Stepping out into the crisp Jerusalem morning air outside Yitzhak Navon Train Station, I couldn’t help but consider how fortunate I was to enter the City of Gold a year after my previous trip in the winter of 2024. Like the previous year, I had come to join the Bergen County Unity Mission to the Holy Land. The only difference was that my journey in 2024 had been 18 years since I had last set foot in the Land of Israel, and it thus seemed me that I had walked around almost in a dream state—flooded by memories that had burst through my mind’s eye as if through a dam that had finally given way after many years of constant pressure. Now, upon my return in 2025, I felt far more aware of my surroundings as I walked in the ancient land of our people.

My first stop, after a languid Shacharit at a small shul next to Mosad HaRav Kook where the posted 7:45 Shacharit appeared to be more of a suggestion than anything set in stone, was to visit my zaidy on Har Hamenuchot. Although I had spent more than two years in a yeshiva in Jerusalem back in the early 2000s, as well as a summer semester at Bar Ilan a few years later, I had never made the trek up the mountain of alabaster stones, but something was drawing me toward that hallowed place. Perhaps it was the fact that my bubby had recently told me that when she had first began dating my zaidy, he had shown her a stamp in his passport marked “Palestine” and told her if they were going to get serious, she had to understand that it was his dream to one day move to Israel. Perhaps it was because Lazer Fuchs, a kind and gentle man who was also my bubby’s third husband of almost 25 years had just passed away, and I was sadly unable to attend his funeral in New York due to my Israel trip.

After more than one misstep, I finally found the gravestone I was looking for. Standing in the bright late morning sun, I reflected on my zaidy’s dream to live in the land of Israel, which was sadly cut short in 1985 after only five years by the cancer that took him at the age of 59 as swiftly as the rising sun behind the cypresses which line the rectangular section containing his final resting place.

Flagging down a ride from Yoram, a man with long, dark, wavy hair a few years my junior from Lachish who happened to be speeding down Derekh 7 as I was coming up the hill from the kever, I caught a ride toward Har Herzel (though he kindly told me in halting English that he didn’t really know how to get around Jerusalem). Through the familiar haze emanating from the cigarette in the corner of his mouth (chas v’shalom I should ever ride in a car or stop at a roadside makolet in Israel that doesn’t reek with a pungent mix of coffee and tobacco), Yoram told me how lucky I was that my wife supported my visit to Israel, as his wife got “all out of sorts” when he arrived home even one hour after he was supposed to. I hadn’t quite thought of it that way before, but no doubt he had the right of it. Thus, as Yoram merged onto a highway in the exact opposite direction of Har Herzel (I ultimately found a particularly pungent cab to take me back in my desired direction) I silently thanked my wife for supporting my decision to join the mission.

While Har Herzel was not originally on the itinerary I had in mind for my one free day in Israel, Rabbi Moshe Taragin of Yeshivat Har Etzion had visited my shul a couple weeks previously. During his masterful drasha, he stated with a pure and simple conviction that the one place any visitor to Israel absolutely must go to is Har Herzel. That sealed it for me. Besides, how could I visit the graves of my family and ignore the graves of those who had given their lives in defense of medinat Yisrael?

My first visit to the holy mountain had been the previous year, when I attended the funeral of Staff Sgt. Maoz Morell, a nephew of a fellow congregant at BMOB. I vividly recalled the tear-soaked faces of his family and friends, the three-gun salute which shook the air, and the Hatikvah which swelled through the crowd who came to pay their final respects into a crescendo so loud and full of emotion that I felt that if there was a more opportune time for Moshiach to come, I had certainly not felt it personally. It felt particularly fitting that I should return to Moaz’s grave, as I had been learning Nefesh Hachaim with my brother since I had heard at Moaz’s funeral that he had loved learning Rav Chaim Velozhin’s foundational work. If he was unable to learn it anymore, I had thought, at least I could learn it in his memory.

Gazing at the numerous stones of the soldiers who had been killed in the Swords of Iron War, I felt the pain of loss of the proud soldiers who have been robbed from us by the cruelty of Hamas. The generation of sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, family and friends who would be forever changed by the callous killing of their loved ones by an all-consuming senseless and murderous hatred which knows no bounds of decency or humanity. Many of the graves are adorned with pictures of the fallen heroes, as well as personal effects placed there by loved ones. Various food and drinks dot the gravestones with a plea to make a bracha in the zechut of the lost warriors.

The next day, our buoyant tour guide, Rav Hillel Van Leeuwen, softened as he sadly told us about the Shabbat night when he received a knock on the door from the IDF. Knowing that his six sons and sons-in-law were all safely out of harm’s way, he told the IDF officers that they must be mistaken. They told him that they were there for his son-in-law, whose brother, 39-year-old Moshe Leiter, a father of six and the son of the new Israeli Ambassador to the United States, had been killed alongside his fellow friends and reservists Sgt. Maj. Yossi Hershkovitz, Master Sgt. Matan Meir, and Master Sgt. Sergey Shmerkin. After being woken up in the middle of the night to hear the devastating news, Moshe Leiter’s brother decided not to tell a soul in his father-in-law’s community of Ofra about his loss until after Shabbat. This was particularly important to him because there was a simcha in his father-in-law’s shul, and he did not want his own sorrowful news to detract from the joy of the simcha. Moshe Leiter is now buried on Har Herzel with the other fallen heroes of his generation. What gives someone the spiritual fortitude to raise the feelings of the people around him above the pain of immeasurable loss that was his every right to experience and share with those around him? This question regarding the enormous strength and spiritual power of our people was but the first of many that would arise in my thoughts during our mission.

I’m reminded of the brave 27-year-old commander of the battle outside Kerem Shalom, an oleh from London, who spoke to us outside the outer wall of Kerem Shalom, beyond the outer fence separating the kibbutz from Gaza. (I have not included his name due to the current insane campaign where some Hamas supporters and other useful idiots seek to identify Israeli soldiers and make their lives more difficult.) Despite his close friend, Staff Sgt. Yaron Shay, being killed in the army vehicle right next to him, as well as their other friend being terribly injured in the back of the vehicle (thankfully, this other friend has since recovered and joined us on that day), the commander continued to fight on for many hours. The commander was too modest to admit this himself, but Shay’s father told us that the commander had been shot in the neck, and that the wound was so bad that he was ordered by a superior officer who arrived by helicopter to evacuate for treatment. The commander refused, replying that he needed to make sure that his people were safe. Only after the immediate danger had passed did he consent to emergency surgery to remove the bullet and shrapnel from his neck. What gives a soldier going through hell, with the ability (the order, in fact) to extricate himself from the field of battle, the fortitude to continue to fight with the knowledge that his wound might prove fatal or debilitating if not dealt with expeditiously?

I’m reminded of Talia Weitzen, who spoke to us of her husband, Amichai Weitzen, a member of Kerem Shalom’s security team, who was killed on the seventh of October at the age of 33 defending the beautiful kibbutz that he loved so well. Immediately upon receiving the message from the safe room he shared with his wife and their five children that the kibbutz was under attack, he told his wife that he had to go fight. When she asked him how he could leave them in the safe room alone, he replied that it was his “mission.” She said that he would constantly speak of his mission, and that he lived his life in the knowledge that it mattered more than anything, and it was his job to live his mission to the best of his ability. What gives a man the clarity of thought to carry out his self-prescribed mission in the face of death? What gives a wife the clarity of vision to understand her own mission and to support her husband, even if that means putting herself into greater danger?

I’m reminded of Ohad Lapidot, who told us about his daughter Tiferet, who turned down a ride in an offroad vehicle on the outskirts of the Nova Festival from her friend Edo (who ultimately made it to safety), because another friend was alone deep in the heart of the Nova Festival grounds. Tiferet was murdered at the Nova Festival at the age of 23, as was the friend she went back to save. Ohad told us, through tears, of the people who had reached out in the early days after that terrible day in October—when they still didn’t know the fate of Tiferet—to try to help. This included many individuals he had never met from Canada, where he is a citizen (but his daughter was not). They contacted their government officials so frequently that, although initially being told that the Canadian government could not intervene on Tiferet’s behalf, a government minister later called Ohad and told him they would do what they could to help—and to please ask the rabbis and other Canadians to stop calling and emailing. Despite lacking any legal status connecting her to Canada, Tiferet was ultimately put on the list that the Canadian government gave to Qatar.

Ohad implored us to likewise take personal responsibility for other people. To change something in our lives for the better. To thus work to determine what our soul’s mission is in this world. What makes a young woman choose to cherish the bonds of friendship over the bonds connecting her very life to this world? What makes a father—a simple lawyer (as he told us)—transform the immensity of his own grief into a message of self-sacrifice and responsibility for the benefit of the Jewish people?

I’m reminded of Jen and Rob Airley, who spoke of their son, Sgt. Binyamin Airley, and his ultimate sacrifice for the people and the Land of Israel at the young age of 21. Jen also spoke to us back in 2024 of Binyamin’s love for Israel and his mission to keep it safe at all costs. One fact that stands out in my memory was that Binyamin worked a part-time construction job and used all the money he received to plant a vineyard in the Shomron on the site where grapes were harvested for wine used in the Beit Hamikdash two millennia ago. He did this so that grapes would be available at the site upon the rebuilding of the Third Temple. Just as amazing is the fact that Jen continually stressed that Binyamin was completely ordinary, yet it was clear that he had chosen to live an extraordinary life. What gives such a young man the willingness to sacrifice his life for Am Yisrael and the foresight to be concerned with matters greater than himself that will live on long after his death?

I’m reminded of Iris Haim, who told us that she chose to spend time during the shiva of her 28-year-old son Yotam, one of the three hostages tragically killed by the IDF’s Bislamach Brigade’s 17th Battalion on December 15, 2023, to send a message to the soldiers of the battalion, who were so distraught at what they had mistakenly done, that they had lost confidence in themselves and their mission, and were unable to continue fighting. In a voice message that the reader has likely heard by now, she told them not to blame themselves for what they had done by accident. She told them that neither she, her husband, nor the rest of her family blamed the soldiers for even one second. She told them that she blamed only Hamas, and that they should take courage and continue fighting. Finally, she told them that they should feel free to come visit her at any time, and she would kiss them and give them the exact same words of encouragement. She also told us that she has completely changed her view on religious people, becoming convinced (and publicly proclaiming) that the bonds that tie us together as Jews are far more important than those that would divide us. As Rabbi Fridman noted in his introduction of Iris, no one would have blamed her for holding the soldiers, the IDF and the State of Israel responsible for what had happened. Instead, she turned her own immense pain and suffering into a message of love and healing. What gave her the power to make this momentous metamorphosis?

Finally, I’m reminded of our final dinner in a private room in Piccolino on Thursday, February 20, a few hours before I was set to depart to Ben Gurion, when the owners of the restaurant, sisters Orit Dahan and Anat Yazdi, unexpectedly entered and told us through eyes glistening from the fresh news of the fate of the Bibas family, that by eating in the restaurant we were participating in a mitzvah. They told us that they made the decision years before to hire staff with developmental disabilities, as well as children living on the streets, to give them a second chance. They told us that every Friday, the doors of the fine restaurant are thrown open to provide free meals to feed the lone soldiers of the IDF. They told us that, on October 8, after hearing how unprepared the army was for the sheer number of soldiers who reported for duty, the restaurant opened specially to cook 1,000 meals to drop off at one of the army bases. They told us that the restaurant’s private rooms were converted after October 7 as a drop-off location to house clothes and other donations for the army until they could be sent to the appropriate place. What makes the owners of a fine restaurant in Jerusalem decide that the goal of a business is something far loftier than simply maximizing profit?

I’m still processing these experiences, and I do not yet know precisely how they may help shape the contours of my life, although I have no doubt that they will make a lasting impression. As to the questions I posed to myself throughout the course of our mission, it would take a person with far more wisdom than I possess to even attempt answers that anyone might find satisfactory. All I can say is that it appears to my simple eyes that these amazing people stand on equal footing with the greatest heroes of the storied history of the Land of Israel, and that it must be left to each of us to determine the meaning and the impact that their remarkable stories will have on us.

Still, it seems obvious that at least one theme winds through each of these experiences like a river, splashing its contents on the shore of our collective consciousness. It’s a theme of hope and survival. It eschews self-pity and blame in favor of love, acceptance and collective growth. It asks each of us to take responsibility for our fellow Jews. Through an ocean of despair and loss, it calls out to each of us, asking us to uncover the mission our soul carries on this earth. I’m reminded of the first question Hashem asks in the Torah: Ayeka?