A Man Who Became an Angel- Ephraim Jackman: A Land of Israel Fellowship Highlight

but this is a story of a friend of mine whose son fell in Gaza he was his firstborn son and his name was Ephraim yakman or in English Ephraim Jackman he was a marvelous boy marvelous isn't the word um the Jackman family have children that are really aligned with my children but eph was two years older than my oldest so I knew him the least but he was always sort of there but I'm I love the Jackman family when I lived in N Danielle we had Shabbat meals together they're originally from England they made Aliah and the quote at the end we made a beautiful slide but just to kick this off they found his journal after he passed and he wrote this I don't know how long before he was taken from this world and he wrote it after kitchen duty in the Army so you could imagine as he's scrubbing dishes where his mind was I want to live a life of greatness with shining ideals where everything is clear and there's no emptiness inside that God illuminates a great light in the soul that is thirsty for blue that is turquoise that is like the ocean and the Throne of glory and in Hebrew it's amazingly poetic although that's quite beautiful poetry as well the Hebrew it's beyond and so EP FR Jackin when I went to his funeral um the rabbi his rabbi got up and he quoted this verse from the book of Samuel in chapter 16 that sort of introduces David onto the scene and it says and one of the lads answered and said here I saw a son of isai from Bethlehem he's a musician a hero of a soldier and a man of war a wise one and a beautiful person and Hashem is with him and here I saw Ephraim Jackman he's a musician a hero of a soldier and a man of war a wise one and a beautiful person and Hashem is with him and that's how they described him Ephraim played the piano like another level but he also played the guitar and the drums and the flute and he was just a musician he had a harmonica in his armed vehicle in Gaza with him and as a boy when he was younger before his bot Mitzvah he finished all of sh mishnayot all of the oral Torah of the mishnayot twice before his bar mitzvah but he didn't never want to show off so usually a part of a bar mitzvah celebration is to celebrate what you've learned in honor of your bar mitzvah so he just took this family to the Cotto in the old city of Jerusalem and they celebrated as a family because he didn't want to show up all of his friends no much more he learned than all of them it's so much more it's beyond so much more to finish all of the oral Torah all of sh M twice by your bar mitzvah is another level and you know you hear stories from because I was there five days I just collected these stories to understand more and more what young man he was when he was in high school they did a seminar about healthy eating and now healthy eating is really a part about living a Godly life and from that point on he stopped eating any processed sugar and he would started eating spelt bread and the healthiest types of food but he was kind of a person that if all of the guys around him were like kind of snacking on junk food so he wouldn't like be sort of condescending about it you know when tahila was in high school we were still friends and she was a vegetarian and I remember one time we're all like eating steaks together and she's like you know the cows really suffered for those stakes and I'm like tahila can't you just wait until after we're done you're like ruining the meal why do you have to be like that so like he wouldn't do that he would just like take one piece of like the unhealthy food just to be with his friends like to be with them to never feel like he was above them to never show off and you know when he left the house at 18 he called all of his brothers and sisters every Friday spent two hours on the phone just calling them such a family man such a young man but so focused around his family and when you heard the brothers and sisters at the eulogies you just saw how much they admired him what a role model he was for them just the whole family was just like you hear it from his rabbis from his commanders from his officers and you just can't believe it and one of the brothers said you know I remember when we were younger you used to get angry a lot and somehow you just fixed your mote you fixed your attributes I haven't seen you angry in years and his father told me that when he first started high school he had to get up early in the morning or he'd miss his bus and the first first year of high school he missed the bus so many times but by the time he was in Yeshiva about to go into the army they gave him the keys to the study hall in yeshivat yam because he was the first one in the study hall every single day before the sunrise and somehow Ephraim continued to work on himself and fix himself until he became the most marvelous Jew that Ian encountered in years and you know um in his free time what did he do aside from playing beautiful music he loved the land of Israel so he would organize hikes for him and his family there was never just like buming around it was constantly like just going afterlife loving the Torah and loving the land and when his rabbis were describing him the first one every day in the study hall in the bait M and when he was learning he just loved the Torah Shining Light just happiness everyone that learned with him was uplifted because he was such a wonderful person to be around so optimistic so happy so joyful and you heard about stories that when he was in the IDF no one likes to do kitchen duty kitchen duty is the worst I am still traumatized from kitchen duty your hands get all ripped up because just doing so many it's endless dishes so he would always volunteer to do the grossest of all the jobs like to clean the pots that are like the most like horrible he would always volunteer to do the things that no one else wanted to do and when he was serving in kaara which is in the shamron which is one of the hot beds of Terror in Samaria he didn't go through officer training course but at one point they were just low on soldiers and he was promoted to become an officer without going through officer training course so he was operating as a soldier who had been through officer training course with about three years of experience but his time in the Army he was only there for about a year that's unheard of in the Army and so with just a little bit more than a year of service inara that's not exactly an office job he became a platoon commander and it's unbelievable but what happened was he had a real dilemma what about kitchen duty on one hand a cut scene an officer never does kitchen duty they have so many other meetings to go to they have to meet with all the higher ups and they're up they never sleep in kitchen duty that's left for the solders but he said ah but I'm not really an officer maybe I should still do kitchen duty what about my sleep and maybe if I do kitchen duty that will lower the honor of the rank that I'm supposed to hold right now and he was going back and forth what is the right thing to do and this story happened as I I'm watching the father Shmo who never heard this story and he saidwell what did he do and he said he chose to do the dishes anyway and the father was so happy to hear that story that even though he was the officer he chose to do kitchen duty anyways he was just so good but to understand how good in Gaza in the middle of this war he woke up before the sunrise to learn one do of gamarra because that's what he committed to do every single day and in seven years he would have finished all the talwood and every day at 6: in the morning while everyone was asleeping he was up praying with the sunrise so no one would disturb him and he spent every day in the middle of battle learning DF yomi learning a day of towood every single day and he was awarded the miten pluga which is the most valuable soldier in the Battalion that's out of like 150 soldiers to be selected as the MVP it's like an award that very few ever get and he received that award and no one knew they only really found out after he died because he didn't want to show off if I was awarded the mitan pluga that would be a bumper sticker on my car that I would have a t-shirt that everyone should know I am the head of I the most valuable soldier in the Battalion nice to meet you my name is Jeremy gimpel I'm the MVP everyone would know that would be the best stick in the world he received of the highest honors you can receive as a soldier in the IDF and he didn't tell anyone because he didn't want to be hoty he didn't want to be arrogant he was just so truly humble and he left this world in the most heroic way he saved his officer's life by jumping ahead and seizing the terrorist with his automatic weapon and his officer demanded left the hospital on the hospital stretcher bed to come to his funeral because ephra yakman saved his life and so he left this world in the most heroic act of selflessness and heroism that could be and when I think about that wish or that prayer that he wrote in his journal if we could put that up on the screen I want to live a life of greatness with shining sparkling ideals where everything is clear and there's no emptiness inside that God illuminates a great light in the soul that is thirsty for blue that is turquoise that is the ocean that is the Throne of glory and to see that this young man had fixed his sleep fixed his food fixed his is honoring his parents fixed his love for his family heroic courageous a scholar you know what is that other than can you say I saw a son Ephraim yakman he's a musician a hero of a soldier and a man of war a wise one and a beautiful person and Hashem is with him