Shalom Aharon Badani, Hy”d

Thousands joined in the heartbreaking levayah of Shalom Aharon Badani, Hy”d, a 17-year-old yeshivah student from Ramat Shlomo in Yerushalayim, who was niftar on Friday morning after being run over in a terrorist attack last Wednesday.

He was the second fatality in the attack which occurred at a light rail station on Shimon Hatzaddik street, near eastern Yerushalayim.

Badani had been on his way to the Kosel when a Palestinian driver rammed his van into a crowd of people waiting at the station.

Despite the short notice of his death and the early onset of Shabbos, thousands of weeping mourners participated in the levayah, which included his family, Gedolei Yisrael and friends and neighbors. He was brought to rest at the Givat Shaul cemetery.

Shalom Aharon Badani was the grandson of Harav Shimon Badani, shlita, a member of the Shas Council of Torah Sages.

Rav Badani in his hesped said that “this is the fourth grandson I have lost. This is very painful, very hard. Such a precious grandson. A talmid chacham has left us.

“Ribbono shel Olam, we have no questions. It is good. I say to my family: ‘This is good. It is painful…We don’t see the whole picture. We thank Hashem also for those things we don’t understand.’”

The father, Harav Dovid Yeshaya Badani, Rosh Kollel, Be’er Yitzchak in Greater Sanhedria, Yerushalayim, thanked Hashem for the 17 years they were given their beloved son, and asked for strength for the family to carry on in the great tragedy.

Harav Yitzchak Yosef, Sephardi Chief Rabbi, also eulogized the niftar, whom he said was murdered in cold blood for the mere fact that he was a Jew living in Yerushalayim.

During his remarks, Rav Yosef decried those Jews who go up to Har Habayis, which has caused so much unrest in recent days.

“They have to cease this,” he said. “It is a very serious sin. No one among us has the authority to dispute what the Gedolei haposkim have decided.”

This article appeared in print on page 1 of the November 10th, 2014 edition of Hamodia.