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Matthew Trehub
Died November 11/12, 2022 Buried November 20, 2022
Mattitiyahu ben Zuzzi v’Froddle Mayasha
There is a saying in Jewish tradition, “Hakol talui b’mazel, afilu sefer Torah b’heichal.” Everything depends on mazel, on luck, even a Torah scroll in the holy Temple.” Most synagogues are blessed to house many scrolls in their arks. Invariably, one is in a position where it is easily accessible. By default, that becomes the scroll that is constantly taken out to be kissed and paraded into the congregation and read from. All the while another scroll or scrolls, equally sacred, may languish in the Ark untouched. At the time these scrolls were written, there was no way to predict which would be the lucky one that would make its way out of the ark often, and which the unlucky one that wouldn’t. It is the same with human beings. When life begins, we cannot know whether a person will live a long life or a short one. We are not given to know which people will have the good fortune to bring to fruition the potential that lies within them, and which people will encounter such challenges that cause them to leave unfulfilled the promise with which they began. Despite what we hope and dream the natural course should be, we cannot ever know or control the circumstances and events that can arise in a lifetime. A great deal depends on mazel. Matthew didn’t have much mazel in the past few years. A difficult divorce, the devastation of Covid, his longtime struggle with loneliness and depression profoundly interfered with Matthew being able to shine his light into the world, find enduring love, and fulfill his dreams. Like our Patriarch Jacob, he struggled desperately with himself to find wholeness and peace. That struggle disillusioned and scarred Matthew so completely that tragically, he couldn’t find his way back to seeing all that was good and pure and worthy within him. We mourn with you Fredda, Steve and Pam, and your whole family for your loss. As Matthew said in his letters to you, he deeply loved you. Whatever may have stood in between you in the past, he left this world loving you without reservation, and hoping you’d both someday understand his need to be free from pain.
Fifty-three years ago, Matthew was born in Boston. Steve and Fredda, you discovered how smart Matthew was at a most early age- six months old. It wasn’t just that you were proud parents, his intelligence was borne out in a Harvard Study by Dr Jerome Kagan that he participated in. In fact, a researcher named Davida wrote her doctorate about how smart and aware he was.
Knowing just how much was in that brain of his, Fredda and Steve, you took it upon yourselves to be intentional about growing Matthew’s mind. You’d watch as he sat in his chair fascinated by Sesame Street and the Electric Company, which were brand new educational TV shows at the time. You took him on outings to museums and away in nature.
One camping trip you took with Matthew ended before it started because of rain. You drove to Hartford to stay at Steve’s parents’ house for the night instead of getting wet in your tent. And when Matthew began crying to get out of his crib in the morning, you decided to just let him cry a bit longer. Undeterred, Matthew tried to escape his crib but his arm got stuck between the rails and broke. The doctor in Boston who had to reset his arm was surprised when Matthew laughed instead of cried when he sawed off his cast.
When Matthew was 3 ½ years old, you moved to Cape Cod to join the family business. This meant Matthew got to grow up with cousins, aunts, and uncles around. He celebrated his Bar Mitzvah in Cape Cod, too. The public school had to start was so a gifted and talented program for him. But you found that he needed even more of a challenge. First, he attended a private school, then a boarding school in Connecticut. When you moved to Brookline, he attended and graduated from the public high school and then went off to earn his degree at UC- Santa Barbara. He found his brothers and wonderful friends after joining his fraternity. And many of those brothers remain his friends to this day.
What people say about Matthew is that he was a vibrant and unique soul who made connections wherever he went. He had his 8 days a week friends with whom he worked, his turntable friends, his Boston sports friends, his fantasy sports friends. He was dynamic and fun and wore his heart on his sleeve. There was a lot to love about Matthew. He led with his heart and was generous with his time and treasure- especially when it came to protecting animals and nature, though he was equally passionate about equality and human rights for all.
He also knew how to work hard, growing an extremely successful business- 8 days a week, the staffing company for major events like the US Open. It was also a huge responsibility and very stressful. So he also worked hard at quieting his mind and making sure to tend to the spiritual side of life and keeping his body fit.
Matthew was a true Bostonian-rooting for the Patriots, the Red Sox, the Celtics, and the Bruins. He knew every player on every team. He even had the opportunity to attend several Superbowl games. He was also a lifelong dead-head. He LOVED the Grateful Dead, as well as Warren Haynes, and the Alman Brothers. He not only travelled all over to hundreds of concerts, but he also sat in the front row. Some of the happiest of those were ones he went to with you, Steve. He truly felt lucky to make sweet memories with you at concerts and fishing trips.
Even more than prayerbook poetry can express, the raw emotion of the High Holy day season is better conveyed by the unrefined cries of the ram’s horn. The wordless wailing of the Shofar is understood to be a “higher” or deeper expression of Israel’s crying out than words can voice. Moreover, the mystics attributed great significance to the order of the Shofar blasts. They noticed that each group of sounds begins with a tekiah, a whole note, then proceeds to combinations of shevarim and teruah, broken and fragmented notes, and then ends with tekiah, a whole note. So that on Rosh Hashanah, a time when we desire to return and repair the ways we have erred, that the shofar proclaims for each one of us, “I started off whole, I became broken, even splintered into fragments, but I shall become whole again.”
Those sounds map the journey of every human life. We begin whole, and our journeys in life take us places we never expect to go, and we get fragmented and splintered, and sometimes broken. I pray that though Matthew’s journey in life is over, that in death he has finally found what I imagine the Shofar might be teaching. That what was broken is not irreparable. That we can all return to wholeness again. Tehi nishmato tzrura b’zror haChayim, may Matthew’s soul be sheltered forever by the Source of all Life, v’yanuach b’shalom al mishkavo, and may he at last rest in peace. Amen.
