In the basement of his house there are old film reels of the Reb, Sarah, and their family:

Here they are in the early 1950s, bouncing their first child, Shalom.

Here they are a few years later with their twin girls, Orah and Rinah.

Here they are in 1960, pushing Gilah, their youngest, in her baby carriage.

Although the footage is grainy, the expressions of delight on the Reb’s face—holding, hugging, and kissing his children—are unmistakable. He seems predestined to raise a family. He never hits his kids. He rarely raises his voice. He makes memories in small, loving bites: slow afternoon walks home from temple, nights doing homework with his daughters, long Sabbath dinners of family conversation, summer days throwing a baseball backward over his head to his son.

Once, he drives Shalom and a few of his young friends over the bridge from Philadelphia. As they approach the toll booth, he asks if the boys have their passports.

“Passports?” they say.

“You mean you don’t have your passports—and you expect to get into New Jersey?” he cries. “Quick! Hide under that blanket! Don’t breathe! Don’t make a sound!”

Later, he teases them about the whole thing. But under that blanket, in the back of a car, another family story is forged, one that father and son will laugh about for decades. This is how a legacy is built. One memory at a time.

His kids are grown now. His son is an established rabbi. His oldest daughter is a library director; his youngest, a teacher. They each have children of their own.

“We have this photograph, all of us together,” the Reb says. “Whenever I feel the spirit of death hovering, I look at that picture, the whole family smiling at the camera. And I say, ‘Al, you done okay.

“This is your immortality.’”