Rabbi Michel Spiro brought generations of baby boys from Montreal to the Gaspé into the Jewish covenant by performing their brit milahs. He died after a brief illness on Jan. 5.

He was in his early 80s at the time of his death but remained active until he fell ill only several weeks ago, said Rabbi Yonah Rosner of the Congregation Shomrim Laboker, where Rabbi Spiro served as resident teacher and chazzan sheini.

At funeral services at the synagogue, Rabbi Rosner remembered him as a “friend, mentor, guiding light and overseer,” a scholar, humanitarian, and man of selfless, unimpeachable character and integrity.

Many people attended the service despite a fierce snowstorm swirling outside.

“I did not know a man who had greater access to the Jewish community,” Rabbi Rosner told The CJN before the service. “He was not just a mohel ‘doing the job.’ He did the majority of [brit milahs]. People knew who to call, and he would be there.”

In his eulogy, Rabbi Rosner said Rabbi Spiro “made it his business to attend to anyone who needed his services, no matter how difficult the challenge.”

This, he said, ranged from picking up elderly congregants so they could daven and study Talmud in shul early in the morning, to ministering to the bereaved with empathy and compassion.

Over the years, he performed countless brit milahs in the brit room in the basement of the Jewish General Hospital, as well as for immigrant adult Jewish men who had never undergone the ritual

With the late Rabbi Chaim Denberg, the former spiritual leader of Shomrim Laboker,  Rabbi Spiro welcomed Ethiopian Jewish immigrants into the shul and into the Jewish community with a welcoming embrace, Rabbi Rosner said.

“One elderly member of the Ethiopian community – tears were rolling down his face as he reminisced yesterday how Rabbi Spiro informed him, when he and his family first arrived here to Montreal, that at the Shomrim Laboker you know you have a home.”

Another incident that held firm in Rabbi Rosner’s memory was how years ago, Rabbi Spiro travelled to the Gaspé by car – about a 10-hour drive – to perform a brit milah, even though he had to get to Ottawa as quickly as possible afterward to perform ritual-slaughtering services, so the Montreal Jewish community would have kosher meat.

There are countless others with similar stories to tell, Rabbi Rosner said.

Rabbi Rosner told The CJN that with Rabbi Spiro’s death, most mohels in the city now have sephardi backgrounds.

Rabbi Spiro hailed from Chatham, N.B. His late father, Lipa, was a rabbi, and he and his late wife, Roza, came to Montreal, where Rabbi Lipa Spiro was spiritual leader of the now-defunct Congregation Shomrei Amunah. Rabbi Spiro’s brother, Rabbi Solomon Spiro, was founding rabbi at the Young Israel of Chomedey synagogue.

Until just a few weeks ago, Rabbi Rosner said, Rabbi Spiro was “fully active.”

People seemed to be in a state of disbelief in light of his sudden passing, Rabbi Rosner said in his eulogy.

“It leaves us dazed and in shock,” he said. “I see many of our [congregants] walking around like they just lost a father.”

He told The CJN: “He was an amazing human being.”

Rabbi Spiro was survived by his wife Martha, his children Chomie, Yechezkel, and Shayna, and his brother Solomon, as well as many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.