Rabbi Bernard Baskin, Hamilton’s wise man, dies at 102
Rabbi Bernard Baskin once said he hesitated to accept" the notion of heaven, even as he himself seemed eternal, in his longevity and influence, and with a voice for the ages that conveyed gravitas and reason.
I'm not sure what the criteria would be," he said about the path to the afterlife, a twinkle in eyes, at the age of 93, with nearly another decade to go before he slept.
Hamilton's wise man, who worked tirelessly for more than 70 years in the city advocating for what he called godliness" in humanity, died Wednesday afternoon, Jan. 18.
He was 102, less than two months from his 103rd birthday.
Rabbi Baskin served as spiritual leader of Temple Anshe Sholom in Westdale from 1949 to 1989, and as Rabbi Emeritus from 1989 to 2017.
His son, David, told The Spectator that Baskin had recently given a series of talks about the meaning of Hanukkah.
He was never in the hospital a day in his life, including the last few weeks," said David.
The cause of death was essentially old age, he said.
Really that was it. He just wore down. The mechanism wound down."
Baskin had lived the last five years of his life in Toronto, in a retirement home, having left Hamilton to be closer to his children; two of them lived just a few blocks away.
We saw him all the time, he was part of our lives and our kids' lives and our grandkids' lives," said David. It's going to be a big loss for us. That's irreplaceable."
For all of Baskin's years in Hamilton, he lived in the same mid-19th-century Mennonite carriage house home in Westdale; the basement still had hooks where meat used to be hung.
Baskin was born in New Jersey, and mostly raised in Brooklyn, but Hamilton would forever be his city, he told The Spectator.
His father, Samuel, who had fled antisemitic pogroms in Belarus, was an orthodox rabbi, but young Bernie gravitated toward the Reform movement, the most liberal branch of Judaism.
Baskin's first rabbinical posting was in Denver, where he met his future wife, Marjorie. Later, he was posted to a congregation in Louisiana, in the heart of the segregated south, and his new bride insisted they return north.
They drove into Hamilton one sunny June day in 1949, where he took a position with Temple Anshe Sholom, the oldest Reform congregation in Canada and second oldest in North America. The couple became Canadian citizens in 1967.
It seemed like an interesting opportunity in a foreign country," Baskin told The Spectator. I didn't intend to stay more than a couple of years. But like the man who came to dinner, one thing led to another."
The Reform congregation was based on Hughson Street for almost 70 years but with their new rabbi, a new temple rose in a farmer's field on Cline Avenue in Westdale on April 15, 1951.
The dashing young rabbi transfixed congregants. Baskin - everyone called him Bernie - wore crisp suits and polished shoes, and his fireside baritone voice conveyed learned insight. (At one point he ran an antiquarian bookstore with Marjorie; in his 80s he gave away 7,000 books to the University of Alberta.)
He was always extremely handsome," a longtime congregation member once told The Spec. Stylish, sophisticated, urbane."
But his influence in Hamilton extended beyond the temple walls, speaking at other houses of worship, and in schools and to community groups, tying together threads from different faiths.
He worked hard on the interfaith aspect," said David. He was not what I would call a theological Jew; he was a humanist Jew."
Baskin estimated that he gave 500 talks to non-Jewish audiences over the years.
In retirement, during winter sabbaticals in Boca Raton, Fla., he would give talks at the local library. At Christmas one year, more than 100 people came to hear the Canadian rabbi speak on the Jewish Jesus and the Christian Christ." The librarian had to set up extra chairs.
For decades, he contributed regularly to The Hamilton Spectator and Canadian Jewish News, writing book reviews and commentaries, offering reflections on the great questions of religion, morality, life and death.
Dana Robbins, former Spectator publisher and editor-in-chief, said he counted Baskin a friend and confidant.
It can sound overblown to say that anyone is the moral compass for an entire city, but for a generation that is exactly the role Rabbi Baskin played in Hamilton," he said.
In a speech paying tribute to Baskin in 2008, Robbins called the rabbi a man of wisdom but also compassion: It's impossible not to be struck by Bernie's reluctance to sit in judgment of others. His is a great intellect tempered by even greater empathy."
Rabbi Irwin Zeplowitz, who counted Baskin as a colleague and mentor at the temple, before later moving to a synagogue in New York, said that while some may have been intimidated by the rabbi's intellectual aura, Baskin was a man with a wry sense of humour, deep magnanimity and capacity for change."
Rabbi Baskin was, he added, one who Jewish traditions would regard as g'dolei ha'dor: a giant of the generation. I will forever be inspired by the enduring legacy of my dear teacher and friend."
Honours Baskin received included the Hamilton Gallery of Distinction, B'nai Brith Humanitarian Award, an honorary doctor of laws degree from McMaster University, and he was named Man of the Year by the Jewish community in Hamilton.
To those who heard him speak, or read his words, he was quite simply The Rabbi."
When you said The Rabbi' in Hamilton, everyone knew who you were talking about, there was no doubt," said David. He really believed in Hamilton."
Baskin's wife, Marjorie, died in 2005, after they had been married 57 years. Baskin is survived by son David, daughters Judith and Susan, seven grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
To some in Hamilton's Jewish community over the years, Rabbi Baskin was an enigma. For a man who spoke so widely and with such power, his private views were not well-known.
But if his core philosophy could be summarized, it was that if God often seems missing in the darkness of life, it is up to people to act in a godly manner.
The solemn challenge," he wrote in The Spectator as a young rabbi, is that if God is absent, or seemingly impotent to change the consequences of man's free will, man himself must become God-like and conform his will to good purpose."
David spoke of how his father described God not as a noun, but a verb," in asking what we can do to actively help others.
He said that God is what we do," David said, his voice breaking with emotion. He said God is not what we pray for or talk about, but what we do. I think that was his theology, and in his life he tried to exemplify that."
Jon Wells is a feature writer at The Spectator. jwells@thespec.com