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Never have I said that a book was excellent in every way — moving, meaningful, graceful, accessible, beautifully laid out, impossible to put down — and also said: Don’t read it.
Don’t pick it up.
It is too painful.
Excruciating.
It’s impossible to put down — and you’re not the same person when you do.
You’re torn up.
Beyond grief.
Devastated.
No one told me that before I picked it up.
So I have looked into hell.
And into Heaven.
Both, truly, are impossible for flesh and blood, for a being of this earth.
I never thought I could write this, or even think it, but, truly, it seems that there is no other explanation: They were chosen.
It was not random.
It looked that way. Oh how life looks that way. The car accident. The windfall. The illness. The things that stand out — they just happen, it so overwhelmingly seems.
Even more overwhelming is the sense from reading this epitome of beauty and this epitome of terror — this book, Princes Among Men: Memories of Eight Young Souls (Feldheim).
Shooting this way and that, terrorist, no one to stop him, chaos, security procedures broken, shooting in the library, wildly, shooting somewhere else, this one hit, that one not, suddenly, a soldier gets it and takes his pistol and shoots the shooter dead.
Random — the very picture of randomness, it can very blatantly, very plausibly seem.
But not afterward.
Not after the knife that tears at you in reading Princes Among Men.
Random?
Princes — random? They were not random, not in life, not in death.
About them it is terrifying to write, I never thought I would: Their deaths seem anything but random. Rather, only this: Chosen.
“In my holy ones I am sanctified, bi-kerovai Ekadeish.”
Each one of these boys — the more one sees them, the more perspectives disclosed about them, the memories they left behind, the telling snippets from their lives, their effect on others, their beyond-this-world maturity, character, thirst for G-d — selected.
Chosen.
Which second grader writes a note to his teacher asking her not to intrude too much on the Torah curriculum with other topics, because each moment needs to be devoted to growing closer to G-d?
Second grader. Yes.
The eight princes, the eight young souls, are the eight young men, some really just boys, as young as 15, killed on March 8, 2008, in the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem.
By a Palestinian terrorist.
An evil imitation of a human being.
(That, though, is I; I speak of evil. It’s a concept hardly found in Princes Among Men. The chosen, and those around them, hardly relate to the killer and to what he represents, but to the killed, and what they represent.)
The pain this book causes is more than a matter of tears welling up, more than wanting to cry. This is beyond tears (though they flow freely). This is beyond — in the gaping, gaping holes left behind, in the immeasurable dimensions of the loss, of eight boys whom one would probably pass by on the street, ordinary looking, nothing special in the externals. But whose middot, whose character, whose love of G-d, seem impossible to fit into this world.
Eight princes — gone.
The tangible, the physical, sparkle, and depth — missing, forever.
How their relatives carry on, I do not understand.
Even more, how they contributed to this book, how they remained settled even for minutes, let alone hours, to write this, clearly, gracefully, powerfully; to gather their memories, edit them, polish them; to convey the unfathomable levels on which these boys lived, I do not get.
The difficulty is too great to face — and I am just a reader.
How could they write this, live it, relive it?
If you fail to heed my advice and pick up this book, you, too, will relive it.
Spare yourself.
They are with G-d.
Enough.
They were chosen.
He chose them.
A frightening notion.
But, after reading this, an inescapable conclusion.
I recoil from the dread in the Presence of G-d.
Let us be chosen, yes, of course, but let us be chosen for life!
Neriya Cohen
Born, Feb. 3, 1993.
Died, March 6, 2008.
Age, 15.
Point of origin: Jerba, six generations ago; then, Old City, Jerusalem.
From his friends:
“ . . . Lag b’Omer, three years ago. Our whole group spent the night together, and at six in the morning, we were ready to go home.
“Neriya, Asher, Yehuda and I were still at the camp fire, and while I was putting it out, I said, ‘Let’s all go to sleep at my house.’ Everyone said, ‘Yeah!’ except for Neriya.
“He said, ‘Let’s go pray at the Kotel [Western Wall], and then we can go to sleep.’
“I said to him, ‘Forget it! Let’s go to sleep, and we can pray later!’
“Everyone sided with me except Neriya, who said, ‘If we don’t pray now, we’ll miss the time for Shema, and maybe we won’t pray at all. I am going to pray right now, and if any of you want to, you can come with me.’ . . . ”
So it continues.
From his sister:
“I know that you have a special role to fulfill up Above, for all of Am Yisrael. You were chosen to speak in favor of our nation.
“I know that this world was too confined for you; you need lots of spiritual space. You need Hashem’s infiniteness — you want that. And now, up Above, you enjoy the brilliance of the Shechinah [Divine Presence] . . . you hear derashot and shiurim [Torah teachings] given by the Holy One, Blessed be He, you are sitting on the first bench . . . so close!
“And we?
“Those of us here below cry. And smile. And cry. And go on.
“I miss you. I know you completed your task in this world. But I still miss you. . . .
“I see you!
“Your smile, your life, your sweetness, and purity. Your love of life. Your Torah! . . . ”
So it continues.
From his camp counselor:
“How can someone jump, sit, and study Torah with such diligence, love and joy? I don’t get it.
“You were the funniest, the most popular, the most beloved by everyone, but you never tried to draw attention to the fact. You were so simple and humble, but not in a quiet, weak way.”
So it continues.
From his teacher:
“Our Neriya, as sweet as honey, with such a pleasant personality, humility, greatness, with a desire for truth and justice, so upright, noble, refined, and polite.
“He loved his friends, and guided them along the true path. While learning, he asked relevant questions, striving to discover the truth.
“He was never satisfied with what wasn’t clear, and was constantly challenging his friends and rabbis to find answers.
“He was incredibly dedicated to his Torah study, beyond the daily schedule of classes and study sessions. . . .
“He loved to investigate and understand down to the smallest detail.
“But he was never haughty, nor did he attempt to stand out above his peers. In his quiet and peaceful manner, he rose toward the greatness he was destined to achieve.”
And so it continues.
Segev Peniel Avichail
Born, June 22, 1992.
Died, March 6, 2008.
Age, 15.
Point of origin: Old City, Jerusalem.
From his own pen, to his mother:?
“May it be G-d’s will that you have many holy children.”
From his own pen, to his second grade teacher:
“I want to ask you if most of your lessons (not all) can be about the holy Torah. That is the reason why I haven’t been paying attention in some of your classes, and also because children are bothering me. Don’t punish anyone — it doesn’t matter who — and don’t even yell at them. I don’t want to hurt you or insult you in any way.”
From his biography:
“A year before his Bar Mitzvah, Segev was injured . . .
“Terrorists emptied whole magazines of bullets shooting at their car from a hilltop observation point above the road.
“Miraculously, Segev and his father survived the attack. A small piece of shrapnel lodged in Segev’s chest, a few centimeters from his heart.
“Though the piece was never removed, the Holy One, Blessed be He, gave Segev three more years of life — years that were significant in terms of growth in Torah and mitzvot, and in terms of maturing from a child to a young man.
“In that time he underwent the transition from the pure state of childhood to the holiness achieved by studying Torah in adolescence. . . .
“He love of Torah and his love of chesed were intertwined on that fateful night.
“He didn’t want to stop studying until he fully comprehended a particularly difficult topic. When he saw the evil terrorist, may his name be blotted out, moving in his direction, he called out to his study partner, his havruta, in an effort to save him.
“But G-d decided that he would continue studying Torah and performing acts of kindness in the Yeshiva Above.”
So it continues.
From his father:
“As he grew into a young man, Segev surpassed us all in spiritual heights.
“His actions reflected his purity and righteousness, his joy of life.
“When he played music for hospital patients, when he expressed his concern for his family and friends, and above all, the might of his Torah, and his holy ascent to the status of a talmid chacham [Talmud scholar] at such a young age.
“For a long while, I stood on the sidelines, in awe of the depth of his speculation and thoughts.
“It happened on more than one occasion that, as we studied Shev Shematata [legendary for its complexity], and then afterward, Minchat Chinuch, he would quote sources from the Gemara and from the Rishonim [medieval authorities].
“Segev was full of longing for the ‘sweetness of Shabbat,’ for the state of perfection that only the future can bring, and in all of his notebooks he wrote about the ‘Day of Shabbat’ and what that day entailed.
“He fulfilled with his whole self the commandment to ‘remember the day of Shabbat’ every day. As the Chayyei Adam wrote, ‘The holiness of Shabbat carries over to all the other days of the week . . . for that is the central source of energy that sustains the other days.’”
So it continues.
From his friend:
“It is the night of the 20th of Adar, 2008. I am sitting in room 9, in dormitory 6, thinking . . . about the room that was full of light — five friends — and how 20 days ago, everything went dark. Of the five, only three remain.”
And so it continues.
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