(IsraelNN.com) Shock waves are rushing through the yeshiva world as the news spreads: a dean of one of the leading Torah institutions of Israel is gone.

Rabbi Elya Boruch Finkel, one of the heads of the Mir Yeshiva, passed away suddenly after suffering a massive heart attack Monday morning in Jerusalem.

The rabbi, age 60, led and taught in one of the most prominent and oldest yeshivas in Israel, Mir Yerushalayim.  “The Mir,” as it is known, is also considered the largest yeshiva in the world, with some 5,000 post-high school students studying Torah, including married rabbinical students.

Rabbi Finkel was known to have always been intimately involved with his students.

“He was a paradigm of care and kindness and truth,” said one woman in the Mir community. “Individuals would come to him for advice and he knew what was going on in their lives – we’re talking about a man who directed a yeshiva with thousands of students, remember,” she added.

Rabbi Finkel held councils in his home on a regular basis for the older boys so they could discuss various personal issues with him as well.

"The loss is incalculable," said a local kollel student at another Jerusalem yeshiva.