It’s another anguished night here in Jerusalem. Night after night. Day after day. The toll of the war is perceptible here in so many ways. It bleeds into everything, even as effort is poured into continuing day to day life. Again, the traffic is thick and heavy around the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, attend the funeral after another wrenching, fallen soldier notice.
The seemingly endless — 799 to be exact (as of this writing) — stark, black-and-white mourning notices have been printed and hung. “With great sadness the IDF is sorry to notify that soldier So and So who has fallen . . . ” The notice includes the soldier’s rank, the name of his family, the time of the funeral, the address of the shiva.
Each and every one: the finest of the fine, seemingly possessing exceptional qualities of humanity, kindness and depth. This one donated a kidney. This one, a devoted teacher and father of 10 children. This one, on the cusp of a breakthrough discovery that would have improved our world. This one a doctor. This one a beloved father of eight, a rabbi, a musical talent, a bridge building figure on the Israeli scene.
Many were fathers to now shattered little children; orphans. Their wounds seeping with the rawness and uninhibited anguish of a wounded animal. Their heartrending, tear-infused kaddish cadences of sweet, small, shattered voices piercing through the funerals. Many were nascent, young adults, now lost to bereaved, heartbroken parents, their children’s wings slashed before they even took flight.
The funeral for today’s notice of a fallen soldier will be tomorrow afternoon. Another devastating gathering on Mount Herzl. Another hero. Another gem. Another pained family who will never be the same. Another young soldier with so much promise, lost to the Jewish people, before his time.
Not because he was bloodthirsty. Not because he ever even wanted to hold a weapon in his hand, but because he answered the call, the call of duty, the call of his generation. To protect his people. To fight for Israel’s survival. To help another generation be born and grow and live here in this little piece of land we call “Israel.”
This particular soldier was an architect, one whose soul was attuned to building, not destroying.
He was a reflective, philosophical, deeply self-aware sensitive soul, possessed of breathtaking integrity, as is evident from an essay he penned eight years ago at the age of 22 when he began his journey as a soldier. The essay was titled, “The Scent of Garments/Apparel.” He reflected upon his first return home, outfitted in the military uniform that he had just begun wearing.
He wrote how he felt that he was in costume, for he hadn’t yet wielded a weapon, yet was wearing the regalia and representing the military, thereby creating the perception of a real soldier. Yet, a “real” soldier, he wrote, “is someone who protects the country, who carries heavy equipment on his back, and endangers his body and soul for the sake of the civilians back home.”
The thing is, this soldier had already been through a different, valiant battle, not all that much earlier. He had battled cancer. On that medical journey, he had inspired his community by openly sharing his experiences so as to help bring awareness of the disease and to help prevent others from becoming sufferers.
He was a cancer survivor. He was in remission. No doubt, he could have used that as a get-out-of-jail card and sat out this war. After all, his risks as a recent cancer survivor were enough to legitimately receive a conscription dispensation. His life had already been forever changed.
But he understood the depth of this crucial moment of Jewish history, and rose to meet this very dangerous and painful moment. For his life, yet again, to be forever changed within his already forever changed soul.
Just this past Shabbat, this soldier who was a young father, was home on leave, together with his wife, their toddler and eight-month-old baby. It was a family simcha. His younger brother was getting married. It was the aufruf, the pre-nuptial celebratory Shabbat honoring the groom. The seven days of post-wedding celebration were to commence this week. Instead, a different seven days will commence for this family this week, the seven-day period of mourning, the standstill of grief and sorrow, of “shiva.”
Saturday night he received the sobering news that, yet again, he had to return to the raging front lines.
Eight years earlier, this soldier felt that his uniform was not representative of his status, as he was not yet a “real” soldier. He had only completed his grueling basic training, yet hadn’t been called to active service. His army uniform was still crisp and clean back then, untainted by having witnessed the death of comrades in arms, untainted by actual fighting to survive, close danger, outsized risk.
It feels like mourning has blanketed Jerusalem; a heavy feeling pressing down on this wounded city. Another treasure, a Jerusalemite, gone. Another steep, incalculable price this accursed war for existence has exacted.
If only it could still be said that the symbolism of this soldier’s uniform were still out of sync with the actions of a fighting soldier in real time, in wartime.
If only it could still be said that this soldier had not needed to endanger his body and soul to protect the civilians back home.
If only.
If only that uniform —as this soldier in his youthful innocence had put it — were still not in sync with his personal history. As if is uniform and his fate were disparate.
If only this soldier’s words, penned at age 22, were still true now at age 30, the age of his death, instead of being his legacy words, the last will and testament of another fallen Jewish soldier, whose now tattered-in-valor-uniform sadly did come to represent a “real” heroic soldier, which he indeed was, as he “protected the country, carried heavy equipment on his back, endangered his body and soul, for the sake of us civilians back home.”
If only it were not another anguished night in Jerusalem.
© IJN 2024
