Last week’s funeral at Beth El Congregation to mourn the loss of Rabbi Mark G. Loeb was a veritable “Who’s Who of Baltimore Jewry.”

I must admit, I didn’t see too many “black hats” in the crowd—not a shocker since Rabbi Loeb always wore his liberal views on his sleeve, thus becoming the embodiment of everything that’s wrong with left-of-center Judaism to some frum folks.

But I did see people there from across the denominational and congregational divides, demonstrating how well-respected Rabbi Loeb was among his fellow Jews (and non-Jews, since I noticed a number of Christian clergy there as well).

Among those in attendance was Rabbi Jacob A. Max, the former rabbi emeritus of Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah (MMAE) Hebrew Congregation, a shul still known fondly in some circles as Liberty Jewish Center. As you likely know, Rabbi Max, 85, was convicted last April of molesting an employee at the Sol Levinson & Bros. funeral home. In subsequent BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES articles, other women came forward with their stories of inappropriate and indecent behavior toward them allegedly exhibited by Rabbi Max over the years. (No need to go into the gory details again.)

Since then, Rabbi Max has resigned from the Baltimore Board of Rabbis, shortly before they voted to discontinue his membership, and MMAE decided to suspend his title as rabbi emeritus and remove a polished stone bearing his name and proclaiming their campus in his honor.

All in all, it’s quite a fall from grace.

But there he was, at Rabbi Loeb’s funeral, looking well and smiling broadly. It’s a smile I know well. Rabbi Max officiated at my wedding and the wedding of parents in 1961, back when Liberty Jewish Center was located on Marmon Avenue in Howard Park. He was there for all of our family life-cycle events (save for my bar mitzvah), and he was always a source of great comfort and warmth to us.

Now, of course, I view this cordial, gregarious man with admittedly mixed feelings. At Beth El, to my surprise, Rabbi Max was greeted quite warmly by others in the audience. He was sitting only a few rows ahead of me, so I watched closely. (Couldn’t help it.)

At one point during the funeral, Rabbi Max got up and walked out of the sanctuary for a few minutes. While he walked up the aisle, one man arose, offered a handshake and hugged the rabbi. Others smiled, nodded and waved at him.

Is all forgiven? Has the community moved on and granted teshuvah for this man who, according to the American legal system, did something wrongful to a woman, something I think most of us would agree is not terribly rabbinical?

I couldn’t help but notice that most of those people who were pleasant to Rabbi Max at the funeral were older. Maybe it’s a generational thing. Maybe senior citizens don’t get all the fuss about sexual molestation, or are a little more forgiving and understanding than the younger set.

Maybe we just don’t want to deal with the whole odious matter anymore, so we say, “Let’s go forward, he made a mistake.” Or maybe people wanted to just let him mourn his friend, Rabbi Loeb, without bringing anything ugly into the equation – “It’s not the proper place.”

A day after the funeral, I chatted with a friend who works at a local synagogue about this subject. My main feeling was that I felt a sense of shock and maybe a grudging admiration for Rabbi Max’s (there’s no other word for it) chutzpah about showing his face in public, no less at a mega-shul holding a major communal event.

Me, I’d be in Nome, Alaska, where no one knows me. (Seals don’t know from molestation convictions.)

My friend explained that Rabbi Max ain’t the type to run off to Nome and hide. After all, he does come from the generation that kicked Hitler’s and Mussolini’s butts.

“He’s got a point to make,” said my pal. “He wants to show his face and be out there. He feels he has nothing to hide, did nothing wrong, and wants the world to see him smiling. He’s in denial about his problem, so he goes out there and does his thing. That’s just the way guys like him are, that’s how they’re built.”

I’m not sure whether that’s true or not, but when you see such stubborn chutzpah in action, it does take your breath away. And I couldn’t help but think of those women who say their lives have been greatly marred by Rabbi Max’s alleged behavior over the past decades and the community leaders and members who turned their eyes away and made excuses for him. I wonder how these women would feel about seeing him there, smiling and laughing and schmoozing.

But then again, he has been punished, in a court of law and, worse yet, in the public eye. And my guess is that in his most private of moments, he beats himself up pretty good as well.

Rabbi Mark G. Loeb’s sudden passing on Wednesday night is a shock for all of us who knew this incredible man and respected him. Everyone knows that Rabbi Loeb was brilliant and a powerful speaker to boot. He was also capable of enormous compassion and empathy, and could be quite acerbic and straightforward at times. That’s what we all loved about him. You knew you were getting it straight from Mark.

Everyone has a favorite Rabbi Loeb story or two. Let me share two of mine.

When I first came to the Jewish Times, my old boss, Gary Rosenblatt, suggested that I make appointments with local rabbis and learn about their congregations. One of the first rabbis I touched base with was Mark Loeb. I remember meeting him at his office at Beth El. We schmoozed for a little while, and then I asked him if I could take him to lunch. He said sure.

We got into his big, shiny car – which had a car phone, the first time I’d ever seen one of those – and started driving. “Where do you want to go?” he asked me. I suggested a couple of kosher establishments, since I figured he was a rabbi and kept kashrut.

Rabbi Loeb studied me for a moment and asked if I keep kosher. “No sir,” I replied. In not terribly gentle language, he chided me for assuming that he kept kosher and insisted that we would dine that afternoon at Linwood’s, and that “it’s on me.” We proceeded to have a great meal, and all of the staff at one point or another dropped by to say hello to the rabbi.

That was my initiation.

My other story: my mother had an old friend who passed away suddenly about a dozen years ago. The woman had a fleeting, peripheral relationship with Beth El.

While sitting with my mother at Sol Levinson & Bros. shortly before the funeral service, I heard someone going, “Psssst, psssst!” Looking around, I spotted a frantic Rabbi Loeb, who was gesturing for me to come over to the doorway where he was standing. I said hello to him, shook his hand and asked how he was doing, but he simply waved off all pleasantries.

“Look,” he said, staring hard into my eyes, “did you know this woman – the deceased—at all?!” I responded that I did know her a little bit, that she was a family friend, and he explained that getting the woman’s family to give him biographical and personal information about her for the eulogy was like extracting molars. He didn’t know her at all, and they didn’t seem to either, he said, exasperated.

I offered a few pieces of general, seemingly worthless information – that she liked to shop, she loved her grandkids, she was a bit of an eccentric, she enjoyed playing the slots in Atlantic City – and then the good rabbi said, “OK, OK,” and basically told me to beat it. I couldn’t imagine what kind of eulogy he could proffer from my scant tidbits.

Of course, he gave an absolutely stunning eulogy in which you felt that he knew the deceased quite well and made you feel the loss of this unique human being. It was a mesmerizing performance, one that made my jaw drop, and you felt you were in the presence of a master rabbi, one who could always rise to the occasion and comfort those in need. That’s a gift.

Rabbi Loeb was a no-nonsense guy who didn’t suffer fools or foolish behavior and thinking well, but he always had a smile and a kind word for me (unless I was being foolish, of course). He said what he thought, in his own inimitable style, and didn’t worry about how he would be judged by others.

There aren’t many like Mark Loeb, and I know there will be many of us who will miss him a great deal. As my friend Gilbert Sandler said to me today, after learning of Rabbi Loeb’s passing, “He was a commanding presence.”

I think we can all say Amen to that.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not sure I’ll ever feel the same way about David Letterman again.

Since the late night talk show host made his dramatic confession on TV last week that he was being blackmailed for $2 million for having numerous affairs with female employees, I’ve been talking to different people about Letterman. It seems like everyone basically wants to give Dave a free pass because a) well, he’s Dave, and just about everyone likes Dave, b) we all hate extortionists, and c) we’re all pretty sick of these silly sex scandals.

Blackmail is wrong, no doubt about it. And it certainly sounds like Robert “Joe” Halderman, the Emmy Award-winning “48 Hours Mystery” producer who was arrested for the alleged extortion plot, is a real piece of work.

But that doesn’t mean Dave should completely get off the hook. After all, this is a guy who has been more than comfortable taking potshots at peccadillo-prone politicians and actors in his monologues and Top Ten lists for decades. And then he’s fooling around with his female employees? The people for whom he signs their checks? The folks who would likely give their eyeteeth to work for a major celebrity like David Letterman? (Dave reportedly even kept a secret bedroom at his studio for his trysts.)

One friend said to me over the weekend, “Can you blame him? It’s good to be king. Why not? Who cares if he was their boss? He wasn’t married at the time, and he’s David Letterman. More power to him. Anyone would do what he did. They’d be crazy not to.”

Another person said to me, “Why was it unprofessional or unethical? Lots of people sleep with their bosses. It’s nothing new, older than the hills. David Letterman is a very powerful man, a celebrity. He didn’t do anything wrong. No one has ever filed a sexual assault or harassment complaint against him. These women knew what they were doing. It was consensual. He was just being a guy.”

This was the reaction (believe it or not) from Kim Gandy, former president of the National Organization for Women: “I don’t really care who someone sleeps with, as long as it’s not coerced and as long as there’s not some explicit or implicit promise of favors or the like. It’s another adult—it’s not a minor. If that’s all it is, he’s a single guy and he had a fling.”

Meanwhile, one CBS insider praised Letterman’s attitude toward women on the set. “I’ve worked in a lot of places, and [`Late Show’] is one of the better places for a woman,” the insider told Fox News. “Dave’s not a groper.” (How noble.)

In general, the reaction from the public has been muted and uncharacteristically forgiving. The comic geniuses at “Saturday Night Live” barely touched the Letterman mess last weekend, and it appears that Dave’s advertisers and viewers are sticking by him.

I don’t want to sound like a choirboy here, but something’s not kosher. I know that employers have flings with their employees from time to time. But this certainly sounds like more than simply a little misguided moment due to an affair of the heart. It sounds like someone having a real pattern of taking advantage of a situation because of his celebrity, influence and prestige. In some circles, that’s known as an abuse of power.

Certainly, it wasn’t illegal. And Dave admitted that what he did was “creepy” and “terrible.” But still, something feels wrong here. I guess I just expected more of Dave. And maybe of the rest of us.