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(Seventh in the Salt of the Earth series about the lives of IDF soldiers who fell in the Swords of Iron War)
“Before his battalion entered Gaza, Yedidya phoned and said that they were not going to be allowed to use mobile phones during the offensive. I wanted so much to tell him not to be the first to jump out of the armored carrier – but I couldn’t get the words out. I didn’t want him to fight less than at his best,” Rabbi Yoram Eliyahu said sadly, talking about his son Yedidya Hy”d whose first yahrzeit will be on the 19th of Cheshvan 5784.
“My wife said she had wanted to tell him she was praying for his safety, but she kept the words to herself, because she didn’t want him to know she was worried about him.”
None of them knew that when they said goodbye at the end of the conversation, it was forever.
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Yedidya Eliyahu, Hy”d, when asked how he was doing, would say “I am living the dream.” Born 26 years ago on the 3rd day of Kislev, he was one of 11 chldren in a warm, Torah-loving family. His mother stayed at home on principle to raise her children although it meant a simpler lifestyle, founding a highly regarded girls’ school once they grew up and left home. Yedidya spent his elementary school years in Morasha, a Torani Zionist school associated with Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva and went on to the yeshiva high school in Naveh.
He spent his hesder years in Tsfat where he did IDF service as a combat engineer, marrying Meitar, who said she fell in love with him at first sight, and becoming the father of two little girls. The couple moved to Ramat Gilad, an extension of Karnei Shomron, just several months before the war and planned for Yedidya to return to yeshiva study, to learn with what he called “a clear head,” now happily married and settled.
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Yedidya heard the news of the massacre on Simchat Torah, waited for a call and when it came, joined his battalion that very same night for three weeks of retraining before, as part of Division162 that fought in coordination with Givati Infantry forces, he entered Gaza with the first group of soldiers to do so. Meitar was expecting their third child.
Such a simple, heartbreaking story. Three Pumas (armored troop carriers) entered the battlefield. The hesder soldiers in Yedidya’s Puma, all good friends, were told to await orders as their Puma was needed by a commando unit. Yedidya was frustrated and told his commander that he feels that he must “avenge the blood of G-d’s servants ”נקמת דם עבדיך השפוך – and then suddenly a soldier whose Puma was about to go forward had a panic attack. The commander told Yedidya to take his place and for the next six days they attacked the enemy, fighting heroically, destroying tunnel shafts, eliminating scores of terrorists. Yedidya soon became a dominant figure, his fellow soldiers said, encouraging everyone to go on, even though he was with a new group of soldiers he had not known before. Most of them were not at all religious but he enthused them with his faith and heroic spirit. They remember him saying “There is nothing to fear, G-d is with us, think of the verse ‘I will pursue my enemies and overtake them, never turning back until they are consumed.’” and they said that he brought them light.
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On the 19th of Heshvan, the fighters were asleep in the Puma in a sheltered spot, but at 6a.m. shrapnel from an RPG penetrated the vehicle and hit three of the soldiers. The two sleeping with their bodies facing in one direction were hit in the legs, but Yedidya slept facing the other way and a sharp piece of shrapnel went straight into his heart, killing him instantly. He felt no pain and his parents were awed to see that his face was luminous and tranquil when they identified him.
At Yedidya’ funeral, the unit commander took a copy of the prayer for travellers, tefillat haderech, out of his pocket and recited it, stumbling a bit over the text and explaining that he had learned about it from Yedidya, who would recite it for all of them. Rav Yoram was honored with a blessing at the commander’s recent wedding.
Picture the parents with a hole in their hearts, imagine this young couple’s plans and dreams, and the tears fall by themselves – tears for his wife, for the orphans he left behind, for the loving family in which he was raised, for Am Yisrael.
“It’s hard without him,” says Meitar with a break in her voice, “but I am happy he felt he was where Am Yisrael needed him to be, as he wanted to be.”
But who was Yedidya? All the IDF combat uniforms are the same, but each soldier inside that uniform is an entire world in himself. We have an obligation to remember that about each fallen soldier, learn about and learn from each brave young man who will never grow old.
Yedidya was a loving, appreciative son and husband. In a short, now priceless, letter to his father on his birthday, he wrote: Dear Abba, I was with some of my friends and we said that if every generation brings something new to this world, in what way do we do anything that our parents didn’t do better? The answer was Chassidism, not just to learn and go to minyan, but to create something different in the way we serve Hashem, to sing and play music, adding life force to serving Hashem, and our generation does it through adopting elements of Chassidism – seeing G-d everywhere."
“On the Purim after he fell”, Rabbi Yoram relates, “Yedidya’s fellow soldiers came to visit the family and told of how they were in the shelter one night, talking about their lives, when Yedidya said: ‘I know that my parents really love me a lot.’ On Memorial Day, another friend came to visit and told the same story. He said that Yedidya’s words impressed them, because it meant that his parents had made sure that he knew of their love and how much that knowledge had given him strength. My message to parents, really Yedidya’s message, is to let your children know how much you love them. Make a point of telling them, of showing them. Remembering that he said that is a source of great comfort to us.”
Yedidya was a beloved counselor in Bnai Akiva during his high school years, who walked all the way to the Castel, miles from Jerusalem, on Shabbat to guide his youth group. He managed to change the lifestyles of many of them for the better. In Tsfat he was a successful counselor in the “After me – with faith!” youth movement, known there as a leader whose self-effacement earned the love of many, many teens at risk.
He had a special connection to Torah learning. He was all set to volunteer for a commando unit straight after high school, but then the Torah conquered his soul and, leaving his friends openmouthed, he decided, despite all the preparatory physical training he had done, to learn at a yeshiva first and then enlist. He stayed in yeshiva for seven years. While at Naveh, he became an avid student of Rav Kook’s teachings, but in Tsfat, he was also exposed to the Ishbitzer (Mei Hashiloach) and Rabbi Ginsberg’s philosophies. It all coalesced for him in the way he learned, the way he related to people of all kinds, from rabbis to youngsters.
And he cared about others…
“A friend told us,” said Yedidya’s father Rabbi Yoram Eliyahu, known far and wide in Jerusalem as the beloved teacher of the youngest students at Morasha (all of whom remember him with respect and affection), “that once they were all sitting in the Tsfat Yeshiva library, laughing, enjoying themselves and even making cynical remarks, when one of the boys said it was time for a Dvar Torah. I didn’t feel that the mood was amenable to serious thought, but Yedidya rose and said: ‘There were 600,000 souls in Israel at Sinai, all equal to one another, none more important than the other.’ He thus connected us all, speaking fearlessly but humbly because humility was an integral part of him. And equanimity as well. We are constantly hearing more examples of his life force affecting others. Perhaps that is what he is doing in the Heavens now. Someone who saw the movie about Yedidya came up to me and thanked me for raising a son like that. Our Sages said: The righteous are great even in death.”
As a first grader, Yedidya’s teacher was his own father. “I knew there would be no problems, he wasn’t mischievous, never looked for trouble. We cannot remember a time he lost his cool.”
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During Yedidya’s army service, his squad was surprised by an ambush and friends related that he was the only one who stayed calm until they were rescued. ‘Isn’t that why we are here,’ he asked them. At the shiva, a boy who was two years below him in school, said that he had liked to watch the older boys play, and Yedidya would protect him when others pushed him aside. That was Yedidya, the thoughtful young soldier who told another soldier’s mother that the chicken she brought them is so delicious that he wants the recipe so he can make it himself – this after quietly checking the kashrut.
At the shiva, a young man told the family that he decided to experience the atmosphere in Tsfat one Shabbat and just picked up and travelled to the yeshiva. Once there, he realized that he had no plans for food and a bed to sleep in, but suddenly a student approached him and asked if he can help. It was Yedidya who had been three years ahead of him at Morasha. “You would have thought I was his oldest friend -he hugged me, called me brother, said how glad he is to see me, do stay with us for Shabbat, arranged everything. I learned hospitality from Yedidya that Shabbat.”
In Yedidya’s name, people were asked to make a point of looking for the forgotten people. Yedid, after all, means friend.
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Yedidya’s wife, raised in Tekuma and a registered nurse, has been living with her sister since Yedidya fell and is in constant contact with his family. The new baby, who will never know his father, was named Porat Aviah because Porat was a name they had thought about together, she said, whose numerical value is the same as that of “and you shall choose life” in Hebrew, and Aviah has the numerical value of Chai – 18, life.
The Eliyahu family has taken that name as a message – live on! Choose life! Rabbi Eliyahu is one of the founders of the Heroism Tent and the Heroism Forum, established by bereaved parents to prevent the government from capitulating to pressure to sign agreements ending the war before victory is achieved, preventing their precious son, husband and father from having died in vain. Moreover, he wants to stop the use of the term “Bereaved families” and instead say “Heroes’ families”. His wife, after a period in which she found it difficult to be involved, has become an active member with him.
This has been a hard year, says the Eliyahu family, but we tried to make it meaningful and people have been very empathetic.
A story told about the late Rabbi Avraham Shapira, Chief Rabbi of Israel, and who was Rav Yoram’s mentor, is a source of comfort. It relates how years ago, this humble rabbinic luminary went to the shiva of a family who had lost their son in battle and told the parents that when he arrives in Heaven he will probably have a special place to sit as he was, after all, the Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel. Yet, he continued, there is a holier part of the heavens whose doorway he will not be allowed to enter. When bereaved parents ascend to heaven, however, that door opens for them so that they can be with their son.