When Bob Newhart was my rabbi — and I was his

I’m six months shy of 80 and in two weeks I’ll head from Vermont to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to do 75 minutes of stand-up comedy. Why am I still out there? As Bob Newhart, who died this week at 94, explained, it was worth it to him to take his shoes off at airport security to be able to have the opportunity to make people laugh.

Me too.

It’s amazing to think that Bob Newhart has been my most important role model since 1960. That’s when his enduringly funny comedy album The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart made its debut. A high school junior, I memorized the routines, and when I attended Jewish youth conclaves, I nervously took the stage on talent night and performed them word-for-word. People laughed. I grew confident. And the girls — the girls — really paid attention. Comedy, I realized, was good.

It never occurred to me that I could ever become a professional comedian. I pursued a logical spiritual and vocational goal, became a rabbi, served large congregations and then, on a whim, entered Philadelphia’s “Jewish Comic of the Year Contest” in 1986, coming in third behind a chiropractor and a lawyer. It launched my surprising second career that I adore.

In nearly every interview people ask about my comedy journey, and nearly always inquire about my comedian inspirations. I look like Steve Martin, and Jackie Mason was a rabbi, but, I always explain, it was Bob Newhart whom I admired more than all the others — and not just cause we’re both named Bob.

Newhart, who started out as an accountant, was by all reports a mensch. He led an admirable personal life: a 60-year marriage as a loving husband and devoted father and grandfather. No drama. No scandals. A quiet, unassuming man despite the tempting glamour that characterized his Hollywood world.

And his comedy was unique, particularly his monologues with a telephone. Low-key yet amazingly clever. Never angry, never hurtful, never insulting (this despite his best friend being Don Rickles). Newhart’s work, including his namesake sitcoms, was just guffaw-inducing humor that is as brilliant today as it was in the 1960s. In fact, when I saw him perform years ago, he did some new material, but it was his sharing routines from his decades-old albums, which I knew by heart, that had me laughing the most.

Perhaps surprisingly, of all the many comedians I’ve watched throughout the years, it was Bob Newhart, a practicing Roman Catholic, who served as my personal model. Newhart’s stage presence was low-key, gentle, and his slight stammer made him seem even somewhat vulnerable. I suspect it was his grounding in his faith that inspired his always-respectful and yes, sweet, style of comedy.

About 10 years ago I performed at The Chautauqua Institution and learned that Newhart would be appearing the following week. I shared my admiration with my contact there, and two weeks later a signed headshot appeared in my mailbox. It’s a precious possession, exemplifying his kindness and comedic brilliance in just fou r clever words. He wrote, “To Rabbi Bob Newhart.” How’s that for economy?

“May his memory be a blessing,” we say. Whenever I hear the words, “The Grace L. Ferguson Airline and Storm Door Company” from one of Newhart’s routines, I chuckle.

And it’s at that moment that Bob Newhart’s memory is unquestionably a blessing.

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