Mishpetei HaRav Kook / A Prince and a Great One Has Fallen in Israel

Today we were informed of the passing of Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, leader of the Haredi public. Rabbi Edelstein remained among the last in our generation who merited to meet Rav Kook, in 1934, at the end of Rav Kook's life (who had studied in Ponevezh with Rabbi Edelstein's grandfather), when Rabbi Edelstein was a child.

Rabbi Edelstein's outlook was on the one hand very conservative, and on the other very gentle. "If a secular person is willing to give his life more than a Haredi one, he is greater than him," he said of those who serve in combat. The preservation of life was in his eyes like the Urim and Tumim, and so he ruled during the Corona period. He was a merciful father to all his students. Peace in the home came before all else in his view, and so too he instructed his students. May the memory of the righteous be for a blessing.