Since the ground maneuver began, many casualties have been lost in battle. Seven of the dead came from the settlement meeting in Yeruham. On Thursday, his name was allowed to be published: Staff Sgt. (res.) Elisha Levinstern, who fell in battle in the Gaza Strip.
"On this seventh candle of Chanukah, we received unbearable news," reads a post on the yeshiva's Facebook page. "The seventh candle was taken from us. The brilliant light of dear Rabbi Elisha fell silent. Rabbi Elisha, a student of the eleventh cohort, was always an actual yeshiva student, even if he spent most of his time outside the beit midrash. We still remember how, devotedly, year after year, Elisha came over the years, with his entire wonderful family, to prayers in the yeshiva.
Notice of Elisha Levinstern's fall, photo: from the Facebook page of the settlement meeting Yeruham
"Dear Rabbi Elisha, your light shines and still shines in all its simplicity and wonder within us. We promise to continue to enhance the candles of your smiling fear of heaven, your beloved erudition, your simple and warming enlightenment, and to always raise them on the tablet of our hearts, in holy words in the beit midrash and throughout this world."
"Seven students of Yeshiva HaSeder Yeruham. This is an unbelievable number and disproportionate in any statistical tool," said one of the former yeshiva students, Uri Ohayon. "From my time it's Gideon Ilani, and now, Elisha Levinstern. How are so many Yeruchamniks? Maybe because they're so merciful. Quiet, perfectionist, humble, level-headed, taking advantage of every second. We are doing what the people of Israel need most right now. Attentive and thinking but quick and trusting, complex approach but fierce faith. I got to be there for a while, surrounded by giants and didn't get it."
In a conversation with Yeruham Yeshiva Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Wolfson, he described the difficult feelings of the yeshiva. "A loss like this in a short time makes your stomach turn, to be at so many funerals in a short time, to experience so much grief is not easy at all."
Nevertheless, the rabbi emphasized that there is also a sense of burden-bearing that creates some comfort. "We really feel the deep connection here between the yeshiva and the people of Israel. The entire nation pays a price and fights in Gaza, and the yeshiva is part of that.This connection does not dull our pain for a moment, but it gives it a bit of context, a connection that includes an understanding that the yeshiva is at the center of national activity."
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