THE DEATH OF A TEACHER

By Roger Rosenblatt

In the metallic gold light of New York's Park Avenue Synagogue, the students approach Jonathan Levin's burnished casket, cluster for a moment, then take their seats. Over 250 come, black and Latino students from the William H. Taft High School in the South Bronx, where Jonathan taught English. The school has a history of assaults and violence; in 1994, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani sent a dozen policemen to patrol the surrounding streets.

The kids arrive in kids' outfits of baggy jeans, high-tops, sweat shirts, bright blues, yellows, purples, greens. For most of them it is their first time in a synagogue. They stare with respectful interest at the formally dark-clad mourners enacting the sad familiar rituals of funerals--the brief embraces and the exchanges of helpless looks. A few of the students tremble and sob. One, verging on hysterics, has to be led away. The first of the eulogists, a college buddy of Jonathan's, praises him as "one who knew how to love and teach kids."

These are the kids he loved and knew how to teach, and it is they--among the many hundreds of distinguished and powerful people who have come to honor the son of Time Warner's CEO, Gerald Levin--who speak for his worth. Jonathan, 31, was murdered last week in his home. For his family the grief is personal, unbearable. For his students the loss is nearly as great. That one of the two accused killers turns out to be a former student provides an especially mindless end for a man whose work concerned reason and learning. He was tortured and shot to death for $800.

Jonathan came from money and prominence, both of which he abjured. That is why his death was noticed, but not why it was notable. Like thousands of others who bring will and intelligence to difficult schools in America's cities, he gave young people his life.

This is the sort of person friends say he was: loose, tender, open, funny. His one-bedroom apartment was a hostel where anyone could go to crash--on the couch, in the tub. The dog he picked out at an animal shelter was selected "because Jonathan thought he couldn't survive the aggressiveness of the other dogs." There was no ostentation in him, as there is none in his father. Someone recalls that Jerry told his son, "I'd like to talk to you about finances." Jonathan replied, "I'd love to Dad, but I'm a little strapped today."

But the students paint their own pictures. A colleague of Jonathan's reads their responses to his death. One writes, "You were one of the few to understand us." Another: "Who will be there to tell me I can make it?" One laments that there will be no one around to argue with about the Knicks and the Yanks. Jonathan used to take the kids to ball games, and he never missed theirs. A student writes, "He has left me alone in this cold world."

What he gave them specifically was the past and the present unfrightened by each other. He taught them Macbeth and Gatsby. The problem was how to persuade kids who have been told that they live on the fringes of society that the sturmings of ancient Scottish noblemen and of rich Long Islanders in pink summer shirts had something to offer their lives. The answer (Could he make them believe it?) was that they too had the hearts of kings and the longing for a green light at the end of a dock. And culture was a two-way street: rap to Shakespeare and back. The trick was to see the world as rich, plentiful, various, and theirs.

Another colleague tells the congregation that Jonathan believed "no student should get a free ride." He could be playful with them because he took them seriously. That is what touches the depths of their sorrow now. They weep for him and for themselves. Maybe they wonder if he dreamed it all up, if they are in fact as valuable as he found them. These kids are used to disappointment and desertion.

In Jewish law no one is more important than a teacher; the only source of authority that is not divine is learning. Maimonides said that one must "rend his garments for the death of a teacher." In Deuteronomy (6: 7) children and students mean the same thing. The rabbinical literature of the Pirke Avot lists 48 ways to be an ideal teacher. One must have an understanding heart and a sense of awe at the mystery of life and of other human beings. The mere act of teaching implies that one wishes the world well.

Rabbi William Lebeau gives the final eulogy of the day. He speaks of Jonathan's "joy" in teaching and, in a tacit reference to the murder, warns against cynicism and despair. Even God despaired, he says, when he decided to drown the world. It took Noah to prove that a human being could be a worthwhile invention.

The service ends. The students mix with the others as the vast crowd flows out into the bright cool New York afternoon. It was not true that Jonathan had left them alone in the cold world. They had one another, and they had themselves. He had not taught them how to live (Who can do that?), but he had taught them to live. And this was the immutable gift of one who knew how to love and teach kids.