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I pray for every parent, every wife, every child waiting for their soldier to come home, the courage to wait, the strength to hold on, and the strength to keep going.
By JACOB SCHIMMEL JANUARY 13, 2025 09:13
Israelis attend a tour organized by the KKL-JNF (Jewish National Fund) at the Black Arrow Memorial, a battle heritage site of the IDF Paratroopers Brigade, with an observation point of the Western Negev and the Gaza Strip.
(photo credit: EDI ISRAEL/FLASH90)
Yesterday morning, I stood at the Black Arrow Monument down south. A place where history feels alive in the dust, where the weight of what happened a year ago still clings to the air. Just 400 metres from Gaza, they said. Four hundred meters—a distance my son could close with the sniper rifle he carries on his back.
A plume of smoke rose in the distance, curling into the sky like a question without an answer. “That’s Jabalya,” someone said. My chest tightened, though I tried to keep my face still. Jabalya. That’s where my son Amee is fighting. My youngest. My boy.
What does it mean for a father to stand so close to his child and yet feel farther away than ever?
What does it mean to be here, on this ground, while he is there, across that invisible line? I half-wished for something impossible—a gentle bullet fired from his sniper rifle, carrying a message that could cross the chasm between us. Aba, I’m here. I’m okay.
But no message comes. There is no signal. Only silence.
They told us not to expect communication. They said it’s better this way. I try to believe them. I try to tell myself that no news means he’s safe, that silence is its own kind of reassurance. But the silence doesn’t reassure me; it fills me with everything I cannot know.
The nights are the hardest. They stretch out like an eternity, where the shadows on the wall feel like threats you can’t outrun. Dreams crack open like glass the moment you wake, leaving only fragments sharp enough to bleed. I find myself standing in the kitchen in the middle of the night, gripping the counter for balance, because, somehow, the walls of this house feel too fragile to hold the weight of the unknown.
I think of Amee’s smile, the way it lights up his whole face, the way it softens the edges of his enormous frame. My gentle giant. His presence fills a room, not with noise but with something quieter, something steady.
Does he think of the hum of home? The small, ordinary things that make it his? The clatter of dishes he places into the sink after cooking himself a delicious breakfast? The way he banters with his four brothers and his sister, their partners joining in, their laughter filling every corner of the house? The way he produces magic out of his hands for his nieces, crafting small wonders that make them squeal with delight?
Does he think of Vered, of his mother whose love has shaped every step he takes? Does he know how she waits at the window long after he’s gone, standing guard over a house that feels emptier without him?
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I wonder what he carries with him, my son. He carries his rifle, his gear, the dust of Gaza clinging to his boots. But that is the lightest of his burdens.
The things he carries
He carries the weight of history, the weight of a people who have carried exile and return in their bones for generations. He carries the prayers of a thousand years, whispered into the walls of Jerusalem, carried on the winds of deserts and oceans. He carries the voices of his ancestors, voices silenced in Europe, in the camps, in the ghettos— voices that cry out now through him.
He carries this land, every inch of it—its beauty, its scars, its impossibilities. He carries the memory of borders breached, of flames rising over kibbutzim, of terror that came not from far away but from just across the fields.
He carries his people. He carries the weight of a nation that cannot rest and must always fight for its place in the world. He carries the dreams of his brothers, his sister, his family—dreams that he protects even when he cannot dream for himself.
He carries all of this, and he carries it not because he chose to but because it chose him. And still, somehow, he stands. He carries it with a strength that is not only his own but comes from those who came before him, from the generations that never stopped believing that this land, this fragile, beloved land, could one day be defended by their sons.
I think of his courage, his strength—not just his, but the strength of his generation. The generation we doubted, the generation we wrote off as distracted by screens and disconnected from purpose. How wrong we were. They are the generation that stands now, unflinching and heroic in ways we never imagined.
A general I met recently told me that he’s never known fear like this. He lost an eye in battle years ago, and two years ago, he lost his wife to cancer. But nothing—not war, not loss—compares to the fear he feels now, waiting for his son to come home from Gaza.
At Black Arrow, I stood just 400 meters from my son, and yet the distance felt infinite. It’s a distance measured not in meters but in everything I cannot protect him from.
And so, I wait. I pray. I pray that he feels us with him and that the memory of home is not a burden but a source of strength. I pray that when this is over when the smoke clears, and the silence lifts, he will return. That he will sit at the table once more, his smile lighting up the room, his seat no longer empty.
And I pray for every parent, every wife, every child waiting for their soldier to come home. I pray for this country that keeps sending its children into the fire and somehow finds the strength to keep going. I pray for the courage to wait, the strength to hold on, and the faith to believe that light can find its way back through the darkness.
English (US) ·