Death of a Jewish Revolutionary

The Youthful Soul of Ariel ben Yochanan Bereny, z”l

A week has now passed since the death of our good friend, Ariel ben Yochanan Bereny – seven days that would normally be marked by family sitting shiva, friends and neighbors visiting, words of comfort, memories, stories…

But for Ariel there was no shiva. 

We all did our best to remember him in our prayers, to give tzedaka, l’hafrish chala – whatever was possible to give his neshama an aliyah.

For he had no family to mourn him.

[The picture (on left) of Ariel’s Israeli Identity card has been airbrushed to remove any symbol of the state which he abhorred.  He would have been incensed to be remembered alongside any such referent.]

Why here…?

Now, the death of a 65 year old man is not something one would expect to read about on a blog about the Hilltop Youth.

But life is filled with every sort of oddity and exception that, in the end, somehow prove the rule.

And Ariel Bereny was just such an exception.

A Hungarian Jew who traversed the depths of Esav before ascending to the tempestuous hills of the Shomron in a quest to be a Jew with every fiber of his being – Ariel (known as ‘Bereny’ to most) passed from this world last Tuesday, Koach Tevet (כ'ח טבת) after a multi-year struggle with diabetes.

A Formidable Jew

Ariel was a revolutionary in both mind and spirit.

He never took up arms against the foe; his weapons, rather, were his blog, The Torah Revolution, and later, a Facebook page called Hashem is King.

A glance through his writings reveals immediately that his heart and soul were bound to the land and people of Israel, and steeled in opposition to anything that might stand in the way of a full recognition of G-d’s Kingship and the final redemption.

In this, he was every bit Hilltop Youth – despite his years.

The physicists tell us that distance travelled is a function of time. And speed.

Ariel Bereny traversed worlds to arrive at Kfar Tapuach – and he outpaced legions as he raced toward his goal of creating a genuine revolution that would crown Hashem as sovereign and usher in the messianic reality that we all crave.

The brief time that he required to travel such an inconceivably long distance bespeaks a speed of which only a youthful soul is capable.

Miraculously youthful.

Hilltop youth, he was – instilled with the same fervent love of all that’s pure and holy.

We’ll miss him dearly.

Dean Maughvet