the evening of Wednesday, July 2, 2014
We gather tonight in Vermont, as people are doing around the inhabited world, to mourn the senseless and brutal murders of three teenagers:
Naftali Fraenkel, 16
Gilad Shaar, 16
Eyal Yifrach, 19
Together they were abducted and murdered. For two weeks, the world waited. For two weeks there was hope. And then word came that their bodies had been discovered, badly decomposed.
For the Jewish world, already accustomed to so much pain, so much suffering, it was another triple-kick in the gut: three young people, students, gone.
All of the promise that will not be realized. All of the pain for their parents and families. All of the deep, deep wounding for those who were in yeshiva with them.
Tonight we are here to remember these innocents. It is not about seeking retribution or vengeance, or blaming who was responsible.
Tonight is our coming together, as a Jewish community with our brothers and sisters throughout the globe, to participate in our collective mourning for Naftali, Gilad, and Eyal.
Psalm 13
For the leader. A psalm of David.
How long, Adonai; will You ignore me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
How long will I have cares on my mind, grief in my heart all day?
How long will my enemy have the upper hand?
Look at me, answer me, O Adonai, my God!
Restore the luster to my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;
lest my enemy say, “I have overcome him,”
my foes exult when I totter.
But I trust in Your faithfulness, my heart will exult in Your deliverance.
I will sing to Adonai, for Adonai has been good to me.
Words from the Hesped of Naftali Fraenkel
“We will have to learn to sing without you,” Rachel Fraenkel said to her slain son Naftali as she looked out at his flag-draped body, which lay on top of a gurney in front of thousands of mourners. “The act of prayer is worthy, no matter the outcome. Each prayer has its own work to do. There is no senseless act of love and charity. A good act stands on its own. Everyone says you are now children of the world to come, but we had hoped you would have many years in this world.” She described her son as an amazing, happy boy, who was both cynical and innocent, a teenager who knew to pray, who loved music, and who lived a life filled with love. She said to her son “Rest in peace. We will always, always hear your voice within us.”
Naftali’s father, Avi, said that his son was both mischievous and mature, the kind of child who knew exactly what he wanted. Avi said that he had written most of the words he was about to say between Sunday and Monday two weeks prior while the search was still underway. “Now I know that was three days after you were killed. Since then the pages have been in my pants’ pocket. When I changed pants, I would get nervous that I had lost them, I would get nervous, but then I would find them and calm down. I felt that even if you were no longer with us in body, your presence is with me all the time. So you join the millions throughout our history who have been killed for the same reason, from Rabbi Akiva to Baruch Mizrachi.” Avi Fraenkel said that unlike the past, Jews now have a nation and that nation felt connected to the fate of the three teens in an unprecedented way. He then said to his son: “I do not know why you were taken from us so young, but your death has propelled us forward and there is comfort in that.”
Words from the Hesped of Gil-ad Shaaar
Today we are burying a child. To bury a child is unnatural; parents are not supposed to march in a funeral procession for their children; grandparents are not supposed to shed tears over their grandchild’s grave. It’s supposed to be the opposite. When we bury our deceased elderly, we cry over the lives they had lived – over the many memories they’ve left behind. When we bury a child, we cry over the lives they haven’t lived. Today we are burying a wedding; we’re burying the first breath of a new born child. Today we are burying an entire Shabbat table that will never come into being. And so let’s remember every second that we are burying today a child.
Today we are burying a child who could have been any one of ours and therefore he is one of ours – all of us. We aren’t burying a “settler”; we aren’t burying a soldier who fell in the never ending struggle for this land of ours. This is not the funeral of a particular population sub-group or “sector”; it isn’t one particular group that is grieving this loss. We need one another on this day. We need one another. We don’t need anger; we don’t need yet another division among us; we don’t need a competition over whose rage is holier or whose hate is purer. Rage is not holy. Hate can never be pure. I can certainly understand all those demanding revenge; how could I not understand when I share those same sentiments – when each and every one of us feels this way.
But today, at this funeral, in the presence of this family, we need love. We need to speak in one language. We need to rediscover the paths that connect all of us. If in fact we seek to punish our enemies, there is no greater punishment than for them to behold this sight and to see that nothing can divide us. If we want to take revenge on these murderers, and we find them and punish them, the true revenge will be the ability to transcend the differences among us and to embrace one another, despite all of our shortcomings and the disagreements among us. If indeed we want to sanctify Gil-ad’s memory, we need to choose what to sanctify: the hostility towards the other or the love for each other – that which divides us, or that which binds us; the suspicion or the trust among ourselves.
Children don’t write wills, so we must therefore write Gil-ad’s will. If the family and those assembled here permit me, I would submit that we begin the writing of this will with the words of the Holy Ari:
I hereby take upon myself the commandment of loving thy neighbor as thyself and I hereby love each and every child of Israel as my own soul and my own being.
May Gil-ad’s memory be a blessing.
Words of President Shimon Peres at Interment
Dear Yifrach Family, Frankel Family and Shaar Family, Prime Minister, Ministers, Rabbis, Knesset Members, Officers and soldiers of the IDF, citizens of Israel.
Today we lay to rest Naftali, Gilad and Eyal. Three wonderful boys, a part of the Jewish people. It has been 18 days and 18 nights that I, like all of you, was sick with worry.
We prayed, each of us alone and all of us together, for a miracle. We prayed that that we will see them return in peace to the families, to their homes and to us all. Sadly we were hit by the tragedy of their murder and a deep grief enveloped our people.
We are an ancient people, united and deeply rooted. Our story is full of tears but the soul maintains the Torah. These three boys exposed the depth of our people and the heights it can reach. A nation with a soul that yearns. A nation which demonstrates resilience like no other. A nation that even in its years of exile, never lost its way.
A nation blessed with mothers like Rachel, Bat Galim and Iris. Dear mothers, your voices united a nation and educated a generation. You, the mothers and fathers, raised children that Israel can be proud of. You inspired in them a love of their people. A love of Torah and a love of the land. You instilled in them devotion and a love of mankind.
Naftali, Gilad, Eyal, Many of us saw only small snapshots of your personalities, of who you were. From those snapshots a beautiful picture developed of confident young boys, sure of their way, in service of their people. Youngsters with radiant faces, who stood tall. With a thirst for knowledge and a knowledge of prayers. Sure of their purpose and fulfilling the commandments. You showed the face of our people with a bright and painful light, our unity and its morality. The victories of Israel, not only the eternity of Israel.
We also saw our soldiers, the IDF, the Shin Bet, the police, the border police and the volunteers, with focus in their eyes. Climbing over rocks with legs that did not slow. A sense of mission in a military uniform. I know that you will find the murderers, and they will be punished. Israel will act with a firm hand until terror is uprooted. To those who celebrate our suffering, I say that terrorism aimed at us, hurts those who dispatch it.
Gilad, Naftali, Eyal. Wonderful boys, sons of the whole nation. Rest in peace. We will bow our heads but our spirit will not break. Dear families, I know your suffering and I also know how you dealt with it, you turned your grief into a source of hope for the whole nation. May you find comfort in in the building of Zion and Jerusalem. May you know no more grief. May their memories be blessed for eternity.
El Male Rachamim (Sim Shalom p. 523)
Naftali Fraenkel
Gilad Shaar
Eyal Yifrach
Mourners’ Kaddish
Hatikvah
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