Eli Benacom ז״ל : l’homme qui a changé des vies dans l’ombre | Rav Eitan Galam

The goal of the day was to be able to be here at the grave of Lib. I just want to tell you that you don't realize , each and every one of you, how much you should realize. I’m just going to tell two stories about Ellie, but these are two out of dozens of stories we have that no one knew about, and we discovered them just like that. For the first story, you should know that he had taken over a synagogue in Yona Hanavi, behind Allenby, in Givatayim, at the time he took it over, it was a totally abandoned place, there were all the addicts, the homeless, and so on.

He took over this synagogue, and it became a synagogue. There were only some rather lost people who found their way there to eat. They had a building across the street, you understand me. They had a building across the street that was supposed to be a slum.

He had people sleeping there, and his brother told me. In the morning, he would just have to wake them up and dress them to take them to pray. For years and years, he would get his rabbi from Jerusalem. To come and give a class in this synagogue; now he’s over 80, he couldn't travel like that.

What did he do? He would take the car from Tel Aviv , go to Jerusalem to pick up his rabbi. He brought him to Tel Aviv for the class, and at the end of the class, he took him back to Jerusalem and went home. This was twice a week for years.

Listen carefully, how many people were in the class? Three, four people who came to eat, eat the food, and so on. For years, he would come. Now, there are people who came out of that.

I want to tell you a story about something that came out of that. One day, the rabbi arrives, he grabs one of them, a bit of a delinquent, and says, "I'm afraid Ellie might fall asleep on the way back, come with us in the car." He takes him in the car, and on the way, the rabbi says to him, "But tell me, don't you want to get married?""I don't know, I met a girl, I don't know if I want to." But what? What do you mean you want to or you don't? "Yeah, I want to, yeah I want to." He says, "Well, what is it?""Well, call her.""What?" Dad, he would never marry you.

He said, okay, fine, I'll call her. He’s on the phone, he says hello, yeah, it’s 11 at night. He calls her, says, yeah, look, I’m with the Rabbi from, you know, the class and so on. He says, go ahead, tell her.

He says, yeah, do you want us to get married? The girl says, okay, incredible, he hangs up. Good, okay, very well, I’ll call you back. He says, no, there’s no, tell her to come now to the Old City in Jerusalem, we’re going to do the vort, we’re going to do the engagement.

But I can't call her like that right now. But you call her. He calls her, tells her, look , I’m sorry. He said that you have to come now.

Okay. >> She comes, she arrives in Jerusalem, they arrive at the Yeshiva in the heart of the Old City. They go up there, there were, so there was the Rabbi, the boy, and this girl, and an avreich who was sitting like that. He says now we have to sign a contract.

We have to sign a contract as you are going to get married. He says, well, does anyone have an engagement contract ready? Well , no, there was an avreich there like that. Tell me, don't you have an engagement contract?

Well, no, it’s 1 a.m. He says, where the bookstand is where you are, he says, look, you have one. Now, the guy, this guy who later married that girl, he tells the story, he opens the bookstand. The first sheet that comes out is a star tna'im.

They signed it, he married that girl. This boy who was a thug is an avreich of 30 years in the Yeshiva like that, this is one of the stories of Benacob, what he has.