Thousands gathered in Jerusalem Wednesday for the funeral of Yosef Eisental, a 14-year-old yeshiva student who was fatally struck by a bus following protests against Israel's military draft law. In a eulogy that left no eye dry, his father delivered words of profound faith amid unbearable loss.
"God gave and God took, blessed be the name of God from now until forever, Yossi! Our Yossi was a precious son to me, a child of delight," the grieving father cried out before the massive crowd at the funeral procession, which departed from the Ramot neighborhood yeshiva in Jerusalem.
The father painted a portrait of a remarkable young man devoted to Torah study and acts of kindness. "I remember when Yossi was a 6-year-old boy, he went out with his mother and had 20 shekels of his own to buy candy. On the way, he saw someone asking for charity. He couldn't stand it and said, 'Mom, I want to give him 20 shekels,'" he recalled.
He described how his son would return from his studies and distribute all the treats he received to family members rather than keeping them for himself. "After Yossi started learning Gemara, what a joy it was to study with you. How you loved to learn and understand everything completely. You never gave up, a child of delight."
The father recounted winter Shabbat evenings when Yossi, despite not yet being bound by the yeshiva's intensive study schedule, would insist on leaving the table at 8 p.m. to continue learning. "If I didn't finish the meal, you would simply say the blessing and get up and go study."
In recent months, Yossi had entered the prestigious Ohel Torah-Ponevezh Yeshiva, where he excelled. "During the last Hanukkah, you told me you took upon yourself to complete Tractate Bava Batra 10 times. I asked you how you do that, and you said simply, 'It's not a problem.' You asked me to buy you a Bava Batra Gemara to study while walking. You didn't get to use it many times."
The father noted that his son had recently taken a test on 30 pages of Talmud, getting only three questions wrong out of 30. "You had such a desire to know, to learn."
