This
morning I went to my second funeral in four days. This time it was for a young man, a paratrooper named Shahar
Dauber, whose life was cut tragically short when the booby-trapped house he
entered collapsed on top of him and his two fellow platoon-mates. Several thousand people came out to attend
the funeral, which was held high up on the hill overlooking Kibbutz Ginegar in the beautiful military cemetery located in the shade of ancient olive and carob trees. Shahar
was the first addition to the cemetery since the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
Because of
the close-knit nature of kibbutz life and my personal connection with this
little corner of Israel, the funeral really hit home and left me gasping for
air all day. It was all so intimate. Person after person told of their shared lives with Shahar and their inability to
grasp or accept this loss. His friends
spoke of their childhoods growing up together in their little community and their
shared plans for the future. We all sobbed when his brother told us that on
the same day that they received the terrible news he had also been called up for reserve duty before letting out the plaintive cry “My
kid brother is no more!” It is a devastating blow for this little community and
a wound which will take a very long time to heal.
As difficult
as it was to be at the funeral today, and as hard as it is at times to be here in Israel,
there is absolutely no place in the world I would rather be, especially at this time. This is actually my third time being in
Israel during a war, and, as painful as it is sometimes, living abroad
during bouts of conflict was always infinitely harder for me. The distance, the
inability to help in any way, the frustration of being around people who haven’t
a clue always made it much harder to bear. At
least here, I can go to the funeral and pay my last respects to a young man who
was a hero, I can comfort my friends in their loss, and I can partake in the
heartfelt camaraderie that Israelis share during such trying times.
Two
anecdotes from the last day come to mind. When I called my boss to see if I
could take off from work to go to the funeral, he didn’t answer me in officialese
about vacation hours or say anything about making up the time lost. He simply told
me, “Comforting those in mourning is a Jewish value. You have to go.” Somehow,
I just can’t imagine a manager in a US office or HR department making an appeal
to values – whether Jewish or otherwise. The second example came after the
funeral concluded. I was walking back to
the car with my friends when we ran across a distraught woman who had clearly been
crying her eyes out since long before the funeral started. I assumed that she
was from the family of the deceased and several kibbutz members stopped to give
her an encouraging word and a hug. I overheard
someone tell her “Lightning won’t strike twice.” It was at that moment I
understood that her son was also off fighting in Gaza. Tonight my prayers go out to
him and all the other soldiers fighting in Gaza, that they may all return home soon and in one piece.
As it says in Psalms 29:11 "The Lord will give strength to his people. The Lord will bless his people with Peace."
In Other
News: There is much
political commentary that needs to be discussed, but it will have to wait for
the morrow.
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