RAV YITZCHAK NERIYA: Generations of Self-Sacrifice

In memory of my cousin, Captain David Chaim Meir Hy”d, a fighter in Sayeret Matkal, who was killed in the heroic gun battle in Beeri.

(Rav Yitzchak Neriya / VINnews) — My dear cousin, in one of our final exchanges, I shared with you something I had written, and you responded – as usual – with a gentle smile, saying, “I wish I had such inspiration from time to time.” Unfortunately, because of your passing, I once again have an inspiration, and an inner voice which pushed me to write.

Every person is an entire world. A world consisting of family, friends, work, trips and outings, music, smiles, giving, and many have the privilege of belonging to the world of Torah, or the world of devotion to Klal Yisrael.

Every funeral, every death, allows us to slowly digest and try to understand, to perhaps learn something, to internalize and take with us something, no matter how small, to bring it into our lives, and to simply be a little bit better.

But, Ribono shel Olam, how can we do this when they are talking of some one thousand fallen, of Jewish blood that has been spilled like water – an expression which we thought belonged to the past? How can we learn about one thousand worlds? And what can we take? I do not have a clear answer, only a suggestion.

As we say each morning in shacharit, כולם אהובים כולם ברורים כולם גיבורים כולם קדושים – “They are all beloved, they are all flawless, they are all powerful, they are all sacred.”

These pure souls – the elderly, the children, the courageous fighters, the women, the men – were all killed only because they were Jews. It does not matter if someone was at the music festival, in the middle of hakafot on Simchat Torah, jogging, on a trip, or going to fulfill the mitzva of being sandak at his grandson’s berit – they are all sacred. And not just sacred, but הרוגי מלכות, victims of foreign nations, an entirely different level of sanctity and purity, of whom Chazal teach, אין כל בריה יכולה לעמוד במחיצתם – no person can stand with them in their מחיצה, in the section they inhabit in the next world.

It is difficult to understand what a מחיצה – literally, “partition” – is doing in the upper world. After all, a מחיצה serves to separate, and in heaven, everything is joined together and fully integrated. Perhaps this מחיצה is not made from wood or from walls, is not even walls of a sukka, is not made even from flags like the מחיצה at Dizingoff Square this past Yom Kippur – but is made rather to demarcate spiritual height, to designate a place where only those who get there are there, and those who don’t get there, aren’t. They are all there together, without it making any difference what, who, when, and why. Lulianus and Papos are there together with David and Dagan, with Omri and with Yochanan, with Peleg and Maayan, Reut and Tamar, Marcella and Aleksei. They are all there together with souls with names used in the past in exile, such as Fayga, Zalman, John, Bayla, Shayna, and so many others, from so many generations of מסירות נפש, of self-sacrifice.

From their מחיצה, things are seen much differently. They are seen with more tolerance, with more empathy, with more sincerity, and, primarily, from the right perspective.

They experience not a world that is fragmented and detached, but a world that is whole and integrated. They did not die from illness or an accident. They died only because they belong to the very special unit called יחידה ליחדך בעולמך – the only nation that proclaims God’s oneness in the world.

In times of war, the true אני – “I” – of Am Yisrael is revealed, the hidden elements of the soul. This is the real truth. We are not different worlds, we are not different factions. We are one giant soul that split into many bodies, many different worlds, generations, factions, and communities. Externally, there is not always agreement between the different parts of that single soul. Some want to press harder on the gas pedal, or stronger on the brakes. There is right, there is left, there is the middle, there is the top, there is the front and there is the back.

These are not really fundamental differences. It is like any decision a person has to make, and there are factors pulling him in all different directions. Sometimes a person has to decide – but this does not change the reality that this large soul is one. Its desire is only to do good, to bring about blessing, to advance the world, to perfect it, to eliminate hatred and negative character traits.

My wish is that we remember this each day, and we live this important truth.