Letter from Another of Yonah's Rebbeim

It is one in the morning and I can’t fall asleep. There is an eerie silence out there. The tears are streaming down my cheeks. “The roads of Zion are mourning,” (Lamentations,1,4). Yonah was a real Zionist, he loved Eretz Yisroel and he sacrificed a lot to live here.

“And the dove (‘Yonah’) came to him (Noach) towards the evening and lo, an olive leaf plucked in her mouth,” (Genesis, 8, 11). Rashi comments, “The dove said, ‘May my food be as bitter as the olive branch through the hands of the Holy One Blessed Be He, and not sweet as honey through the hands of flesh and blood.’” Yonah could have enjoyed the material world of America, yet he sacrificed that material pleasure in order to be sustained directly from the hands of Hashem in His Holy Land.

“Rebbi said, ‘I learned a lot of Torah from my teachers I learned more from my colleagues and I learned more from my students than from anyone else,’” (Makkos 10a). Yonah, you were a living mussar sefer. I remember one incident in yeshiva where you had a right to be very upset. Instead of getting upset, you sat down and discussed your feelings with me with maturity far beyond your eighteen years of age.

You made a few tough decisions during your lifetime. I think I know what gave you the strength to stick to those decisions. It was the fact that you knew that Hashem would be happy with that decision.

You were always happy and always cheering people up. The Gemorah in Ta’anis 22a discusses two people that Eliyahu pointed out as people who were destined to go to Olam Haba. Rashi points out that these people were “Happy and made other human beings happy.”

I will never forget the last time I saw you, in Bet Shemesh, just a few days before you passed away. You were in a car when you saw me walking on the sidewalk. You pulled over, jumped out of the car and ran over to greet me. It was so wonderful to see you. We spoke for a few minutes and you mentioned how you hoped we would see each other more often now that you were working in Bet Shemesh, but alas, Hashem had other plans.

The year I learned together with you and ybl”c Y.O. was one of the most rewarding years of my life. You were so happy to be studying Hashem’s Torah.

Yonah, even though I was your ‘teacher,’ you are the one who taught me many valuable lessons.

You are now in a better place. Please be a Meilitz Yosher for ybl”c your wonderful parents, who loved you, sacrificed so much for you and supported your decisions, your wife and your son, who you loved so much, and your family and friends who you were always cheering up.

I miss you so much and hope to see you in the near future with the coming of Moshiach.

Rabbi Mattis Goldberg