The Short Vort by Rabbi Eisenman

Today is the 24^th Yahrtzeit of my father Z”L.

He was born on the 30^th day of Tishrei 5686- October 1, 1925.

He passed away on Taanis Esther in 1999.

He was buried in Yerushalayim on Har HaMenuchos on the 14^th of Adar.

My father was born in Bikur Cholim Hospital, which had just completed its new building on Rechov Straus in 1925.

Two of his great-grandchildren were born there as well.

My father’s family bought a plot of land in a suburb of Jaffa called Bayit VeGan.

Its name would eventually be changed to Bat Yam, as it is called today.

When my father’s family moved in in 1928, there were thirteen families and one Shul.

Today Bat Yam has over 160,000 residents.

The first school Tachkemoni, a religious school of the Mizrachi movement, began in 1936.

My father attended that school.

He joined the Haganah during Israel’s War of Independence.

He participated in the battles to take Latrun, a key fortress from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim.

He suffered hearing loss in one ear from the Egyptian shelling of his base.

Eventually, my father settled in New York, where he met my mother, and they married in 1953.

They were married for 46 years.

Besides sending my brother and I to Yeshiva, he instilled in me a love of Eretz Yisroel.

This undoubtedly contributed to his three grandchildren and many great-grandchildren living in Eretz Yisroel.

When he passed away in Florida on Taanis Esther, I was (still) an eighth-grade Rebbe at Yeshiva of North Jersey and the Rav of the Shul.

I received the call during recess; he did not want to disturb the learning.

I recall his telling me about a bus ride in the 1930s with his two grandfathers.

Rav Tuvia Salomon, his maternal grandfather, and Rav Yisroel Zev, his paternal grandfather.

As they traveled to the north for a summer vacation, Rav Yisroel Zev kept his eyes glued to the Sefer before him. Never looking up and never looking out the window.

On the other hand, his Mechutan, Rav Tuvia, marveled at the beauty of Hashem’s Eretz Yisroel.

Rav Tuvia kept chiding his Mechutan, “Rav Yisroel Zev, “Gib a kuk auf di sheynkeit fun Eretz Yisroel.” (Look out at the beauty of the land).

Rav Yisroel Zev replied, “Vos? Ich muz lernen Toirah” (“What? I must learn Torah”).

My father, Z”L was able to balance both of these important lessons.

He insisted we learn Torah from an early age. Yet, he was very insistent that by age five, we were in Eretz Yisroel for extended visits to allow us to learn to love the land.

I miss him very much.