My acquaintance with Rabbi Eli and Dina began on the day I got married.
We got married on Tu Tamuz 5733. On that day, Rabbi Eli and Dina came to Kibbutz Lavi to study with Rabbi Aviner ahead of their wedding.
Towards noon, Rabbi Aviner told them he had to finish, because he had to go to be a 'witness' at our wedding. Eli and Dina suggested that they also come to the wedding, and so they would see a Jewish wedding.
After the canopy, a very nice, tall girl with long hair approached me and said "hello, my name is Dina and I will get married in three weeks" and she danced with me all evening and we became friends.
We met several more times and then on Monday they got married and we were at their wedding at the Merkaz Harav yeshiva.
We had a lot of shared experiences, we raised the children born around the same time together. We ate Shabbat meals together, and we would go for a walk together, they with their children and we with our children. Then Rabbi Eli and my husband worked together in Shavei Hebron, and I worked with Dina in the studio, so the relationship continued.
Rabbi Eli was a real actor, when he was telling a story at the Shabbat table, we were all fascinated, both the children and the adults. I actually remember how he told of a son who chased after Jacob and his family and searched for his prey.
Rabbi Eli told it so funny, literally illustrating how foreign work makes white ridiculous and how much idolatry was in every corner of the house from which Rachel and Leah came out.
How great it was for them that they clung to the goodness and faith of Jacob.
Ora Ben Yitzhak
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