HaRav Yehuda Amital, who was buried Friday, is mourned by thousands. Some mourn the loss of their teacher, some of one of Israel’s great public intellectuals. Some mourn the loss of the founder of Israel’s religious peace movement, Meimad, while others will miss the founder of Yeshivat Har Etzion. And of course there are those who miss a father and grandfather.But when I think of the loss of HaRav Yehuda Amital, I am struck by the loss of a gentle giant, whose spirit was as kind as it was big. I miss a man who walked out of the Holocaust and instead of giving in to either fear or the perspective that Jews should simply do as they will because the world will hate us anyway (based on the principle of Numbers 23:9 of being a people that dwells apart and pays no attention to other nations), he taught the sacredness of every life. That he did so to thousands of students, many of whom sit at the highest levels of religious and academic life in both Israel and abroad, only adds to his greatness.Harav Yehuda Amital’s loss should be mourned by anybody who believes in Torah as paths of gentleness (darchei noam) which spread out from an etz hayim, a tree of life. This YouTube video captures one beautiful moment in a life defined by such teaching.May the memory of this beloved gentle giant be blessed and be a blessing to all who treasure his memory.
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Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 
posted July 12, 2010 at 8:23 pm
when you hear a jew baby cry give him a dollar that will comfort the baby while the parents are away making profit somewhere.
posted July 12, 2010 at 10:29 pm
I admit I didn’t know about this man. I appreciate the “gentle giants” of the world because weilding power and demonstrating that you can refrain from using it shows wisdom. Someone might be able to step on somebody else but that doesn’t mean they have the wisdom to use or refrain from using that ability.
posted July 12, 2010 at 11:33 pm
since the jews are the chosen people of god…when a jewish baby cries …god is speaking threw the baby…makes sense… the things the messiah jesus said makes sense to children…things like love eachother ,give everything you have to the poor, dont judge eachother…when you realize you have no control of anything and come to god as his helpless child…is when god will speak to you..the thing that makes god pissed the most is when people come to god as if they are equal…no one is equal to god…and no one is in control of god… what if you were standing before god and he started doing horrible things to you… what are you going to do to stop him…maybe say hey god your not supposed to do those things…people believe god cant be around evil…the truth is god is everything even the acts we call evil…when you come to god come as a helpless child who needs his love… like the crying baby
posted July 14, 2010 at 10:42 am
G Bush’s loathsome comment is a sad commentary on the overwhelming breadth of the hatreds so natural to the throngs whose loves are too narrow to care beyond the pale of themselves, an act which most Judaic Semites, I am sure, find quite predictable.
posted July 14, 2010 at 11:47 pm
withyobadself writes: “since the jews are the chosen people of god…”
I thought you said that the Jews made that up. So why do you present it as the truth? Oh, yeah, your brain doesn’t work right.