Every year, come Simchat Torah, we read, “Never again did there arise in Israel another like Moses” (Deuteronomy 34:10). When word came that Eugene Borowitz had died, however, I suspected the Torah was wrong. If ever there were another Moshe Rabbeinu, Gene was it: eved Adonai, a servant of God, to the end, a prophet in his zeal for what is right and his belief that Israel must champion it. And he brought us his own Torah, instructing the generations after him.
I speak, as best I can, for my entire generation whose formation Gene oversaw so formidably. What a commanding presence he was in his early years at Hebrew Union College. Every year, he and Estelle invited the first-year class to a memorable dinner at his Reid Avenue home in Port Washington, replete with wine and food and three little daughters sneaking down the staircase to observe the...
