Memorial for Steven Sotloff: ‘Is there a sorrow greater than this?’

The anguished father of slain journalist Steven Sotloff told hundreds gathered Friday afternoon at a memorial in suburban Miami that he is struggling to find a larger purpose in the loss of his son.

“I want to speak from my heart but my heart is broken,” Arthur Sotloff said during the service at Temple Beth Am.

With his voice cracking, he said: “Steven was my best friend. We went everywhere together ... I have lost my son and best friend, but I know that his passing will change the world. He is in God’s hands now. He’s not suffering.”

A video recording of Steven Sotloff’s beheading by militants with the Islamic State was publicly released Tuesday. The 31-year-old freelance journalist disappeared in August 2013 while in Syria reporting on the country’s civil war.

“Is there a sorrow greater than this? Where’s our consolation?” asked Rabbi Terry Bookman, as he opened Friday’s memorial service.

“Can there be a lament greater than for a young life lost?” Bookman said. He asked mourners gathered in the sanctuary to join with the family. “Help us to support them as they ask the inevitable questions.”

They grieve, Bookman said, for “joys unrealized, tasks undone … growth arrested, love blighted, challenges still unmet.”

Relatives, friends, politicians and other mourners streamed into the temple to reflect on a soul with a giant smile, an idealistic and compassionate heart, an inquisitive nature, and a slightly mischievous twinkle in his eye.

They struggled to put words to their devastation, heartbreak, outrage and grief. They declared him honorable, brave, remarkable, brilliant, a believer in facts, the life of the party — a mensch.

Among the estimated 900 who attended the service was Rachel Leung, 30, of Coral Springs. She did not know Sotloff but felt compelled to attend.

“I just wanted to honor his bravery and courage, his strength,” she said, eyes reddened from tears. “I couldn’t think of anything more important to do today.There was nothing more important to do today.”

While in captivity Sotloff managed to smuggle two letters home to his family. A cousin read from one Sotloff penned last May. “Everyone has two lives,” he wrote. “The second one begins when you realize you only have one.”

From captivity, he offered this wisdom to loved ones:

“Do what makes you happy. Be where you are happy. … Love and respect each other. Don’t fight over nonsense … hug each other every day. Eat dinner together … live your lives to the fullest. Stay positive and patient. God rewards those who are patient.”

Seemingly sensing his fate, Sotloff sought to reassure relatives: “If we’re not together again, perhaps God will be merciful enough to reunite us in Heaven.”

Sotloff was the second American journalist killed by militants in recent weeks. A video released on Aug. 19 showed the beheading of reporter James Foley.

Among public figures who attended the 90-minute service were U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, Gov. Rick Scott and Charlie Crist, the former governor who is running against Scott.

At the family’s request, Rubio spoke. He did so, Rubio said, on behalf of those “who never knew him.”

“In the last moments of his life … he unmasked the true nature of what we are dealing with. Evil is still here,” the Republican senator said. “He unmasked it, and I hope in so doing he has woken us up as a people and a world to defeat it before it’s too late.”

About a week before the news of Sotloff’s killing was released, Sotloff’s mother, Shirley, issued a video directed at the Islamic State pleading that her son be set free.

On Friday, she lamented the untimely loss of the boy who learned his ABCs with Cookie Monster and Big Bird on “Sesame Street,” found happiness on rugby and football fields, established and co-edited a student newspaper at his New Hampshire prep school and vigorously cheered on the Miami Dolphins and the Heat.

Just like when he was a youngster trying to climb to “the tippy top” of the swing set, Sotloff, as an adult “had his eye on the top,” Shirley Sotloff said.

“I’m so proud of him for living his dream,” she said. “He will always be in my heart and in my memories … memories of our family together, memories of love.”

And to the big brother who turned her on to Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead and Dave Matthews Band, his sister, Lauren Sotloff, dedicated and played a recording of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.”

“You were my best friend and still are,” Lauren Sotloff said. “You were the one who brought music into my life.”

Alanez is a reporter with the Sun-Sentinel in South Florida.

TEAlanez@sun-sentinel.com