My Adopted Father, Rabbi J.J. Hecht

In honor of the Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Yaakov Yehuda “J.J.” Hecht, we present the following tribute to his life and legacy, written by Hana Levi Julian:

Entering Rabbi JJ Hecht’s office for the first time, in 1986, I had no idea who he was. The pace there amazed me. People did not walk– they zipped around. Frantically. I soon learned why.

“JJ,” as I came to know him, ran that office with a charming sense of humor, warmth that could protect you from anything, and a steel eye. No one would dare fall short of his expectations.

Chatting cozily at the corner of the longest, most elegant inlaid polished wood banquet table I had ever seen, Rabbi Hecht had my life story out of me in ten seconds flat. I arrived with my personal issues, and within the hour he assigned my case to one of his sons. Within the year the issue was taken care of.

Shortly thereafter Rabbi Hecht had me working for him. I was living in New Haven, and Rabbi Hecht thought that it was not really a place for singles. In the first week of August 1987, he informed me, “Next month you are moving to Crown Heights. You have a nice two bedroom apartment on Union Street.” I was horrified. The last thing I wanted was a basement and told him so, bluntly. I needed sunlight and nice wooden floors. No way.

He laughed and tossed me the keys and told me to go take a look. It was perfect – ground floor, windows looking out on to the street, secured and freshly painted. Wooden floors polished and the whole enchilada.

It was a new life for me and I relished every moment of it.

But in truth it wasn’t all roses. He once admonished me for not writing something the way he wanted it. I left his room nearly jumping out of my skin. Rebetzin Chava Hecht was standing nearby and had clearly heard the entire tirade. She smiled at me and patted me on the shoulder. “It’s okay,” she said. “He only rebukes, those he cares about, like that.”

“Heaven help his enemies,” I muttered. It took me the whole day to recover from that tirade. His children who worked in the office simply chuckled. All of them were used to it. One of them got me a piece of cheesecake to soothe me.

I used to stalk into his office, screaming my head off at the injustices and the hypocrisy or “craziness” I would find in my new neighborhood. It seemed to me that if someone was an observant Jew, he or she should have a refined character, right?

He was so patient. He would lean back in his upholstered executive chair, and smile. “Listen,” he said. “There’s Torah, and then there are human beings. If G-d had intended human beings to be perfect, He would not have bothered to give us a Torah. Just because someone is an observant Jew does not make him necessarily always a mentsch. That is sad but true. And you have to watch out. Someone with a beard is not always someone who is shomer Torah the way he should be either. So watch. And be careful.”

Practical advice from my adopted father.

On Labor Day weekends, the West Indian Day Parade would march down Eastern Parkway and most of the neighborhood would either hunker down or pack out for the day. Rabbi Hecht stayed in his office doing phone work and paper work. I always came in because I relished the excuse to walk down the street and see all the colorful costumes and to hear the music. I would beg him to send me on errands so I could be outside. He just laughed, and made up reasons to send me out – but always warned me where not to go, and why, generally with a twinkle in his eye.

When it came time to get serious about marriage, he sent me to Shimshon Stock. “He will set you straight,” he said with one of the most evil grins I have ever seen on a man. It is one of my smiles to this day. Rabbi Hecht and Shimshon were such good friends, and they were so right for each other in what the two of them did for kids like me.

Eventually, though, the man I married was suggested to me by someone else entirely. Rabbi Hecht tracked the references like he was in the Secret Service. He was as bad, or worse, than my own father would have been. I had never seen such a thing, and I had been in his office watching him make political phone calls for years already. He called friends, and teachers, and employers … rabbis … the person who wanted to set us up … people who knew that person … unbelievable. Finally he gave permission for one date. And said to report straight back to him. Fine.

After the first date, he interrogated me like I was on trial. Permission for a second date granted. And “come right back here.”

I didn’t dare tell him that I persuaded my date to take me to the red-light district in Manhattan so I could see first-hand the runaway kids that he and some other outreach workers were trying to lure back into the fold. Especially when part of that was located in what was known back then as the “Meat Market.”

He agreed to another date, but after that one, he said, “tell the mister that I want to see him.” And no more dates until he did.

Uh oh. But that is the way it went, and he interrogated the man who eventually became my husband, confronting him about his perceptions and his expectations, and making him realize that just as I could not change him, he could not change me either. It would have to be acceptance and compromise on both sides in order to work.

Why? Because the man who became my husband was not from a Chassidic background and somehow believed that I would simply drop my customs and Chassidic teachings to take on his way of life. This was not something I would ever do, and Rabbi Hecht made that clear to him. So he had to choose the things he was willing to compromise on – and so did I.

It was Rabbi Hecht who sat with the two of us and worked out those compromises, and fine-tuned where each of us would make the changes that allowed us to forge a marriage.

Neither of us realized the extent of Rabbi Hecht’s devotion for us until the wedding, which was held at Hadar HaTorah, Rabbi Hecht’s school. At our wedding, both Rabbi and Rebetzin Hecht looked a little queasy, but I couldn’t figure out why, and I myself was anxious. I was having second thoughts – it was my second marriage and I was panicking – and I told Rabbi Hecht maybe I should rethink it. He gave me one of his “looks” and ordered me to “walk straight to the bride’s room and not to deviate one inch. Not one.” My sister and a friend were with me and walked me there, both laughing. No one ever orders me around; of course, it was a common sight in the NCFJE offices but that is one of the very few places in the world where I have taken orders.

Rabbi Hecht officiated at the wedding. We also asked him to speak. At first he tried to decline but seeing my disappointment he agreed for “just a few words” and then said he would have to leave early for an “unavoidable appointment.” Okay. I could understand that.

He smiled, and then told me to always remember, “Your husband is the head of the household and it is important to respect him.”

And then he grinned at my husband, and added with a devilish twinkle in his eyes, “But you must always remember, that it is your wife who is the neck.” Then he gave us both a blessing, and he and Rebbetzin left.

It was not until they were nearly out the door that I finally convinced Rabbi Hecht to tell me what was going on: the husband of Elaine, NCFJE’s receptionist for decades, had just passed away a few hours earlier. He was so close to them both; so was Rebbetzin Hecht; but neither let on, throughout the entire evening!

He rejoiced when we discovered I was pregnant with my first immediately, and said it was a very good sign. And although in the following months there were plenty of times when we both would have walked out on each other –especially me – he never let it happen. We had agreed long before that we would go to Rabbi Hecht to “negotiate” if we had to work out problems.

“It takes a lifetime to build a home,” he said. “It takes only a few minutes to break it. You’ve got plenty of time. Build it.”