Remembering Rabbi Leonard Kravitz z”l

It is with heavy hearts that the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion community mourns the loss of Rabbi Leonard Kravitz, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Midrash and Homiletics, who died on November 15 at the age of 96.

Kravitz specialized in Maimonidean studies. He wrote his doctorate on Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, which he published as The Hidden Doctrine of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed: Philosophical and Religious God-Language in Tension (Edwin Mellen, 1988). Kravitz went on to co-author books with Rabbi Dr. Kerry Olitzky that have been used by HUC-JIR colleagues for personal study and adult teaching, including commentaries on the biblical books of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations, as well as volumes on Pirkei Avot and Teshuvah.

Dr. Kravitz's research, writing, and teaching interests included biblical commentary, homiletics, medieval philosophy and midrash. "He was not only knowledgeable but conversant and comfortable talking all of those languages, and was very much interested in making sure that people didn't narrow their studies to one or the other," said Rabbi Nancy Wiener D.Min. '90, '94, Founding Director of the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Center for Pastoral Counseling at HUC-JIR, and the Dr. Paul and Trudy Steinberg Distinguished Professor in Human Relations. She said Kravitz was "a polymath in many ways, he ran the gamut, not only in terms of general knowledge, but in terms of his deep love and appreciation and depth of understanding of Jewish texts."

As he shared his expertise over his long career, Kravitz also gave students and colleagues the gift of his "wonderful sense of humor," Wiener said. At one point later in his career, she recalled, the professor was approached by a student who asked if he was aware that there was a rock star named Lenny Kravitz. "And he said no, and then went and checked it out, and had a picture of Lenny Kravitz hanging on the door of his office until he retired."

Kravitz received his undergraduate degree from John Carroll University and was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1954, where he then received the degrees of Master of Hebrew Letters and Doctor of Philosophy.

Rabbi Neal Gold, an educator who was ordained at HUC-JIR in 1997 and studied with Kravitz, recalled in a recent post on his blog, "I had the great pleasure of having him as my rabbinic thesis advisor all those years ago. At that time, I used to meet with him on a weekly basis for an hour of studying the Rambam in his office. It wasn't always germane to my thesis-writing, but it was like having a weekly one-on-one hevruta-study with someone who was a great scholar and a generous teacher."

"He was a wonderful rabbi, mentor, and mensch," Gold wrote. "His memory is a blessing forever."