A great, humble man

I met my teacher and rabbi, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, decades ago, when I was a youngster and a student at the Porat Yosef yeshiva. We were already following him to the synagogue in the Bukharim Quarter in Jerusalem to enthusiastically listen to his words of Torah. This was before he was appointed to be the chief rabbi of Israel and before the general public recognized his brilliance and expertise.

And this was his singularity: Rabbi Yosef was the rabbi of Israel -- the rabbi of simple folk and the rabbi of learned students. Even later, when I got to stand next to the rabbi as he founded the Shas party and when he entrusted me with the Interior Ministry, I was able to recognize the humility that never fell from his genius. Time after time, the rabbi would approach me over an issue with so-and-so, an issue with some anonymous individual. He would tend to anyone's distress. When he would raise the plight of any one individual, the rabbi would burst into tears, and when I managed to help the needy, the rabbi would shed tears of joy.

He was admired by all, loved, a great man and humble, a rabbi with inexorable bravery. He wrote 50 books on Halachah [Jewish religious law]. Even more than this incredible ability was his awe-inspiring quality for adjudication. He feared no man, because of his fear of God. His courage as an adjudicator manifested itself through his bold rulings, when he was unafraid to be lax where others were rigid -- the bold, reasonable halachic rulings over agunot [women in unwanted marriages because their husbands are unable or unwilling to grant them divorces], when he recognized the Jewishness of Ethiopian Jews, when he paved the way for Jewish converts, and more.

We say about him, "do not fear any man." Our generation received a precious gift, a priceless one -- and today, our hearts were broken when we were forced to give it back.