Below, are some dedications to Rosemarie that have been submitted. |
| My cousin, Rabbi Sara Paasche-Orlow could not attend Mom's memorial due to the advanced state of her pregnancy. She requested that this beautiful, and loving letter be read at the service. Thank you Sara! |
| Rosemarie Seligmann (written with love by
Rabbi Sara Paasche-Orlow) May 26, 2001 Who could have imagined that Rosemarie/Rosie/Mom/Grandma, would leave us, so suddenly. As a family and as a community, we come together (some of us in spirit, from a distance), to carry on her memory into our lives and into the next generations. We also come together to find the strength to begin to let go of things that are difficult in relationships and in the past. To forgive, to heal, and to give each other support to continue building lives that are rooted in the values and community that were so essential to Rosie - she built community. Tomorrow evening the Jewish holiday of Shavuot begins, a celebration of the first harvest of the year and the receiving of the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, at Sinai. On Shavuot, religious Jews around the country, around the world, read the Book of Ruth. Ruth is renowned for her choice to follow the Jewish people, her loyalty to family, her resourcefulness and her kindness. Rosemarie D'Amico Seligmann was born in Rochester [N.Y.] in 1924. She graduated from the University of Rochester. At the University she met Robert Seligmann. In 1944 she and Bob married when he was home on a furlough from the military. A few years later, she fulfilled her desire to convert from Catholicism to Judaism. Judaism is Bob's cultural background but her conversion was certainly not demanded of her. She chose, like Moabite Ruth, to join the Jewish people. Rosie never spoke in detail about this choice, but she communicated a sense of clarity and strength in her chosen life as a Jew. It is not like there were a lot of Jews in Sherman at the time, the opposite, nor was it a happy time in history for the Jewish people. We were stumbling out of the Second World War and the destruction Germany and the Nazis had wreaked on our people. In universal terms, it was truly a gift that a young woman who was creating a family with a Jewish man, saw the power of Judaism and chose to strengthen this still bleeding people. It was a powerful statement in 1950 to chose to convert to Judaism in Sherman, Connecticut. Rosie had a strong sense of justice, and perhaps that influenced her decision. It was not easy to pursue Jewish life in Sherman, and there was no obvious Temple or Jewish community ready to embrace her choice and help educate her children in Jewish tradition. She persisted, and she carved out her own path. She found local community, and participated in many ways. Her family, her career in teaching, and her love of music were pillars in he life. Rosie's loyalty to family was apparent at the twice yearly family parties, in which there was always a sense of closeness. We were simply family coming together. When I chose to become more religious, and eventually to pursue the rabbinate, I felt Rosie's presence in my life. The Seligmann, Levines, and Paasches often thought I was crazy. I was returning to the seemingly unenlightened life path of their parents' generation; choosing the complexity of peoplehood, history, Rabbinic thought and theology over the clarity of humanistic intellectual American culture. But Rosie got it. She understood the call of values and bonds rooted in religious history and identity. She let me know that I was on a good path, and she was present in small and important ways. There is a Jewish value that has been closely linked with the Moabite Ruth and I believe was also embodied in Rosie. This is the value of hesed, of loving-kindness. In one commentary on Talmud, Rashi, a 12th century European rabbi, explains that the quality of hesed, of loving-kindness, involves not just writing a check, as one might do when giving charity, but putting yourself into the mind and situation of the person in need. Rosie kept many people in her thoughts, her clipping and sending of articles to so many people, on so many different tracks of interest, let us know that she was keeping us in mind. In her work with generations of children in the schools, she recognized the unique capabilities of each child and nurtured them. When the electricity would go off in the Sherman house, leaving the family in the dark, Rosie would light the candles and play the piano, warding off darkness, warding off the fears she perceived in her children. There were clearly times of stress, financial strain, illness and sadness and thank goodness this family has come through and is here together, able to count the blessings. In the Book of Exodus, Yitro, Moses' father-in-law, advises Moses, "Listen now to my voice, I will give you counsel, and God shall be with you; Represent the people before God, that you may bring their causes to God; And you shall teach them ordinances and laws, and shall show them the way where they must walk, and the work that they must do." In the Talmud, these words are further interpreted to mean: teaching the practice of loving deeds, to visit and care for the sick, and acts that go beyond the strict requirements of the law. Rosemarie Seligmann's memory and her teachings will continue in our lives and in the lives of our children. Dor l'dor, from generation to generation. |
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