A Study In Contrasts

Children of Israel are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

Today is Yom HaZikaron (the Jewish Memorial Day) and tomorrow is Yom Ha’atzmaut (The Jewish Independence Day). Both represent the essence of the Jewish soul: our refusal to assimilate fully into anyone else’s culture, our absolute commitment to our own tradition, at any cost — and yet our grief for that cost, which is terrible and continual and exacted in every age and place.

While Yom HaZikaron is a hard and mournful day, I’m struck — as always — by how meaningful and appropriately observed it is compared to its American counterpart.

I feel this way throughout the year, in response to virtually every holiday we share some version of with our dominant societies in the diaspora.

Back when I lived in NYC, an American friend once explained to me why she hated New Year’s Eve. “I can drink until I puke any night of the year,” she told me. “On New Year’s Eve, I can’t get a cab.”

I was never that heavy a drinker, but in my young adulthood, New Year’s Day usually involved a hangover of at least some intensity. It was not an inspiring or uplifting way to start a new year.

Contrast that American norm with the meaning and beauty of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana. They are light-years apart in emotion and tone. Even in my 20s, I didn’t have to think about which I liked more.

It’s the same with Memorial Day. In America, for instance, the occasion means three-day weekend trips and barbecues and blowout sales.

In Israel, the day is not distanced or divorced from what it actually represents in any way. Our grief for our fallen is all-pervasive and powerful. All public entertainment venues are shut down. The day’s trademark feature is the wail of a siren that’s blasted to every corner and crevice of the country, during which the entire nation goes entirely still for two full minutes. This happens twice within the 24 hours of Israel’s Remembrance Day: at 8 pm the evening it begins, and at 11 am the next morning. Cars pull to the side of the road and the passengers climb out to stand as stiff as sentries, even in the middle of the highway. Pedestrians freeze on the sidewalk of Tel Aviv or the cobblestones of Jerusalem. It’s an extraordinary sight.

For the occasion today, I’d like to share two offerings I find immensely moving and affecting.

The first is a poem by renowned Israeli poet (who made aliyah from Warsaw at the age of 15) Natan Alterman. Its title is The Silver Platter and there are countless English translations, but as I’ve always favored formal poetry, this is my personal favorite among the ones I’ve seen:

The Silver Platter

Translator not identified

So the land grows still. Red fades in the sky
Over smoking frontiers in Israel.
Heartsick but breathing, the people greet
The wonder that has no parallel.
Beneath the moon, they stand and wait,
Facing the dawn in awe and joy;
Then slowly towards the waiting throng
Two step forth – a girl and a boy.
Clad for work and for war, heavy shod and still,
Up the winding path they make their way,
Their clothes unchanged, still soiled with the grime
Of the battle-filled night and the toilsome day.
Weary past telling, strangers to sleep,
But wearing their youth like dew in their hair,
Dumb they approach. – Are they living or dead?
Who knows, as they stand unmoving there.
Tear-stained, wondering, the people ask,
“Who are you?” – softly reply the two,
“We are the silver platter, on which
The Jewish State is handed you!”
In shadow they fall when their tale is told –
The rest let Israel’s story unfold.

It was this poem I had in mind the other day when I chided that young, trans, anti-Zionist Jew, saying that — as she’s enjoying her life, which she gets to live fully as herself — she would do well to remember that every day, she is feasting at the table set by liberalism and democracy. She has been handed that freedom on the silver platter this poem invokes.

The second offering I’d like to share is a letter I read yesterday, by fallen IDF soldier Sgt. First Class Joseph Gitarts. Yesterday was Mother’s Day and the joy I felt from the cards and gifts my children had made me was inexpressible. I was already in a heightened emotional state when I read this letter, and it made me sob uncontrollably. As annihilating as it is, there is so very much beauty in it too. If he were my son, nothing would be more of a comfort to me in the unspeakable event of his departing this world before me than a message just like his.

The idea that at such a young age, he had the forethought and character to write it feels so emblematic of the Israeli character to me. Israeli kids grow up not taking their country for granted and knowing they will all be expected to serve in its defense when they reach the age of 18 — and that they possibly might even make the ultimate sacrifice for it. I think this breeds a very different character than cosseted kids who expect the years following high school to be a four-year keg party.

At any rate, here is the beautiful letter this lion of Zion left for his parents in the event of his death on the battlefield:

Dear Mom and Dad,

I love you very much. Everything is as it is supposed to be. I have chosen this. I had a good and interesting life. And yet, I was never afraid of death. I could have skipped reserve duty and hid. But this would contradict everything I believe in and appreciate, and who I consider myself to be. So I didn’t really have a choice, and I would do the same if I could choose again. I came to this decision by myself and stuck with it until the end. I fell proudly for the sake of my people.

I have no regrets.

I love you very much and I am proud that you are my parents. You gave me a lot. I had a very interesting, happy, unique life. My death only highlights it. Undoubtedly, you are in deep pain. But you will manage it. I would like it a lot. It is the main thing that I want. Both of you have many close people who will support you.

Please, find something positive in all of this. Spend time with your grandchildren. Help Israel.

I am OK.

May his parents be comforted among the mourners of Zion, and may his memory forever be a blessing — as his life and his words were to the whole Jewish nation, in Israel and everywhere else in the world.

I’ll be back with you on Wednesday and in the meantime, I hope you will find a way to take joy, in spite of everything, in Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, tomorrow.

Heartfelt love to you all. Chazak v’ematz.

Am Yisrael Chai.