It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Some time ago, I asked Sidney if he would officiate when my time came. There was no doubt in either of our minds but, that I would predecease him. He was the only one I would trust, for he knew me better than I knew myself. He had a remarkable insight into people and character. Little did I think then that I would be standing here today to eulogise over my dearest friend & confidante. Indulge me while I reminisce over anecdotes culled from these past 23 years.

Sidney & I go back a long way. 1947. He was 11 & I, twelve, both students at the then newly formed Akiba Hebrew Academy in Philadelphia. Even then, he displayed those extraordinary talents which developed & matured in adulthood. I believed then, even back in ’47 that he would become a renowned lawyer or politician. As is, he became a staunch and passionate advocate: for Israel, for Judaism & for the Jewish people.

I nicknamed him then, “the spring” because he was always so spirited, so energetic, so animated by people & ideas. Sidney was unique. Oh how he loved to explore new theories, discover new insights & tackle new philosophies. He was an original thinker, a prolific writer & a voracious reader, a love he acquired from his brother Chanan & sister-in-law Milly. Chanan & Dean Henry Slonimsky were to be his mentors & role models. From them he learned to love the Russian, French & English classics with a passion. During his late teens, he devoured Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, de Maupassant, & Anatole France. The Brothers Karamazov exerted a profound spiritual influence on him throughout his life. He had a retentive mind. And even years later, he remembered everything which he had read, as if he had read it only yesterday.  It was his love for the theology, history & literature of the Bible that motivated him to attempt, in more recent times, a new translation, the “People’s Bible”, to bring its beauty, insights & appreciation to the average man & woman—a task he executed as a labour of love & with an infectious zeal, virtually to the end but sadly did not complete.

I recall one summer, during our student days at university, just before setting off to become a waiter in Atlantic City, I asked Sidney what he would be doing while I was shvitzing away waiting on tables. “I’m going to read”, he said defiantly. And read he did, because reading was the love of his life. But I suspect, as well, that an incentive for sitting on his porch reading, was the pretty young girl sitting on her porch on the opposite side of 9th Street, reading as well, of course.

Sidney was an excellent student with a clear, incisive, creative & analytical mind. A great intellect with natural intelligence. He studied simultaneously at New York University in the afternoon & the Jewish Institute of Religion—Hebrew Union College in the morning, where he received ordination when he was only 25 years of age in 1961. From NYU, where he read Philosophy with Prof. Sidney Hooke, he was invited into membership of Phi Beta Kappa, the most prestigious academic fraternity in the United States & awarded the coveted Phi Beta Kappa key which, instead of giving it to his best girl, as was the custom, he dutifully gave it to his mother. But the Ima, as he called her, was not interested in the Phi Beta Kappa from NYU. Instead, her eyes were fixed on his report from the Hebrew Union College: “Why did you only get a C in Talmud?” she demanded to know, with her fists planted firmly on her hips. It was the one argument he couldn’t win.

Sidney’s home was strictly Orthodox. His mother claimed descent through her scholarly father, Reb Frankel, from the Vilna Gaon. His father, Rev Solomon Brichto was a gentle & pious man. I recall the day of Sidney’s first act of apostasy. He had been reading, & he came across a line from Euripides that he wished to return to at another time. Normally, he would simply have underlined such verses in pencil, but it was Shabbat. Writing on Shabbat was anathema. Sidney loved and respected his family & heritage deeply. It would be a painful if not rebellious break with   his past to violate the Sabbath in any way. Notwithstanding, the challenge was too great. He picked up the pencil & underlined the sentence. No bolt of lightning struck him; instead he felt exhilarated, like Prometheus stealing fire from Zeus to give to mankind. This was the beginning of his defection from Orthodoxy, and we here, are the beneficiaries of that rebellious act.

Sidney touched a lot of lives. I, personally, shall be forever grateful to Sidney for bringing me over from New York to serve the then Finchley Liberal Synagogue 44 years ago. I remember that phone call I received in New York one Saturday night, as if it were yesterday. “Hello Frank. Sidney here. Listen, there’s no time for pleasantries, but could you fly over here for an interview?” No time for pleasantries? I actually looked at the receiver, as if it were an animate object, like they did in the movies. He had become so anglicised. But then, he was always an Anglophile.

I was so deeply honoured when Sidney & Cathryn asked me to co-officiate together with John Rayner z”l at their wedding, that, though recovering from an operation, I got permission from the hospital staff at Middlesex to leave my hospital bed for the evening  for the wedding. Sidney later reciprocated by officiating at my marriage to Valerie 20 years ago.  

Sidney was a very complex & multi faceted individual. An interesting man. He was ambitious. He was very influential & persuasive, enthusiastic & inspiring. Above all, he projected a public image which could be assertive, opinionated and confrontational. But he was always impeccably honest, open & direct, never secretive or covert. You knew exactly where you stood with him. You might not always agree with him, and many didn’t, but even they, his ideological opponents,   respected him for his honesty & integrity & his intellect and for his impassioned arguments. Even as a young boy, I recall, whenever we had had a dispute, I remember being infuriated by his final clinching statement: “There’s no doubt in my mind”, as if to say, there’s no point in arguing further, an arrogance we later laughed about in our adulthood. He had a real zest for life. I especially enjoyed our meetings and telephone conversations over the years in which we would bounce ideas off each other—ideas which he found so exciting. I shall deeply miss those moments. They leave a void in my life which can never be replaced.

Sidney was a mover & shaker. He did not allow things to happen. He made them happen. Working with him when he was Executive Vice President & Director of ULPS for 25 years—Rosita Rosenberg commented—she & Greta Hyman simply put into practice Sidney’s brilliant ideas. A bit of a genius, our Sidney. He had self confidence & conviction. He didn’t mind that others did not accept his view if he believed passionately that he was right. He’d rather be assailed for his controversial views than be loved as some amiable Doris Day character.

But there was also the private Sidney: the family man: the loving & devoted husband to Cathryn, the proud father to Anne, Daniel, Adam & Jonathan and their partners, the adoring grandfather to Thorne, Franca & Solly, the loyal brother to Chanan, Ruth, Tzvi and their families, the dedicated son & faithful friend. This is the Sidney that I was privileged & honoured to have known & which all but an inner circle of family & close friends really got to know, love & respect. He was warm & caring, considerate & kind, with a broad bright smile that was infectious. And at times, he could almost be child-like & naive in his innocence. It was a persona that was not always on show as he skilfully  chaired numerous committee meetings whether at the ULPS, the Israel Diaspora Trust, Rabbinic Conference, JIA, the Joseph Levy Foundation or the Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish studies. Occasionally did he expose this side of his character publicly, when he, behind the scenes,  championed the cause of fellow rabbis in their dispute with their synagogue councils or quietly came to the defence of fellow Jews in trouble, none of which he ever did for self aggrandisement or ever wanted publicised. He was a very caring man, a man of profound compassion. I recall once,  when the ULPS posted on its notice board a front page copy of the J.C. which happened to contain a  photo of an Orthodox Jew who was convicted as a sex offender, that Sidney blackened in the face of the man beyond recognition so as not to bring even further shame upon the man or his family.

Sidney’s life was beset by times of great sorrow & upheaval: the tragic death of Frances, the loss of his idol, Chanan & illness in the family. But he had tremendous inner strength & resilience and could stoically departmentalise his life & get on with whatever he had to do, not allowing personal problems to interfere with his public work. Like Jacob at the Jabok, he would wrestle with adversity & he prevailed.

Cathryn, you have often said that Sidney made you who you are. I would like to tell you that you did the same for him. You gave him a new image. I remember Sidney when he was a bit of a scruff, with his shirt tail hanging out, without a clue as how to dress. You transformed his image & gave him just that much more self esteem & confidence & turned him into a fashionable dresser for the prestigious position he held in the community.

Hayyim Nachman Bialik once wrote:

After my death, mourn me this way:
There was a man
And behold, he is no more…
Before his time this man died
And his life’s song in mid- bar stopped.
One more song he had.
And now the song is gone,
Gone forever

Sidney died while he still had a song within him, but it is a far better way to go than those who die without any song to sing. And Bialik was wrong, for his song is not gone forever. And like Bialik’s, Sidney’s work will long endure & generations hence will still read his books & tell his story & sing his song.

Once, during my own bereavement, Sidney told me that we grieve not for the dead but for ourselves, and I was reminded recently that Sidney, quoting from the Talmud, wrote in one of his books:

Weep for the mourners
Not for the souls that have departed
for they are at rest.
It is we who suffer grief.

Sidney has entered his Yom shekulah Shabbat—his eternal Sabbath at rest, where no pain or illness can ever afflict him again. It is we who were privileged to have shared part of his 72 years on earth, who suffer grief.

We were all privileged to have known Sidney, but you, dear family, were the most privileged because you shared his life more intimately.

 It is hard to imagine a world without Sidney Brichto. But fortunately we need not. For his presence, his ideas & his influence will continue to pervade our world & his memory will continue to serve us all for blessing.

Shalom Chaver.