“May the People of Israel remember their sons and daughters, the brave soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces and all the fighters of the underground organizations and the security forces, who fell in the wars of Israel.” —The Memorial Prayer for the Fallen Soldiers—
On the 4th of Iyar (the Hebrew date for Yom HaZikarón LeChalalei Maarajot Israel VeLiNifguei Peulot HaEiva), the State of Israel, as well as Jews around the world, take 24 hours to remember, honor, and express gratitude to all those who lost their lives for the sake of the existence, continuity, and prosperity of our national home, the State of Israel.
But… what does it mean to remember? Why is it necessary to remember? How does this impact each one of us?
Once, I asked someone: “What is the purpose of visiting a cemetery? After all, those who are there do not know we are visiting them.” I received an answer that changed my understanding. He told me: “In Judaism, we visit the cemetery with two main objectives: first, to ask for forgiveness and to find closure. The second, INSPIRATION.”
By visiting a Jewish cemetery and walking among the graves, we can read messages that could be just any words; but if we pay attention, they are teachings on how to live a better life, how to be a better version of ourselves. In those messages, we can understand how to be better parents, better children, how to contribute to our community, or how to live a happy life. They are messages that inspire us and allow us to move forward, despite the difficulty of the loss.
Memory (Zikarón in Hebrew), in Judaism, is not understood as a passive act of contemplation or reflection; instead, it is understood as an active act of responsibility, action, inspiration, and gratitude.
When the entire State of Israel comes to a standstill at the sound of the memorial siren, every person has someone in mind: a friend, a father, a brother, a neighbor… They stop to remember and, along with that, to thank those who gave what is most precious so that we can continue to be here. Remembrance is not solely an individual act in Judaism; it is a collective act. An act where we all halt our lives for two minutes, remember, and commit ourselves to continue acting to build the best version of the State we can, in the name of those who gave their all for this cause.
On this day of commemoration, two prayers are usually recited: Izkor and Kaddish. Izkor is a prayer of remembrance, honoring those who have departed. The Kaddish is the prayer recited on behalf of the deceased, yet this prayer does not contain the word “remembrance,” “death,” or even any reference to loss. It is a prayer of praise, of absolute gratitude, and a recognition that there is something greater than that loss. When thinking about this concept, it is very complex to understand why we recite a prayer of praise in a moment of mourning. The best explanation I have found says this: At the moment when it would be easiest to throw in the towel, to give up, to think that it is not worth moving forward, the Kaddish reminds us that we must go on, that we must see the light, however dim it may be. For if we did not, we would fail in the memory of the person who is gone. If we did not move forward, we could not continue the legacy of those who preceded us, nor could we carry on their teachings, messages, and lessons.
We Jews have a very close relationship with memory; so much so that we do not allow ourselves to have complete joy without first reflecting on and remembering the price we have paid to get there. At weddings, just before celebrating and shouting “Mazal Tov” together, we break a glass to remember the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash (The Holy Temple). In the modern Israeli calendar, we commemorate and remember all those who gave their lives and those who were victims of acts of hatred, just moments before celebrating our independence, our freedom, and our beautiful State.
To anyone else, this might seem like madness, moving from deep mourning to boundless jubilee in just a few minutes, but for us as an Israeli society, it is the perfect amalgam of the two central components of our collective identity: REMEMBERING and THANKING.
יום הזיכרון לחללי מערכות ישראל ולנפגעי פעולות האיבה
04/Iyar/5786
21/04/2026
