When we studied together in Chevruta, Eli occasionally told me his resume. We had things in common, we both left the family in America at a young age and after incarnations we came to a meeting with a lot of other luggage in our luggage. Eli told me that he studied theater and wanted to develop as an actor. We laughed at the fact that he is really an actor, though not in front of an audience in the theater, but as a teacher in Hyder he had an audience and he really illustrated the Torah to them.
I once sat in Rabbi Eli's class in a licensed Talmud Torah and watched him teach first graders. The children, some of whom called him 'Father', sat in captivity, I had never heard the binding of Isaac as in the way Rabbi Eli taught, things were so clear and distinct in such a way that it was revived.
On one of our visits to them in Kiryat Arba, we reached them on Passover and saw on the table a flowerpot with a broken and dry branch. I asked Eli, "What is it?" , To the source, to the root, but if it detaches from the root then it dries.
It is to show in a simple basic imagination that the evil son from the Passover Haggadah, since he excluded himself from the rule of Kfar mainly.
During Eli and Dina's residence in Mevaseret I came to them with my wife, then my fiancée. While Dina was caring for the children, Batsheva and Zvi, Rabbi Eli explained to me the entire Book of Judges for about an hour. In meeting with him also what I thought I knew, he made it so clear to me.
There were times when Rabbi Eli was, as some sort of refuge from the complications of life, complications of deep spiritual issues, descending to the ground of reality and turning to gather and engage in carpentry work that he loved. When he had finished building the furniture he had built with great and precise professionalism he would have reached his mental maturity clearly where he is going next.
Humility belonged to both of them, but I also want to tell something about Dina. On Sukkot, a few months before the murder, during a period of terrorist attacks, we met in Kiryat Moshe in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Eli urged me several times to restore the relationship with my father, he told about the good process he went through with his parents, his return to call them.
Not everyone deserves to have a friend who fully understands him, Eli was the only person, other than my wife, who understood me in all my weaknesses up to spiritual aspirations. He was constantly examining himself according to his spiritual aspirations. I'm missing him and the fact that I can not talk to him, it's a big pain.
Rabbi David Ben Meir
