David Wolicki (z"l)

Following are words written by Benjie Wolicki, David's brother.

David was an artist. Anyone who knew him can attest to that. In everything he did, he was an artist. I mean that he was a perfectionist who put all of himself into everything he did. Any time he did anything, you knew it would get done to the best of his ability.

He wasn’t always satisfied, but it was usually far beyond the imagination of the rest of us, never mind the ability. He worked in many media. I’m not just referring to woodwork, painting, and glass. I’m referring to everything he did. I’m referring to his gardening; he took so much pride in successfully planting things and getting fruit from them. I’m referring to his singing in the shul choir in Montreal (when he was in his teens and the average age of the other choir members was over 50).

He also created his own harmonies to Zemirot Shabbat. I’m referring to his acting. I’m referring to his work expanding his house. I’m referring to the cupboard he made for his tools. His workmanship was (I should say is, because his workmanship lives on) beyond compare.

He made a “mishpachat volitzki” sign for our house in Ma’alot that is an absolute work of art; I see it every time I go into my house. He did it as a first job experimenting with a new tool that he bought. Everyone who sees it, asks me where I got it because they would like to order one.

Sadly, it will now remain on-of-a-kind. The ketuba that is hanging on my bedroom wall is the first one he ever made. He has since made many more, so he remains a part of many people’s lives. Amazingly, most of these things he did so well, he did without any formal training.

He just read voraciously, and was instinctively able to convert his book knowledge and apply it practically. He was a firm believer in that old saw about a book only really being yours if you’ve read it. How many of us have libraries of books that we’ve never read. When David bought a book it was with the full intention of reading it cover-to-cover (an artist even when it came to reading).

I didn’t always appreciate David’s enthusiasm and artistry about everything he did. When I was younger, I saw it as competition or one-upmanship, I didn’t realize that this was just David’s way. When I got a tropical fish aquarium (a small 5 gallon tank with swordtails and mollies), David got interested and went out and bought a 40-gallon tank with state of the art equipment and beautiful fish (like gouramis and cichlids).

We both collected stamps, but I was very jealous of his humongous two-volume stamp album that I was sure had a place for every stamp in the world. I didn’t realize that this was just the way David was. When he did something he did it all the way, with no compromising.

In recent years, I’ve found myself calling David for advice because he is such a wealth of information on just about any subject. We’ve all heard of know-it-alls (usually meant sarcastically as someone who thinks they know everything).

David actually was a know-it-all; he had sound, practical, useful information on just about any subject. I would call with a few short questions about gardening or hilchot trumot uma’asrot (David was probably one of the top unacknowledged experts on the practical application of mitzvoth hatluyot ba’aretz) or carpentry, and I would usually find myself listening to all sorts of information on various other subjects for about three quarters of an hour. This was simply because he had so much to share on so many subjects. Once again, he gave it his all. I only wish I had listened more and called him more often, because now I can’t do that anymore.

Among my brothers, I had the unique opportunity to relate to David as a colleague as well. I had the opportunity to hear him give a lecture at a professional convention. Once again he performed with artistry. I can’t really do justice to the experience by describing it. All I can say is, sitting anonymously in the crowd and hearing people praise him made me proud to be his brother. I was trained as a technical writer; he wasn’t, it just sort of fell into his lap, yet he surpassed me in many ways. He was admired and respected by his colleagues and co-workers and will be sorely missed by them all.

David leaves us with many physical reminders; just look around you at his works of art here in the shul. I just hope that the physical reminders can act as spiritual reminders and help me remember to give as much of myself to everything I do, in the same way that he did.