Elie and I attended Yom Hazikaron observances last night, the day set aside to remember Israel's fallen soldiers. As I listened to Israel's Consul General Amir Gissin and others speak, I struggled with finding the words to explain to Elie's 5 year old self what it all meant--the losses, the battles, the transcendent purpose for which the Toronto (mostly Israeli) Jewish community gathered.
And then tonight I read this piece by Aluf Benn. It did not help me in my ongoing conversation with my boy about his place in the Jewish world, but it did speak to me about the essential nature of the burden that all Israelis bear in the defence of Israel. It is an account of how the then Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan came to write a eulogy that was so charged that Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion tried to censor it. Here is the link to the full text of Dayan's eulogy for Roi Rutenberg, z'l.
We will make our reckoning with ourselves today; we are a generation that settles the land and without the steel helmet and the canon's maw, we will not be able to plant a tree and build a home.
These are hard truths that all lovers of Zion must carry in their hearts.
And now it is Yom Ha'atzma'ut. May it be a joyous celebration.
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