My dear Uri,

At 20 minutes to 3 in the morning, on the night between Saturday and Sunday, they rang our bell. On the intercom. They said they were from the army. Already three days in which every thought begins with "no." No, he won't come, no, we won't speak, no we won't laugh. No, this lad with the ironic expression and the maddening sense of humor won't be any more. No, the rare conjunction of determination and delicacy will no longer exist, no, there will no longer be Uri's boundless tenderness, nor the quiet with which he stabilizes every storm. And no, we will no longer watch "The Simpsons" and "Seinfeld" together, nor will we listen to Johnny Cash with you, and no, we will not feel your strong embrace and we will not see you walking and talking with Yonatan, gesticulating enthusiastically, and we won't see you hugging Ruthie, the darling of your heart.

My beloved Uri, during all of your short life we all learned from you. From your strength and your determination to follow your own path. To follow it even if there is no chance that you will succeed in it. We followed with wonder your battle to get accepted to a tank commanders' course. How you would not give in to your commanders, because you knew that you could be a good commander, and you were not prepared to be content with giving less than you are capable of giving. And when you succeeded, I thought, here is a person who knows his abilities in such a simple and intelligent way. In whom there is no pretense and no arrogance. Who is not influenced by what others say about him. Whose source of strength is within himself.

	Advertisement

And you were like that from birth. A child who lives in harmony with himself and with those around him. A child who knows his place, who knows he is loved, who is aware of his limitations and knows his strengths. And truly, from the moment you bent the entire army to your will and became a commander, it was clear what kind of commander and human being you are. And today we are hearing from your friends and your soldiers about a commander and friend, who would wake up before everyone in order to organize everything, and go to sleep only after everyone had dozed off. And yesterday, at midnight, I looked at the house that was quite a mess after hundreds of people had visited and consoled us and I said, nu, now we need Uri to help get things organized.

You were the leftist in your battalion, and they respected you because you stood by your opinion without giving up any of your military tasks. When you went out to Lebanon, Mom said what she was most afraid of was your "Eliphelet syndrome." We were very much afraid that like Eliphelet in the song, if it became necessary to rescue someone who was wounded, you would run right into the line of fire, and you would be the first to volunteer to bring a supply of ammunition that had long run out. And just as you were your whole life, at home and at school and in your military service, and just as you always volunteered to give up a furlough because another soldier needed a furlough more than you, or because his household was in a more difficult situation - that is exactly how you would act there, too, in Lebanon, in face of the difficult fighting.

You were a son to me, and also a friend. And you were the same to Mom. Our soul is linked to yours. You were a person at peace with himself, a person with whom it was good to be. I cannot even say out loud how much you were someone to run with, for me. On every one of your furloughs you would say, "Dad, let's talk" and we would go somewhere together, usually to a restaurant, and sit and talk. You told me so much, Uri, and I felt pride that I had the good fortune to be your confidant. That a man like you chose me.

You lit up our life, Uri. Mom and I raised you with love. It was so easy to love you with all our hearts, and I know that life was good for you. That your short life was good. I hope that I was a father worthy of a child like you. But I know that being a child of Michal's means to grow up in endless generosity and kindness and love, and you received all of these in great abundance, and you knew how to appreciate and how to give thanks, and nothing that you received was taken for granted.

At this time I am not saying anything about the war in which you were killed. We, our family, have already lost in this war. The State of Israel will now make its own reckoning of conscience. We will huddle into our pain, surrounded by our good friends, wrapped in the tremendous love that we feel today from so many people, most of whom we do not know, and I thank them for their boundless support. I fervently hope that we will know how to give one another this love and solidarity at other times as well. This is perhaps our most unique national resource, our greatest national spiritual treasure.

I fervently hope that we will know how to be more tender toward one another. I fervently hope that we will succeed in extricating ourselves from the violence and hostility that have seeped so deeply into all aspects of our lives. I fervently hope that we will know how to straighten up and save ourselves now, at the very last minute, because very hard times still await us.

Uri was a very Israeli child; even his name is so Israeli and so Hebrew. He was the essence of Israeliness as I would want to see it. The Israeliness that has almost been forgotten. The Israeliness that is sometimes considered almost a curiosity. And he was a person with values. This word has been much eroded and hs been ridiculed in recent years, because in our crazy, cruel and cynical world it is not "cool" to be a person of values, or to be a humanist, or be truly sensitive to the other's distress, even if the other is your enemy on the field of battle. But I learned from Uri that it is indeed both possible and necessary. That we indeed need to preserve our soul. To defend ourselves in both senses: both to protect our life and to preserve our soul. To insist on defending it from simplistic might and simplistic thinking, from the corruption that lies in cynicism, from the pollution of the heart and the scorn for human beings that truly represent the biggest curse for everyone who lives his whole life in a disaster zone like ours.

Uri simply had the courage to be himself, always, in every situation. And finding his precise voice in everything he said and did is what protected him from the pollution, corruption and shriveling of the soul.

On the night between Saturday and Sunday, at 20 minutes to 3 in the morning, they rang at our door. Over the intercom they said that they were from the army, and went to open the door and I thought to myself - this is it, life is over. But five hours later, when Michal and I went into Ruthie's room and woke her up to tell her the terrible news, Ruthie, after the first tears, said: "But we will live, right? We will live and we will go on trips like before and I want to keep on singing in the choir and we will keep on laughing like always and I want to learn to play the guitar." And we hugged her and told her that we would live.

We will draw our strength from Uri; he had strengths that will suffice us for many years. He had such a strong aura of life, of vitality and of warmth and love, and its light will continue to shine on us, even if the star that generated it is extinguished. Our beloved, we had the great privilege of living with you. Thank you for every moment you were ours.

Mom and Dad, Yonatan and Ruthie