Baruch Dayan Emes
In the years to come, one story more than all the others will be told about my grandfather. Anytime we eat pie, we will always remember the time my grandfather, a cartographer by profession and perfectionist by personality, got out a protractor and compass to divide the pumpkin pie into 8 exactly equal pieces only to realize after it was cut that there were only 7 people at the table.

My grandfather passed away yesterday, Shabbos Mevarchim, the 28th of Sivan in the year 5762.

The last time I saw him, I was grateful to have the chance to tell him how much I loved him and that someday, G-d willing, when I have a son, he will be named for him. He smiled and said that would be nice. Gracious and gentle until the very end, it was my grandfather who comforted me, while I cried at the thought of him not being at my wedding.

Before a Jewish person passes away, it is a mitzvah (lit. commandment), to recite the Shema, the prayer central to Judaism that affirms our belief in the oneness of G-d. My grandfather was not a religious man, he was as reform as you can get, right down to the bacon and eggs my mother was raised on. In all the time I knew him, I don't believe he ever went to synagogue unless one of his grandchildren was being named or bar/bat miztvahed. And towards the end of his life, it took extraordinary effort for him to stay awake, and even more to speak.

So I had no idea, when I gathered up the courage to ask, on my last visit to him, "Grandpa, can I say the Shema with you?" what his answer was going to be.

I will remember for the rest of my life my grandfather saying, "Sure." I will always, always be so very thankful that I had the incredible privilege to be there with him when he, without hesitating, fulfilled his last duty as a Jew and said the Shema in a voice as strong and clear as I have ever heard from him.

A mitzvah is powerful thing. It is a connection to G-d, a connection to the infinite. And when you are connected to the infinite, amazing things can happen. That one mitzvah can accomplish astounding things.

A person passing away on Shabbos is indicative of a very special neshama (soul) or a very special act. I know my grandfather was a special neshama, and I would like to believe that it was his last act as a Jew, the mitzvah of saying the Shema, that was, at least partly, the reason Hashem chose to take him on Shabbos.

I was not there when my mother went to tell my grandmother the news. Later, my mother told me that after the initial shock and tears had worn off, my grandmother suddenly said, "I have to say the Shema," and said it right then and there. Then, she began to get upset saying, "He needed to say the Shema, no one was there to say the Shema with him." My mother was able to comfort her and tell her that someone was there and that he did say the Shema.

My grandfather's body was laid to rest today. His neshama is soaring higher than anyone can dream and his mitzvah, his last mitzvah, lives on, infinitely.