The Missing Corpse

Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, of righteous memory – who would later serve as the Israeli Chief Sephardic Rabbi – was the youngest rabbi in the Israeli rabbinate when at the age of 28 he joined the rabbinical court in the city of Beersheba. Even at that relatively young age, he was renowned as a brilliant scholar who was exceptional in his care and personal attentiveness to the needs of all whom he met.

A short time after he was appointed to his post, he noticed a woman sitting outside the offices of the rabbinate reciting Psalms, tears in her eyes. This recurred for days, with her closing her Book of Psalms only as the rabbinate office closed its doors for the day.

His curiosity and concern aroused, one day, the young rabbi asked his assistant to call the woman into his office.

"Tell me what you are doing here," Rabbi Eliyahu gently asked once she appeared before him. "How could we help you?"

She responded with a distinct Moroccan accent: "I just moved to Israel from Morocco. The government settled me in this city, and I immediately sought out the local rabbinate."

"Back in Morocco my husband was a taxi driver. Ten days after our marriage he traveled from one city to the next and I never heard from him again. They say he died in a crash, however, they cannot locate his body, only the wrecked car." "You see, back in Morocco my husband was a taxi driver. Ten days after our marriage he traveled from one city to the next and I never heard from him again. They say he died in a crash, however, they cannot locate his body, only the wrecked car.

"I never found his body or those who buried him, and I was told that I cannot remarry unless someone testifies that he or she actually saw the corpse.

"Now that I am in Israel, I thought that perhaps in Morocco no one could help me, but maybe here a rabbi could assist me and permit me to remarry.

"Since then, I have been praying here."

The rabbi asked, "But, why have you not entered the offices to speak to us?"

"Who are you?" responded the Sephardic woman, "you are but messengers. I am praying to G‑d, the Creator of the world; He will decide if I should remarry or not!"

Rabbi Eliyahu, admiring the woman's strong faith, traveled to Netivot, to Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeirah, the famed and righteous Sephardic sage (known as the "Baba Sali") who hailed from Morocco, to see if he had any idea to whom to turn.

The sage told him that he should be in touch with his brother, the "Baba Chaki." "He knows everyone; he will tell you who was in charge of burials at that time in that city," he said.

When he said the story with the taxi and mentioned the deceased's name, an old man, dressed in traditional Moroccan clothing, jumped up in the corner of the room. Rabbi Eliyahu took a taxi from Netivot to Ramla, where the Baba Chaki resided. The sage from Ramla told him that the grave diggers in that city moved to Israel eight months earlier, "one lives in Kiryat Ata and one lives in Dimona." He gave Rabbi Eliyahu the exact addresses for both.

The rabbi continued to the closer of the two cities, Dimona. Upon arrival at the home of the grave digger, there was a note on the door saying that the father of the home – the grave digger – had just passed away. Rabbi Eliyahu arrived just in time for the afternoon prayer services. He joined the prayer services and then shared some words of comfort with the family.

In the hope that someone there would be able to give him a clue to aid him in his undertaking, he said over the woman's story.

When he said the story with the taxi and mentioned the deceased's name, an old man, dressed in traditional Moroccan clothing, jumped up in the corner of the room. "I am one of the grave diggers who buried the taxi driver. The second one just passed away and I am here in his home to console his family..."

The rabbi immediately gathered two others, creating a mini rabbinical court, and they took this man's testimony. The next day, Rabbi Eliyahu delivered a letter to the woman, permitting her to remarry.

Relating to his fellow judges in Beersheba's rabbinical court what had happened the day earlier, Rabbi Eliyahu exclaimed, "This is the power of a prayer that comes from a sincere heart."