated being there.

That was as harsh as he ever got.

My dad—and both my parents— went to every length to help me succeed. The teacher meetings. The IEPs.

I remember how proud he was when I got into Clark University. I told him, “It feels like camp.” And his face lit up.

A small school. Great teachers. And one of the first places, outside camp, where I felt like everybody else. Where I felt I belonged.

I graduated cum laude. Dad was thrilled.

He was so excited when I started applying for Jewish education jobs in the city. And so afraid when I changed my mind and said I wanted to make aliyah and join the Israeli army.

Filling out those forms was difficult. For the first time in my life, Dad flat-out refused to help me sign my life away for two years.

But he made sure he was at the Kotel for my swearing-in. One of the proudest moments of my life. He was worried. And he was proud. Even if most of the Hebrew, other than “Erev tov,” went right over his head.

He could be afraid of the path I chose and still stand beside me on it.

And he kept showing up, especially when things were hardest.

A friend recently reminded me of a time after I came home from Israel, when my depression had become very serious.

She called Dad because she was worried about me. She remembered how loving he was. How concerned.

A few hours later, I called him myself. He was at my door in forty-five minutes.

He took me to get help. And he came to visit every day until I could go home.

When I needed help getting back on my feet, He never gave me grief over it. He helped support me in every way. He just kept encouraging me, every day, to take small steps in the right direction.

After my first engagement ended, he sat with me in a pizza place in Ridgewood while I cried and cried.

Steady. Loving. Present.

The man who sometimes struggled with what to say to me knew how to sit beside me when there was nothing to say.

That support helped lay the foundation for the life I have now.

For the life I'm building with my fiancée, Lori. Whom he adored. Her support of him during these last few months is beyond what any partner could ask for. And it is one of a million reasons I know she is my forever Squid.

His support set me up for my current job. The work I love so dearly at Larchmont Temple. And I’m so glad he got to see some of it.

So much of what I have today is possible because of his unwavering love.

So, Dad, thank you.

Thank you for being there late at night when I was little and having night terrors.

Thank you for taking me to Kutz, just to fish, to wander around, and to hang out in that ice-cold office.

Thank you for all those meals together, when you would ask me a million questions and I would try to answer them.

Thank you for all the travel we did together. Ever if sometimes you left me in the dust because waiting with the plebeians just wasn't an option for you.

And thank you for always, always answering the phone.

In the middle of a meeting, with a friend, with a donor— you would pick up.

“Hi, sweetie. Is everything okay? I'm with so-and-so. Can I call you back in a few?”

Before anything else: “Is everything okay?”

I trusted my dad completely because he earned that trust, day in and day out.

I think that's why so many of you trusted him, too. Always near the phone. Always ready to listen, to help, to figure out what needed to happen next.

Dad was insanely proud that after a long journey I finally became a reform rabbi, so forgive me for rabbi nerding out for just a second….

Dad loved dates, numbers, and order.

Dad was born on י״ג בטבת תשי״ב— the thirteenth of Tevet, January 11, 1952— and left us at 1:30 in the morning, on ב׳ בתשרי תשפ״ז— the second of Tishrei, September 13, 2026, the second day of Rosh Hashanah.

Thirteen appears in his Hebrew birthday and in the secular date of his death.

In gematria, where Hebrew letters have numerical values, thirteen is the value of both אהבה—ahavah, love— and אחד—echad, one.

To me, those two words capture what all his careful organizing was really for: bringing people together.

There was a pattern in our names, too. My great-great-grandfather was Adolf. His son was Paul. My grandfather was Adolf—Dolf. Then my dad, Paul. And now me, Daniel Dolph.

Dad never had a bar mitzvah. For years, he used שאול—Shaul— as the Hebrew counterpart to Paul.

But when we went to Halberstadt together, we discovered his grandfather's name: Jacob Paul in the German records, and יעקב בן אברהם—Yaakov ben Avraham—in Hebrew.

Dad chose to make that ancestral name part of his own: יעקב שאול בן אברהם— Yaakov Shaul ben Avraham.

His name joined him to the generations before him.

His love for Am Yisrael, the Jewish people— and ארץ ישראל— the land of Israel— was never just an idea.

It was expressed in relationships. In kindness. In making people feel they belonged.

Our family passed down names. But what Dad gave us to carry was more than a name. It was his gentleness. His kindness. His love.

Dad, I like to think I got a little of your heart. I will spend the rest of my life trying to put it to good use.