I was privileged to study in Shiur A at Yeshivat Shavei Hebron with Rabbi Eli. Rabbi Eli was a giant of Israeli thought. There was no philosophical opinion, old or new, that he did not know. Rabbi Eli knew everything. He mastered the sciences, especially the humanities, and used them to find out the depth of the faith, like his great rabbi. Rabbi Eli taught faith and gemara and did not give up any lesson.
Rabbi Eli was a noble soul, gentle and unparalleled in humility. The nobility and especially the nobility of Rebbetzin Dina were evident from afar. When you spoke to them you felt like you were talking to a son and daughter of a king in the simplest sense of the word. They had a wonderful relationship, there were many of us who would get to be hosted at a Holy Saturday night meal at their home.
Their style of speech, calmness, serenity and gentleness however they treated each other, were among the things that were recorded in the heart for many years.
Rabbi Eli's kiddush shook my young world, in kiddush I realized for the first time what it really is to sanctify the seventh day, a kiddush where you suddenly feel how heaven and earth and all creation and all people stop all their work and something else happens in reality.
Rabbi Eli had been traveling, since Rabin came to power, to Tel Aviv for meetings with people from other worlds, he saw this as a great importance and not the abolition of Torah but its existence, even though it took him a long time. Rabbi Eli left a strong impression on the participants in these meetings, both religious and secular.
These meetings began with the leadership of March and then moved on to meetings with the people of Dor Shalom. Rabbi Eli arrived there and showed that precisely from his residence in Kiryat Arba he showed a figure of a believing and wonderful Jew that everyone wants to connect with, a Jew who does not give up his views in full, does the sanctification of Gd and shows everyone what a true Torah man is.
Rabbi Eli and Dina lived in Kiryat for four years, at one point they decided to move to a spacious house and they bought a plot of land in the most beautiful place in Givat HaZayit in Efrat and built a large and impressive house for many years, but immediately after the outbreak of the second intifada. The day they died in Kiryat Arba, which unfortunately did happen.
Israel Zeira
