Today I was at the funeral of the soldier Moshe Shmuel Noll, HY"D. It was an incredibly sad and painful funeral.

To see his elderly parents walking behind the coffin of their youngest son, to hear the terrible shriek that pierced the silence, "Moishy! Moishy!"... Not an eye was left dry.

Two of the eulogies moved me very deeply.

The first was from his Rabbi at the "Kfar Zeitim" Yeshiva. He described him as a modern-day follower in the path of Rabbi Akiva. At first, this sounded a bit exaggerated, of course, but then he began to tell us about him, and from the little he shared, my heart was torn to pieces. He was a boy with unimaginable learning difficulties who did not know how to read or write until he arrived at the yeshiva (!), and yet, he never gave up. He made enormous efforts to learn to read. The Rabbi told us that Moishy would come to his house every few weeks and borrow small children's books to practice his reading, and he wasn't ashamed of it.

He told a powerful story: once, he asked Moishy how he prayed if he couldn't read. Moishy answered that he prays the way his kindergarten teacher taught him; that’s what he knew, and that’s how he still prayed. So the Rabbi asked him if he wanted to learn how to pray properly, and Moishy was overjoyed. And so, every week they learned a new section of the prayer service, starting with the morning blessings and moving forward. Throughout the following week, Moishy would review the section again and again until he knew it by heart. They did this for a whole year, and by the end of the year, he knew the entire prayer service.

The Rabbi recounted that despite all his difficulties, Moishy was always happy and smiling at everyone. He once asked him, "How do you manage to be happy all the time?" Moishy replied: "Things are hard enough for me as it is. Do I need to add the challenge of sadness, too?!"

Finally, he shared one more incredible story. At the end of the year, all the young men held a party at the Rabbi's house. They all returned  home, leaving the house upside down and dirty. The Rabbi sent them a message saying it wasn't right to have left such a mess. A few hours later, a knock on the door. Moishy was standing there. "The moment I read your message," he said, "I left the my house in Bet shemesh, went to the bus station, and came here (Kfar Zeitim - near Tverya!) to tidy and clean up." They worked together for a couple of hours, after which the Rabbi suggested Moishy just sleep at his house. But Moishy told him he had forgotten to bring his tefillin, so he left and traveled home for another three hours on buses, returning to Bet Shemesh before dawn so he could daven Shacharit, properly.

The Rabbi concluded: "You walked in the path of Rabbi Akiva in your life, and even more so in your death, for the sanctification of God's Name, "Kiddush Hashem".

The second eulogy was from the community Rabbi in Beit Shemesh, Rav Kalman Shapira, the Admor of Piaseczno. He spoke so beautifully and emotionally, quoting, of course, from the holy book Eish Kodesh. He spoke with immense sobs about "this holy mountain" (Har Herzl, Israel's national military cemetery). He told us that Moishy's mother said she specifically wanted her son to be buried on Har Herzl. The Rabbi said she knew why she wanted him buried there—because it is from there that all the holy souls will be the first to rise during Techiyat HaMetim, the Resurrection of the Dead.

At the end, he described Moishy's soul ascending to the heavens, how all the gates open and hosts of angels accompany him to the entrance of Gan Eden  to lead him to the sublime place prepared for him. And then, he cried out with terrible shouts: "Moishy, don't go in! Don't you dare agree to enter Gan Eden! If you go in, you will forget us. Please, tell them you are not willing to enter until the Holy One, Blessed be He, answers your prayers and ours, that the Geulah will finally come. Moishy, I knew you well, you are a strong young man, don't go in!"

And the entire crowd erupted in weeping.

I left there with many somber thoughts about this special young man, a young man who went through so much, whom, in his life, surely many may not have considered particularly important. Who would take a 20-year-old man who can't read seriously? How sad that only after his untimely death was his special story revealed. For me, in any case, this funeral was the most powerful Mussar lesson I have probably ever heard.

May these words be for the elevation of the soul (l'ilui nishmat) of the holy tzaddik, Moshe Shmuel, ben Dovid Betzalel, HY"D.