Here are the words that Rabbi Silverman shared at Sam’s funeral:

Each Shabbat, when Sam would come into the sanctuary, she would catch my eyes and she would smile. And no matter what I was doing, I couldn’t help but smile back. As many of you know, Sam’s incredible smile was contagious. And on Shabbat morning it was full of joy– affirming she was in a place she loved, doing something she loved, with people that she loved. 

And each week, if you looked carefully, you may have seen that Sam and I had a coded language of nods and winks and eyebrow raises as we silently checked in. She would communicate her wordless hineini, here I am. Hineini. She was fully present and ready to serve. To chant Haftarah beautifully, or to greet a newcomer to the synagogue, or to grab an extra chair.

When I would thank her for chanting Torah or Haftarah, she would reply “thank you for the honor.” And this past week when I told her how excited I was that at an upcoming bat mitzvah ceremony we would have multiple women chanting Torah, she echoed my excitement and added “leyning Torah is a feminist act.”

The title of Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue Board President does not begin to describe how integral Sam was to our community, how much love she put into it, or how much she was loved. Sam did so many things as president–serving on our ritual committee, working on a building renovation and celebrating its reopening, spearheading our next fundraising push, setting agendas for the board, and tending to all the details that arose along the way. But over all of that, her priority was to engage with people. Sam had an amazing willingness to listen carefully to each and every person with whom she spoke. She certainly had her own convictions, but she would really listen to different ideas and had the remarkable ability to say “let me think about it and I will get back to you.”

And because of her passion and joy and love and wisdom and willingness to listen, Sam had a uniquely special personal relationship with countless people, often across lines of faith or politics or the many things that could divide us. So many people think of her as someone with whom they had a particularly close or important relationship, and each of them is right. Every single one of you. 

There was no one she loved more than her family. She was especially proud when you came to the synagogue and when she spoke of you. If Sam wasn’t there on Shabbat, I knew it was often because she was with you, exactly where she needed to be.

Sam would frequently be called to the Torah for an aliyah. Although I usually ask for Hebrew names for aliyot, I knew hers, and because I didn’t need to ask she would smile and say todah and my Hebrew name.

Shirah Malkah bat ben Tzion v’Mottel, thank you for the honor of having you as our community’s leader and my teacher. When we greet a newcomer and pull up an extra chair, we will see your smile. You have transformed the lives of countless people. Your memory will be a blessing.

(Photo by Dave Guralnick, Detroit News)