Posted on 01/02/24
It’s morning in the city of Harish, near Haifa. Hadas Lowenstern, who lost her husband, Rabbi Elisha, in Gaza, ends her talk to guests from the United States, who came to support Israel, with these words: “You came because we are in a state of emergency, but you are also in a state of emergency: there’s assimilation, lack of Jewish education, apathy . . .”
I sat with her and saw that the light she radiated in her lectures and Torah classes before the war was even brighter now, after the Shiva period, in Israel and throughout the world. She says she feels that the entire Jewish world has embraced her at this time. After this visit, I traveled to Masu’ot Yitzhak,a moshav near Ashkelon, for the Shiva of Neriya Zisk, a company commander in the armored brigade.. “As an officer, he was terrible at keeping his distance,” one of his soldiers remarked and everybody laughed. “He was an officer who would discipline you, but had difficulty holding back a smile when doing so.” And his mother Galit asks everyone to smile, the more the better. “To stand tall and to smile, like Neriya.”
His sister Atara added: “At his funeral, a teacher of his said that if someone would have told him that Neriya — a mischievous 9th grade kid who had to be repeatedly coaxed to come to class — would become a leading officer in the IDF, he would not have believed it. We are quick to give unwarranted labels to children and students and need to believe in them much more.”
From there, I traveled to a mourners’ tent for Major Shai Shamriz in Merkaz Shapira, a village near Ashkelon. His father spoke as follows: “I asked everyone who spoke at his funeral, or in the mourners’ tent, to speak only about strength and determination, without disparagement of any kind.” HIs mother Daniela told how his soldiers would check the Torah portion of the week on Google because they knew Shai would ask them about it.
Upon leaving — among droves of people from all over Israel who simply came without even knowing Shai — I met a neighbor, Tamar Rahamim, who lives in a neighboring house. Her son Ariel had been murdered at the Nova festival. And now once again the same mourners’ tent had been set up, this time for the Shamriz family. I asked Tamar what advice she would give to her neighbors after their loss:
“First, something I heard and helped me a lot: All of us are ‘disabled,’ but we determine to what extent. It’s our choice. Second, I always think about what Aviel would want from me now. In difficult moments, I think about this and know that he would want us to continue, to keep on smiling.” That night I got in to the car and heard the news, as if from an alternate universe...