Hawai'i lost an exceptional teacher last week with the death of Rabbi Morris Goldfarb. We can still learn much from his example.

Morris Goldfarb was the rabbi at Cornell University for over 30 years. Though he retired to Hawai'i more than 12 years ago, he vigorously continued to teach hundreds upon hundreds of people without any monetary compensation. Still at the top of his game, he died soon after a community celebration of his 90th birthday.

Rabbi Goldfarb's commitment to education basically was a commitment to active verbs, to movement forward, to the future. At different times and places throughout each week, he quietly and brilliantly conducted informal and formal classes. His students gathered in groups of all sizes — and he delighted in the group process -— but he also consistently knew how to teach important lessons one-on-one.

How did Rabbi Goldfarb attract and hold so many of us, no matter what the topic?

His basic educational technique was direct, yet profound. He engaged personally and carefully with texts and with any and all questions that anyone might ask. He was deeply knowledgeable, but always enthusiastic about learning more along with his students, no matter what their level of sophistication. And he believed that he could learn most by asking questions and by actually hearing the answers anyone suggested — and hearing each individual's music conveyed through those answers.

One of Rabbi Goldfarb's favorite sayings came from one of his teachers, Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, a major innovator and historical figure in Jewish life: "The past has a vote, but not a veto." Additionally, Rabbi Goldfarb delighted in seeing the past in the present tense — and this was a key element of his success in educating people literally of all ages.

Another of Rabbi Goldfarb's core beliefs was recognizing the importance of awe in our daily lives. He taught and modeled the need to allow ourselves to notice and to appreciate the wonder of the world. Rabbi Goldfarb found it easy to be radically amazed in Hawai'i, to celebrate even those things that we can apprehend but not comprehend.

In this as in other ways, he followed another of his own great teachers, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the great civil rights leader who emphasized our responsibility to behold the wonders of our world with "the eye of the heart." But Heschel also taught the basic obligation to heed even "the silent sigh" of all other human beings.

Rabbi Goldfarb enacted the role of responsiveness in life. He delighted to see his pupils being inspired enough by learning to engage more with others and the world. And he taught with humility. For him, it sufficed that others caught his spark and went on to learn more.

After living through most of the often tragic 20th century, Rabbi Goldfarb fully grasped the somber facts of his times. But through his constant teaching, he summoned the past and found liberation from it. Even after 90 years, his orientation remained emphatically forward-looking.

In the Jewish tradition, it is customary to hope that someone who dies will be "remembered as a blessing." There surely are countless blessings in the ways that Rabbi Goldfarb is remembered by so many different kinds of people.