Remembering Rabbi Stanley M. Davids

This week I said goodbye to my rabbi, my mentor, my friend. In that moment, I lost one of the great anchors of my life. Rabbi Stanley M. Davids, zichrono livracha, was a man of undying energy and purpose, who, at last, has died. And yet, in so many ways, he still lives in the minds he molded, the movements he helped shape and in the heart of me, a rabbi who was lucky enough to call him teacher, guide and friend.

Stan did not just influence rabbis, he shaped them. He showed his rabbinic mentees how to stand in the Jewish world with conviction and compassion, how to lead with courage and how to speak truth without losing heart.

The values Stan taught me were the very same ones I learned from my father. Love of Israel, commitment to justice and care for community. But Stan showed me how to live those values as a rabbi. How to mold them into a model of modern leadership. One rooted in purpose, persistence and possibility.

Stan was the father figure without the friction. No upbringing to untangle, no obligations to perform. Just unconditional love and presence.

When I was a teen and had a family spat, I walked a few miles and showed up at Stan’s door. Even though he and Resa had a big affair that night and he was halfway into his tux, he sat down with me. He listened. He calmed me. He gave me wise advice and then he quietly drove me home.

In college, fresh from a gap year in Israel and facing an anti-Israel gathering on campus. I reached out to Stan to ask, “Why do they hate us so?” He wrote me back a long letter. I do not remember what he said, but I remember that he wrote. And that forever shaped my sense of what it means to be a rabbi.

After my father died, Stan’s presence became an anchor. His insight and interest re-energized me again and again over these past five years.

When Stan moved back to Santa Monica to be near family, I would visit and sit at his feet, listening to him go on about the old days and the new. Over lunch, sometimes with his beloved Resa, sometimes just the two of us, he would milk me for my take on the Jewish world. He would prod and push, challenge and cheer, always urging me to go deeper.

He lifted me when I was weary of leadership and I always left our visits feeling more like myself.

He taught me what mattered most: to prioritize youth, to love Israel with open eyes and a loyal heart, to pursue justice with sacred stubbornness, to mold values into action and power into purpose.

Many will remember Stan’s outsized presence in shaping American Reform Judaism, especially around liberal Zionism and the State of Israel. And rightly so. He was not just an inspiration, he was one of its movers and shakers.

But I will remember the person who was both powerful and empowering:

Listening to him report from a dangerous trip to visit Soviet Jewish Refuseniks.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor of his apartment as he analyzed the latest Israeli election.

Hearing him extol Jews by choice from the pulpit or speak proudly of his trans young people, always embracing, always expanding the tent.

It is strange to mourn when one is not officially a mourner. And yet, this grief is real. And the pain, though piercing, is somehow sweet, because it was born of love.

Zichrono livracha, may his memory be a blessing. And may we carry forward the courage, the clarity and the compassion that Rabbi Stanley M. Davids so freely gave to us all.