Tehila, the sister of Capt. Maoz Rakanti, published a personal tribute on Thursday on the day he was supposed to marry his fiancée, Roni Klerman. Rakanti was killed several weeks earlier in combat in southern Lebanon, about a month before the planned wedding. In her post, she imagined him under a “chuppah of clouds of glory,” saying that God was bringing him close and that “all the heavenly host” and righteous figures were dancing before him.
She wrote that her brother had already completed his mission in the world and did not need to say “If I forget you, Jerusalem,” because he had already helped build his portion, finished his assignment, and was “whole, pure and clean, like a groom of heaven.” She ended by saying his light spreads “from the world to the world,” and that the family draws strength from his shy smile while taking comfort in being “a tiny part of that house.”
Rakanti served as a platoon commander in Battalion 12 of the Golani Brigade. He was killed by an explosive drone strike in southern Lebanon. Just days before his death, he and Klerman had registered for marriage.
At the funeral, Rabbi Daniel Lunzer of Itamar described meeting the couple a week before the fatal battle, when they came to his home to register for marriage. He said they were full of goodness and purity and wanted to build “a house of love and purity,” adding that Rakanti’s “shy smile” remained in his mind. Lunzer said he had prepared a ketubah copy for the upcoming wedding, mourned what Israel had lost, and told Klerman that she too would build a holy and pure home, with God caring for her as well.
