Jerusalem— Over the past few weeks, Jews throughout the world have joined together in a tremendous display of solidarity to support Israel dur­ing Operation Protective Edge. The outpouring of love and apprecia­tion to our soldiers has been inspir­ing, and the acts of chesed that this unity has spawned have been noth­ing short of astounding.

One of the many areas where Jews have shown appreciation has been in the extremely well-at­tended funerals for our fallen sol­diers. Many of these stories have already become legendary: the al­most 20,000 people who attend­ed the Haifa funeral for lone soldier Sean Carmeli, and the funeral for lone soldier Jordan Bensemhoun, where only 6,000 people attend­ed because the government asked people to stay away due to safe­ty concerns owing to the Ashkelon cemetery’s proximity to enemy fire.

I attended two uplifting funerals that had many similarities and many differences.

Yuval Heiman of Efrat was killed in the early days of the conflict, and thousands of people attend­ed his funeral. The grandfathers, parents, and siblings spoke beau­tifully and eloquently about Yuval’s sterling attributes: how he was a wonderful son, loving brother, and selfless friend. Then his girlfriend spoke, and shared that just the pre­vious week they had made a siyy­um upon completing Sefer Mesil­lat Yesharim (The Path of the Just), Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto’s clas­sic book of ethics (mussar), which focuses on character perfection. It dawned on me—and probably many others—during the funeral that Yuval was an extraordinary per­son who spent his brief life traveling along the “Path of the Just.”

Two days later, I attended the funeral of lone soldier Max Stein­berg. Max had a limited Jewish background, and visited Israel for the first time in 2012 on a Birth­right trip. Max obviously had Jewish pride and a strong moral compass, but this trip awakened within him a heightened appreciation of his her­itage and the importance of having a Jewish homeland. Max fell in love with Israel and decided to enlist in the army’s Golani Brigade the fol­lowing year. Max cherished the leg­endary singer Bob Marley and often quoted him. One insightful quote mentioned repeatedly at the funer­al was, “Live for yourself, and you will live in vain. Live for others, and you will live again.” That quote ap­peared to be Max’s raison d’etre: he was a magnificent son and broth­er, and a caring and compassionate friend. To paraphrase Bob Marley, Max lived for others and, making the ultimate sacrifice for his people, died for others.

My wise mother-in-law often tells me after attending a meaning­ful funeral that it was a “beautiful funeral.” By learning about the de­ceased’s activities and priorities she was inspired to rededicate herself to personal growth. The funerals of Yuval and Max were “beautiful fu­nerals,” as we learned stories of two idealistic men who died way too young but left their indelible mark on many people. By allowing our­selves to be inspired and uplifted by these extraordinary heroes, Yu­val and Max will indeed both “live again.”

Gedaliah Borvick is the founder of My Is­rael Home (www.myisraelhome.com), a real estate agency focused on helping people from abroad buy and sell homes in Israel. To sign up for his monthly mar­ket updates, contact him at gborvick@ gmail.com.

By Gedaliah Borvick