In his will written in 1898, Theodor Herzl wrote the following: “I do not know the hour of my death, but Zionism will not die. And after my death I wish to be buried in a metal coffin and when time comes I want to be buried in the Land of Israel.”
On the 22nd of the month of Av, 1949, just a little more than a year after David Ben Gurion officially declared the founding of Medinat Yisrael, Herzl was brought to his final resting place on the humble mountain that would bear his name, Mount Herzl. Addressing the thousands of people that were gathered that day, Berl Locker (who served as a member of the London board of the Jewish Agency) made the following powerful statement: “we are now bringing to his final resting place the remains of the creator of the Zionist movement, a great visionary whose dream is now fulfilled. But the Zionist movement has not as yet fulfilled its task and will continue its endeavor until the final goal – the ingathering of all dispersed Jews – is reached.”
His burial was the very first one to take place on Mount Herzl, and two days later the burials of both his parents and his sister also took place there. In Herzl’s resting place the soil from more than 380 different settlements was also interred, a symbol of the intimate connection between the great leader and the land itself.
In addition to Herzl, prime ministers and presidents have also been buried on the site that has become known as the section of the “great leaders of the nation.” Buried there are Golda Meir, Levi Eshkol, Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres who served as prime ministers, and Chaim Herzog, past president of Israel. They served as the leaders of Medinat Yisrael and guided us in times of great crises and challenges. All of them dedicated their entire lives to the State and to Am Yisrael.
But what makes Mount Herzl a holy mountain stems from the thousands of soldiers who are buried in the military section. Here are the gravestones that testify to the supreme sacrifice that each of them made for the sake of Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael. Here lay so many who were taken at such a young age, many of whom were only starting their lives and who were so precious to their friends and families.
Although there have been many funerals held at Mount Herzl since the beginning of the war this year, I only recently attended one myself. I just could not stay at home when another heroic soldier was being laid to rest. I felt I had to be present, to be there with my people and all that knew Yisrael Yudkin, hy”d, whose family lives in Kfar Chabad.
Arriving about a half hour before the funeral was to begin, I decided to pass by some of the gravestones and say a Mishna in the memory of some of the soldiers buried there. I first came to the section for the soldiers who were killed fighting in the Six-Day War in 1967. One had engraved that the soldier was born in Jerusalem and died in Jerusalem, and then I looked at the date and it said the 27th of Iyar 1967, only one day before the Old City was taken by our paratroopers and the emotional words “the Temple Mount is in our hands” echoed throughout the entire world. There were other gravestones that stated that the young men, some as young as 19 when killed, had made aliyah from Iraq and Morocco, and fell fighting for Jerusalem. Looking back at those incredible and miraculous days, we almost completely forget that over seven hundred soldiers gave their lives in that victory. Their families, however, will never forget and we, too, can never forget.
Then I came to the section of those that were killed in the Yom Kippur War. Unlike the feelings of euphoria following the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War was a devastating reality check of our surrounding enemies in the Middle East and the threats that our intelligence agencies failed to take seriously. In September, 1973 I came to learn for the year in an American yeshiva, Beit Midrash LeTorah in the beautiful neighborhood of Rechavia in Jerusalem. It was exactly at two p.m. when I, along with the entire country, heard the siren that marked the beginning of that war. Before Yom Kippur this year, I recall sitting with my second oldest grandson, Tzur, who asked me to tell him about my memories from that time in my life. As I described what it was like then and the soldiers that I visited in Hadassah Hospital, I also said that the terrible tragedy that happened then could never happen again. “We have nothing to worry about,” I told him. Little did any of us know, nor could we ever imagine that a greater tragedy was about to take place only a few days later on Simchat Torah. Today, Tzur is serving in the IDF Givati brigade and training as a medic.
One of those soldiers who was killed in the Yom Kippur War was Sariel Birnbaum, who had been a madrich in Beit Midrash LeTorah the previous year. He was studying in Yeshivat Har Etzion, and was called up on Yom Kippur. He fell the next day defending the Golan Heights from the onslaught of Syrian troops. When I toured Tuscany, Italy this past April with my wife, Judy, one of the members in our group told us tearfully how she lost her brother in that war. He had been declared missing in action and nothing was known for over six months. The pain that I heard in her voice felt to me as if time had stood still for her and that healing can sometimes take an entire lifetime. It was almost as if she were saying: “The voice of the blood of my brother is crying out from the ground.”
As I passed by those graves, I felt it was too emotionally overwhelming and I just had to sit down for a moment. Then I looked down and saw the grave of someone I knew, Chagai Lev, from Efrat. He was born on Simchat Torah in 1978, and after enlisting in the Givati brigade, he became a beloved captain in the army and was serving in Gaza in the area of Rafiach (exactly where our troops are currently fighting) when he was shot and killed by a sniper. Chagai was twenty-four when he was killed, and his parents (Noa and Shimon) dedicated a social hall in his name – Ulam Tzur Chagai – where hundreds of joyous celebrations have taken place over the years. Eulogizing Chagai, Rabbi Sholomo Riskin said: “More important than the life of the individual is one who chooses to participate in eternal life, dedicating his life to the nation and allowing it to live forever.”
In the course of the last nine months hundreds of incredible human beings have given their lives for the sake of Am Yisrael. Recently, I read the very moving and emotional words that Anat Meir (widow of David Meir, hy”d, who fell defending Kibbutz Be’eri) said to her husband at his gravesite. “A birthday is the point in time where you look at your life and say thanks. And even now when my heart is broken, I want to say thank you. Thank you for being mine; thank you for the pure happiness that you gave me every moment I was in your life. Thank you for the last words that you managed to send me which were worth more than gold.”
Perhaps one of the most profound lessons from this past year is the tremendous importance to appreciate life, to appreciate the loved ones in our life and to never let a day go by without expressing our gratitude.
Am Yisrael Chai!
