D Bader, is a terrible day for me. This has been the case all these years.
On this day, the former teacher and rabbi, Rabbi Eli (Elnatan) Horowitz, and his wife Dina were murdered.
A 16-year-old young terrorist entered their home in Kiryat Arba in the middle of the Shabbat meal, and they ascended in the heavenly storm.
Losing them is very difficult for me. Rabbi Eli and Dina Horowitz.
I only studied with him for one year at the Shavei Hebron yeshiva, in the heart of the Jewish city of Hebron. But this year a very long relationship was formed. To me he was utterly perfect.
Born in the village he showed, but moved with his parents to America at a young age. His father, Rabbi Moshe, was a rabbi and teacher. As a teenager, he rebelled on the way home and came to Kibbutz Hulata, where his aunt lived.
So, in the late 1960s, he was one of the first to become acquainted with the teachings of the East, and swallowed them up. He read every philosophical book that came his way out of a tremendous thirst for truth and perfection.
He enlisted in the paratroopers, and after the liberation wanted to travel to India. There he hoped to find what his soul longed for.
Before he left, someone suggested that he meet with a rabbi in Jerusalem who might be interested in him. He gave a "last chance" to this matter and met with Rabbi Zvi Yehuda HaCohen Kook. After meeting with him he decided not to travel to India.
He started studying with him and lived in his house, with long curls on his head.
One day Rabbi Zvi Yehuda fell ill and was taken to the hospital.
Suddenly he felt his lack of great power.
Suddenly he felt how important this old Jew was to him, and it shook his capillaries.
His ties with the rabbi became stronger and he began to return to a life of Torah and mitzvos.
Rabbi Eli studied for years at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva and was one of the most profound people who grew up in this beit midrash.
He started teaching small children in a Torah kindergarten and heard he came out as someone who speaks a special language to the hearts of these soft children. His stories of those years were a work of art.
Over the years, when he grew up in the Torah, he became an educator at the "Shavei Hebron" yeshiva in the city of Hebron, where all his spiritual forces went out.
In his classes he showed deep knowledge and understanding of the wisdom of Israel. They had an abysmal seriousness with laughter and humor, general knowledge that really revived it and adherence to the Torah of Israel. He had no contradictions between the years but only such a rare and complete combination between Torah and wisdom, between sand and holiness.
His love affair with his wife Dina is a special story. He knew her when he was still a soldier. She was warned not to approach this guy, but she was drawn to this special and sensitive character.
Their love blossomed from the moment they met until they were shot together in the same apartment, in building 35 in Kiryat Arba.
4 children raised with great effort on the part of Dina, who had many difficulties in bringing children into the world.
Their home was open to every student, to every one who sought a way, to every man.
Coincidentally, on that terrible Saturday, they were alone in their house. An Arab, wild and bloodthirsty boy entered Kiryat Arba and murdered them during the Shabbat meal.
Their death was a severe loss to all their acquaintances.
I went out to accompany them at 2 in the afternoon and returned 12 hours later, after we had brought them, thousands of male and female students, to rest forever on Mount of Beatitudes.
Their path accompanies me and many more of their students.
Elijah Amitai
Comments