Six Months Without Sleep - Rabbi Ovadia Yosef zt”l

October 1973. The war is ending, but in many Israeli homes, it's only beginning. Hundreds of soldiers vanished. Their wives can't know, alive or dead. And in every such home, one unanswerable question. Until he's identified, she's married. No mourning, no moving on, an agunah. The war's chaos was enormous. Unidentified fallen, conflicting testimony, families waiting for a knock. IDF Chief Rabbi Mordechai Piron formed a special court, led by Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Six months, almost a thousand files. Every survivor's account, every dog tag, every detail, searching Halakha for a way to free them. Years later he recalled, "We wept. Tears flowed like water. We knew no sleep at night. Terrifying dreams for six months." Some of the fallen he knew personally. Hundreds of women could finally start over. Friends, here's where true greatness shows. Not in honor or titles. It's losing sleep for a woman you never met, a soldier you never knew. It comes from the Torah, the Talmud, Tractate Yevamot. For the agunah, the sages were lenient. Her pain moved them. A woman left chained is a wound Halakha itself seeks to heal. That was Rabbi Ovadia, his whole life. That same year, he ruled Ethiopian Jews fully Jewish, and wrote, "We must hasten their aliyah." A Torah giant with one question, "What hurts the Jew before me?" Maybe that's why an estimated 800,000 people came to his funeral, the largest Israel has ever seen. Everyone came. He wept for them, too. Torah greatness isn't standing above the people, it's carrying their pain even at night. Sometimes it's one tear on a stranger's file. On his yard site, 3 Heshvan. Let's help one hurting Jew, even one we don't know, because whoever loses sleep over others pain keeps shining after he's gone. >> [music]