Shalom Sarel, the father of Maj. Benaya Sarel of Kiryat Arba in Judea who died at the young age of 26 while heroically fighting to defend Israel in 2014 Operation Protective Edge, spoke to Arutz Sheva about his son in time for Memorial Day on Wednesday.
Sarel was killed while fighting terrorists in Gaza on August 1, 2014, just weeks before he was to marry his fiance Gali.
His father told Arutz Sheva about the difficulties of Memorial Day, particularly because it requires the bereaved families to open up and share their private pain with the wider public.
"For us it is a day in which we are required to make a special effort. We open our private individual domain, our sorrow from the loss which is something very intimate, into the domain of the many, and that requires a lot of energy and mental strength. This is our second Memorial Day," said Sarel.
The bereaved father described his fallen son with pain, saying, "the quality that most characterized him was his self-sacrifice. He had great self-sacrifice for things that he loved and wanted, a complete self-sacrifice."
"The expression of this self-sacrifice was not only in his readiness to sacrifice himself for the nation of Israel, but also he showed self-sacrifice in his life, in his interpersonal relations, in his relations with society and also internally towards the family."
"He was really a family guy, the sadness of his nephews over how he was taken from us was a great sadness, because for them he was the ultimate uncle," related Sarel.
Sarel praised how his son showed his willingness in the IDF "to contribute with all his strength and power for our existence here in the land of Israel - that isn't something to be taken for granted."
"He fought for the eternal nation"
"Benaya had a very rebellious personality," recalled the father. "(He was) a man who didn't follow the crowd, a man like that within a military framework needs to invest a lot of efforts in order straighten up within the military hierarchy. He was ready to give up on (being individual) for the merit, as he saw it, of protecting the existence of the nation of Israel and command soldiers in the Jewish army."
Despite the deep personal loss, Shalom Sarel explained that the family has not sunk into despair.
"We have consolation, we are believers and we understand that we do not run the world and that the Holy One blessed be He runs the world with a high hand, and before the consolation there is acceptance, to bless the bad just as one blesses the good," he said.
"We are consoled that Benaya completed a whole life treatise when he gave it all completely for the nation of Israel and gave his soul for the nation of Israel, and someone like that who gave his life for the eternal nation will apparently be established for eternity."
Sarel spoke about the connection between Memorial Day on Wednesday and Independence Day on Thursday, with the one holiday leading into the other on Wednesday night.
He noted on the miraculous establishment of the modern Jewish state, saying, "our fathers were prepared to give everything they had in order to be here where we are, in order to see this great miracle of the return of Zion in our days."
"On Independence Day the central thing that is on my heart is great thanks, even when we have the sorrow of the loss still there is great thanks to the Holy One blessed be He for all that we see around us, and every time it widens our hearts anew."