You Are All Alive Today

Parshat Va'Etchanan

by Rabbi Avi Billet

In times like these, one feels a sense of helplessness. A sense of unworthinesss.

                

Now that Hamas has resumed their rocket attacks, and Israel has been drawn in again to war, we shudder with the thought of every new story that comes out of Israel, of the short life of a fallen soldier, which has and will continue to make us wonder if we are doing our part for the sake of the Jewish people. How many of us, were we fit and trained properly, would be willing to go to the front lines, or send our sons to the front lines, knowing we or they might not return?

                

We are here, at Shabbos Nachamu, looking for comfort, and yet the words of Eichah 1, “There is no comfort” (repeated four times in the chapter), are what resonate. How can we be comforted when so many young men, true “giborim” fell at the hands of the enemy?

                

There is no comfort.

                

I have read of a Hamas plot for this coming High Holiday season that may have been averted on account of Operation Protective Shield. If true, it might be a slight comfort.

                

But who knows? I, for one, would rather have every one of these soldiers and teenagers back now, and deal with the next challenge when it comes.

                

Alas, this is the price of war. Fallen soldiers, lost sons, brothers, fathers, husbands, fiancés, and families bereft.

                

And yet, a united nation. From the left to the right, Israelis have supported this war and understand its validity and necessity. When a bereaved mother can say “Am Yisrael Chai” (the nation of Israel lives!) and that “Ahavah t’natzeach” (love will win the day), a world of sensible people looks on with admiration and in awe.

                

The Torah tells us, “You, who cling to Hashem your God, you are all living today.” (4:4) The translation doesn’t do justice to the Hebrew “Chayim kulkhem hayom.” You are all “Chayim.”

                

Understandably, the specific context of that statement was Moshe speaking to the generation about to enter the Land of Israel. Their parents had lost a connection with God on account of the Golden Calf and the sin of the spies, but the present generation Moshe was addressing had never sinned in such a manner.

                

Why does Moshe tell them they are living? Obviously, if he’s talking to them, they are alive!

                

Because the concept of living has different meanings. The first definition of “living” is obvious to us all – blood flowing, brain functioning, a person who contains the breath of life. Living also refers to what we are doing with our lives. We may be alive, but is the life in which we exist one in which we live it to the max? A life of meaning and of purpose? With goals?

                

And there is also the living that comes after death. Every Shabbos, we say the prayer of “Av Harachamim” which invokes some of the language King David used to eulogize King Shaul and Prince Yonatan who fell in battle. “They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they have not departed.” (Samuel II 1:23)

                

They have not departed because they still live in us. If Rashi “says” (present tense) and Rambam “says” - they are both still living. If David’s friendship with Yonatan never ended, Yonatan was always alive to him. If we can welcome Eliyahu at every bris, it is because Eliyahu is still “living.”

                

The Or HaChaim takes this several steps further when he offers a number of interpretations on our verse. He notes that the tetragrammaton can have a prefix added to it, but the prefix does not attain the holiness of God’s name. In Ba’Hashem or La’Hashem the bet or lamed can be erased. However, when a suffix is added to the name “Elokim,” the suffix attains a level of holiness akin to God’s name, and cannot be erased.

                

The Or HaChaim says “You who cling to Hashem your God” is a message to those who cling to Hashem in the manner of “Your God” – who attach themselves to God in such a way that we achieve holiness and can’t be erased as being not really part of God’s name – “you are living today.”

                

When the nation of Israel, in Israel and abroad, can unite under the banner of a united People under God, when Jews the world-over can say the Shema, recite Tehillim, gather to pray, the nation and its people live. When we count every soldier who falls as a lost son, and pay no attention to whether he was from a left-wing kibbutz, a secular family, a Hesder yeshiva, or a Nahal Haredi, we are living. And the memory of the soldier, who gave his life for the highest purpose, lives on.

                

If on Tisha B’Av we still remember those martyred during the time of the Second Temple, the Ten rabbis who were murdered in the 100 years following, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Chmielnicki massacres, the Holocaust, and all those who have fallen since the establishment of the State of Israel, then those who “were pleasant and beloved in their lives, and in their deaths have not departed” becomes true for us and future generations.

                

We mourn because we are broken and sad by the loss of these beloved soldiers. And we shout Am Yisrael Chai because we cling to God in a manner that makes us all holy as well. When one of us falls, a piece of God’s holiness is lost in this world. This is why we all feel it, and why it is so hard to find comfort.

                

May we be able to find comfort soon, when the IDF completes its mission, and the entity of Hamas is destroyed forever. When the Land of Israel is free of attacks our people will merit to fulfill all meanings of “Chayim kulkhem hayom” – that those who cling to God find the fullest meaning in life itself.