What makes a people fight for its life?
What causes soldiers to do the most unnatural thing there is – to really and truly endanger their lives?
What causes those same soldiers to be so proud, so happy, with smiles light years away from that of someone endangering his life?
What causes our nation to find the strength to fight on in the face of unbearable pain?
What causes thousands who argued bitterly with one another yesterday, to leave everything behind and be so united?
What causes millions to feel such sadness for people they have never met?
The answer lies in our soul.
Not your soul or mine, but the single soul that connects us with each other, that we are part of, like sparks from a giant sun radiating light
Our magnificent past, unique in all of mankind
Our shared destiny, always countless times greater than any personal goal,
Our Israeli togetherness
War is the time for this great radiating sun, for our one soul, not yours or mine or his.
That is what causes the pain for the fallen to be something else, to be grief that cuts deep into the soul, but that also fills it with pride
It is a desecration of God’s Name, but also an incomparable Sanctification of His Name
The fallen are not “a life that is over.” They are gone on a personal level, but they are alive nationally, they are in the life that continues on here because they gifted it to us, in an Israel that will continue on and prevail
The fallen are the only ones for whom parents will weep forever, each year on that terrible date – and for whom an entire nation will cease what it is doing, remain still for one day, be with them and with their deaths – and out of this silence find the strength to celebrate its living redemption, because the souls of the fallen are engraved in the nation’s soul, and its soul forever in theirs
It is not the Meron tragedy, nor the Carmel Forest disaster, it is not a massive traffic accident or a plague that fells masses. This is about a nation that arose after a long sleep and discovered that she is a lioness, that she wants to destroy all the evil surrounding her, that she meets that battle with courage, and is wiling to pay a heavy price to fulfill the destiny her soul demands of her, the destiny given her by God.
So grieve, but with your head held high. Weep, but be filled with pride. Look at the faces of the fighters who fell and mourn the lives cut painfully short, but also remember the great pride with which they would look back at us if they could, and hear them telling us – march on!
Yair Uriel is an IDF reservist fighter and in civil life, head of the public action organization Techelet
Translated from the Hebrew by Rochel Sylvetsky