What made 850,000 people converge on Jerusalem to pay their last respects to Rav Ovadiah Yosef? Many of them never looked into his seforim, and hadn’t the faintest idea what the Torah/ideogolical arguments that surrounded him were all about. But they knew Rav Ovadiah was their abba, that he was the protector of their souls
Last Monday at dusk the sight of 850 000 Jews converging on the Sandhedria cemetery their shoulders sagging in grief was a testimony to the Jewish People and to the entire world that when it comes down to the core the Torah is the most important thing in their lives. And thus even as he left this world Maran ztz”l whose whole life was dedicated to strengthening the value of Torah among the Jewish people gained yet another merit in his lifelong quest.
What made such a tremendous mass of people come from all over Israel to pay their last respects to one of the few Torah giants left in our times? Most of them had never met him and didn’t even vote for his party; few had ever opened any of his outstanding seforim.
There were the crowds who came to honor him even though they didn’t hold by his piskei din and disagreed with his views and decisions on other matters as well. There were entire yeshivos from the Ashkenazi Torah world including National Religious and chassidic groups of all persuasions. Every style of kippah was there even the “invisible” kippah worn by so many Israelis. And there were the masses who didn’t belong to either camp too far removed from the Torah world to hold opposing opinions. What then tore them away from their daily routine and made them travel long distances to take part in the biggest levayah ever to take place in the State of Israel?
What made them all come?
Despite the differences that unfortunately divide us there is a thread a fine hidden thread yet strong as steel that connects us all. We may disagree on nearly every subject but that thread binds us as one people. That thread is the Torah.
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