Page 350 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

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EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE 291
the instructions you will be given.” I was surprised, because apart from Hugh and
Judy, I knew nobody in the audience, no one in the audience knew me. Hugh
explained what the note handed to me meant. He asked if he could join me. So
I was standing there with Hugh, in front of a huge audience, and together we
opened the doors of the Ark before the Blessing of the Cohanim (the priests), then
closed it together as the public blessing was over. Less than a year later, when we
were still in Canada, Hugh passed away of a heart failure. It happened one week
before the end of the summer semester at McMaster University, where I delivered

a statistics course at the time, and two weeks before my flight back to Israel for an
interim visit.
I have felt since that the shared public service Hugh and I were coincidentally
required to deliver at that awesome Rosh Hashanah, in September 2001, at that
synagogue in front of a large audience of prayers, was a symbolic prelude for his
later untimely departure.
And then my mother departed, at ninety-four, a week before the conclusion of
the winter semester at Ben-Gurion University, on January 7, 2005.
Let this book be dedicated to them and to my father (deceased in September
1967), who have nourished my soul with so much wisdom, care, and love while
it was still possible.