YeshivaThe torah world Gateway
Beit Midrash
- Sections
- The Life of Tzaddikim
- Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu
When the Rav was coming out of the judges’ chambers, he noticed a woman in her thirties, an immigrant from Morocco, sitting with a book of Psalms in her hand. Day after day, the Rav saw her sitting and praying. When three weeks had passed, the young rabbinical judge requested that someone ask her what she was doing there.
The woman explained that she was married to a taxi driver in Morocco, and a week after the wedding, he set off on a journey to a distant city and never returned. Her investigations revealed that he had been in an accident but his body had not been found.
After the rabbinical court in Casablanca had not permitted her to remarry, due to a lack of witnesses, she decided to come to a rabbinical court in Israel and ask here for permission to remarry.
The Rav heard her story, and immediately took a taxi to visit the Baba Sali in Netivot. "My brother, the Baba Chaki, knows everyone in Morocco," the Baba Sali told him, and so the Rav traveled to Ramle in order to ask the Baba Sali’s brother if he knew the people concerned.
"There were two gravediggers in that town," the Baba Chaki told the Rav. "Both of them moved to Israel - one lives in Dimona and the other in Kiryat Gat."
And so the Rav carried on traveling, now to Dimona to order to find the first gravedigger. When he arrived at the address that had been given to him, he found a mourning notice of the entrance door, from which he learnt that the man he was searching for so hard, the man who could release the woman from her position as a wife without a husband yet who couldn’t remarry, had died right then, and the chances of the woman’s success were growing more remote.
Despite all this, the Rav entered the family home, waited for Minchah (the afternoon prayer), and between Mincha and Aravit (the evening prayer), he gave over some Torah thoughts and told the story which had brought him there. Suddenly, one of those listening got up on his feet and said, "I’m the other gravedigger from that town – I came from Kiryat Gat to pay a condolence call on my friend’s family." Right away, the Rav extracted from him a witness report that helped to free the same woman from her difficult position.
It’s true that books are full of stories of the wonders of rabbis, but this "wonder" wouldn’t have happened if the Rav hadn’t noticed that a distressed woman was sitting outside the courtroom and praying.
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
fast navigation
The Land of Israel LGBT'S IN ISRAEL
The question was asked, how can one make Aliyah with the LGBT parades?
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 7 - Five Accumulative Proofs of G-d
As a preparation for the Kuzari's classic proof of G-d from the mass-revelation at Sinai, we start here with 5 other directions to strengthen our belief which also contribute to what the Kuzari will present as well.
Ein Aya Muscle & Meaning: The Dual Nature of Gevurah (Physical Strength)
Is physical strength and fitness a necessity or an ideal? Although it if often totally overlooked among topics of Judaism, Rav Kook writes that it clearly is also a necessity to deter the many enemies of Israel, but even in Y'mot HaMashiach, in the Messianic era, to a certain extent, it's ideal continues even after our enemies will have been finished off.
Chukat "HOW ENTEBBE STOLE THE BICENTENNIAL
The Difference Between Historic & Eternal"
As we approach America's 250th birthday, it's worth remembering her 200th Bicentennial birthday, on Jul. 4th 1976, when Israel "stole the show" by shocking the world & miraculously saving 101 hostages in a foreign continent. As Pres. As Pres. Trump decides which countries get priority in his new Middle-East, it's worth reminding him of the difference between historic events and eternally historic ones. This obviously connects with this week's parsha, as well!
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 6 - The Parable of the King of India
The advantages of testimony over circumstantial evidence or philosophical speculation.
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 5- "Proofs of G-d"
This may be the most important class of the entire book, where we finally get to the Jewish proof of the existence of G-d and truth of the Torah. We should follow His own direction where He tells us how to get to Him: through the Nation of Israel: Jewish history, Jewish prophets (and today, prophecies fulfilled), and national reward & punishment towards Am Yisrael.
Ein Aya One Humanity, One Creator, One Jerusalem
Rav Kook innovatively and beautifully explains this aggadeta where our sages say that after Jerusalem was destroyed her cinnamon fragrance is only found locked in a particular kingdom's treasury.
