Recently, in the middle of the night, we traveled the familiar mountainous roads toward Shechem and Kever Yosef (the Tomb of Joseph). We were given permission to enter the Kever at half-past midnight; and as we drove toward our destination, the moon shown fully in the dark sky.
We were forced to travel there like thieves in the night.
We had mixed feelings of gratitude, on the one hand, that we were able to go into the Kever, and frustration, on the other hand, that anyone would ever dare even to question our inalienable right to travel our land to the sites that are so closely linked to our heritage and history.
I remember so clearly a delicate little elderly woman who used to come up to Kever Yosef each week by taxi from Bnei Brak. I remember the groups of people, young and old, who traveled excitedly to pay their respects to Yosef and visit Shechem, the first place our father Avraham came to in Eretz Yisrael. I remember the many visits I was blessed to make to my friends in the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva at Kever Yosef, the talks I had with the soldiers guarding the site and how I would explain the importance of the place to them; and I remember the beautiful tree that stood proudly at the entrance to the Kever.
We were a group of security and military personnel who were allowed to go to Kever Yosef in thanks for the efforts of our forces in Samaria and in the IDF. As we greeted one another before entering the armored vehicles each of us remembered the numerous times we had driven in broad daylight to the Kever, to the yeshiva that thrived there; and we noted that now we were forced to travel there like thieves in the night.
So many memories crowded my mind as I approached the entrance to the once-familiar defined area of the Kever. The memories of our beloved friends who were murdered in Samaria never left us, along with the memories of the Kever as it was before Israel abandoned Shechem to the Muslim terrorists. And they, filled with hate against us, destroyed the Kever time after time.
On the one hand, it is so hard to accept the fact that we must enter in the middle of the night; and on the other hand, at least we are allowed to go to what is rightfully ours and, therefore, we decided to make the trip despite the terrible feeling of frustration.
Tearfully, we read the psalms. And even as the dim flickering light of the candles we lit shown upon the green 
We each must continue to fight against those who are trying to uproot us.
uniforms of the Israeli army (the army of David), all around us it was impossible to ignore the enormous amount of destruction and hate that was brutally aimed at our history and forefather, Yosef the Rightous. But then the tears mingled along with the singing and the dancing of the men around the tomb; they were singing songs of Yosef. We all felt the urgent need and the determination to protect our history and our right to be here, which helped us to overcome some of the feelings we had seeing the desecration of the Tomb by those who hate and wish to destroy us.
We each must continue to determinedly walk each square meter of our beloved land that we can. We each must continue to fight against those who are trying to uproot us and separate us from our history and our heritage.
Yosef always remains HaIvri ("the Hebrew", as he continued to claim, even through his bondage in Egypt ), just as we do today; and we will continue to carry on, as we learn from the promises to our forefathers, to maintain our heritage, and to walk the Land and dwell here forever more.