Page 13 - Nachlaot Very Advanced RA1 130918
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Very Advanced Level – רמה מתקדמת מאד
Rabbi Aryeh Levin
Rabbi Aryeh Levin was born in the Jewish area of the Russian Empire. From his
youth he was recognized as a diligent Torah scholar and as a child genius. He made
Aliyah in 1905 and studied at the Yeshiva Torat Haim.
The Rabbi was nicknamed "the prisoner's Rabbi" because for twenty-five years,
from the beginning of the British Mandate, he regularly both wrote letters to
prisoners in jail and visited them personally to lift their spirits. He was especially
well-known for his visits to members of the Jewish Underground and to those
sentenced to be hung. He also regularly visited sanitariums where lepers lived, to
lift the spirits of the residents.
Rabbi Levin was known for his modesty. In his will, he requested that no one
eulogize him at his funeral. He died on the Friday before the Great Shabbat (the
Shabbat before Passover) in 1969 at Hadassah Hospital and was buried on the same
day in the cemetery in Sanhedria. In this way, his request was honored both out of
respect for the Great Shabbat and because it was the month of Nissan when eulogies
are not said. Also in accordance with his will, his tombstone includes the request
that all who visit his gravesite repeat the sentence, "I believe with complete faith in
the resurrection of the dead."
Rabbi Levin lived for many years on Har Grizim Road in the Mishkenot Yisrael
neighborhood. The street was re-named in his honor after his death.
A famous story about Rabbi Levin is the story of the "35". The "35" were soldiers
who died together in one battle. Twelve of the bodies were in such bad condition
that it was impossible to identify them. In the end, it was decided to enact a special
Kabalistic ceremony called "the Fate of the GRA" (GRA is the acronym of the
Vilna Gaon). This ceremony is enacted when there exists a serious question with no
answer. A Tnach (book of the complete Old Testament) is opened at random and
the answer to the question is found on that page. When Rabbi Levin was asked to
perform the ceremony in order to identify the bodies, he answered, "Me? But you
need a rabbi to do this", because Rabbi Levin was so modest that he didn't even call
himself a rabbi.
In the end, Rabbi Levin did enact the ceremony and identified the bodies one after
the other. For example, he identified the body of the soldier Oded Ben-Yemini
when he opened the Tnach (to the page describing King Saul's anointment) and
found the words Ben -Yemini (reference to the tribe of Benjamin). He identified the
soldier Binyamin Boglevsky from a different page with another reference to the
tribe of Benjamin.
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