Grief, Then Joy

There’s a feeling in the air today, a strange mixture of sadness and anticipation. Old-time songs play on the radio, becoming darker in tone as the day advances towards Yom HaZikaron – Remembrance Day for the fallen in Israeli wars. The songs break your heart. One is dedicated to a friend who fell in the Yom Kippur War. Another sings the stoic grief of a father. A woman sings the memory of a young lover, buried in the heart but never forgotten.  Some songs call in anguish: You who see and hear all, don’t You know it’s forbidden to pick the flowers? These songs resonate in our very nerves, for almost every family cherishes the memory of a man or woman who died in the wars.

The supermarket has yortzheit candles on sale. Of course.  In my house, we have lost friends to terrorism, but by G-d’s grace, our soldiers survived the wars. This evening, the siren will sound across the land and we will stand in silence. Then we’ll light a candle anyway. The fallen are ours too, as we are theirs.

Next to the memorial candles, portable barbecue grills and charcoal are on display. The strange mix of sorrow and joy rises before me again. For after visiting the cemeteries, after the embers of grief have been stirred to a glow, Independence Day begins and it will be all fireworks.

Next morning, everyone’s on holiday. Groups of picknickers dot parks everywhere, blue and white flags flap from every window and car roof. Men grill meat on the patio while in the kitchen, the wives chop tomatoes and cucumbers. On the radio, a soul-stirring song for Israel’s 61st year. No more wars, sing the young voices…peace. If not today, then maybe tomorrow.

The wistful, hopeful voices float across my consciousness in that mixture, again, of sorrow and joy. We have, with G-d’s help, rebuilt our nation. We did it alone, in the face of universal indifference to our fate. We have a right to be proud, and to rejoice.

Israel grieves one day, then steps forward the next, and celebrates with all its hopes and strength, what the fallen died defending: the living.