Yom Hazikaron

What does yom Hazikaron mean to me?

Yom Hazikaron is Israeli Memorial Day, one day set aside to remember fallen soldiers. Most people in Israel have lost friends and/or relatives who died as they were protecting the people living here and serving their country. I am a new immigrant to Israel and do not know anyone, without ayin hara, who has died in Israel. I feel more like an outsider on this day, then on any other day of the year. Practically everyone else in the country has put their lives on the line so that I can live here in peace. To live in Israel I gave up a nice job, a comfortable social environment, family close by and a system that I understood. That seems so negligible when you see what the natives have given up so that I would feel comfortable coming. I brought my family here because of religious reasons, these soldiers gave me the confidence to do it.

Those who are serving and those who have served and those that will serve and those that will not all owe a big debt of gratitude to the fallen soldiers who gave up their lives so that Jewish people can live under a Jewish government (no matter how much you dislike the politics here) peacefully in their land.

As I hear the siren, I stand up and quietly think about the words written in Pirkei Avos: "Give to him from what is his, for you and yours are his. As David said 'from you comes everything and from your hand we give to you'"

God Bless the fallen soldiers and their families, may no soldiers die next year. May we all be zocheh to live in Eretz Yisroel under the future government of Mashiach, may he come speedily in our days.