Steven Carr Reuben is the former senior rabbi of Kehillat Israel in Los Angeles.
The greatest tribute we can pay to Bob and his life is for those of us who knew and loved him dearly to carry that gift of his humor and love, and share it with everyone we meet every day of our lives. When my retirement event took place at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in 2014, it was Bob who immediately volunteered to be the host and emcee for the night, and when my book, “ Becoming Jewish” was published, it was Bob Saget who wrote the foreword.Īs the tributes continue to pour in from around the world and throughout the entertainment community, it reveals the true measure of the man - he was the same loving, caring, giving, compassionate “dear friend” to literally everyone who knew him.īob once wrote, “When tragedy strikes, it’s more important than ever to look for anything that can bring humor and joy to every moment.” That is Bob’s true legacy – the gift of bringing humor and joy to every moment, every relationship, every day of his life. When he heard I helped to found, he was the first person to appear at our gala to receive the “Peace of Heart” award and support our grief work. He also hosted the annual fundraiser Cool Comedy Hot Cuisine which would bring together stand-up comedy and meals cooked by top chefs.
No matter how busy he was with his remarkable career, he was always there with his love, his humor and his giving heart for every event, celebration and important moment in my life as well. Saget wrote and directed the 1996 TV movie For Hope, which saw Dana Delaney play a woman suffering from scleroderma and was loosely based on Gay’s life. Hence the title of his book, “Dirty Daddy – The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian.”įor me personally, Bob was one of the greatest gifts of my life.
He actually loved the schizophrenic nature of his professional persona, where he was famous as the super-clean, wholesome dad Danny Tanner of “Full House,” juxtaposed with his standup routines, which are among the raunchiest in the business. Whether he was on stage or in his own living room, he couldn’t get through a sentence without turning it into something funny. He was dazzlingly quick, and his stand up was always a 100 mile-per-hour stream of consciousness. Of course, everyone knew Bob as simply one of the funniest human beings on earth. He idolized his parents and would always credit his father as the source of his own humor and comedic timing, claiming that Ben was actually the funniest person in the family, and tell anyone who would listen that he got his compassion and loving heart from his mother Dolly. Whether the joys of celebrating the bat mitzvahs of his daughters Aubrey, Lara, and Jennifer whom he adored and was always so proud of, or the death and funerals of his father Ben who died in 2006 and his mother, Dolly who died in 2014, Bob brought his special brand of love, compassion, open-hearted joy for life itself and humor into every moment.