The Jewish Nation: Shattered Yet Unbreakable

Standing at Har Herzl on a cool Jerusalem evening last night, I witnessed something that defies explanation—a people simultaneously shattered and unbreakable.

How does the Jewish nation keep going?

I stood at the funeral of Captain Daniel Perez, joined by thousands who gathered at Mount Herzl. But this wasn't just any funeral—this was the second funeral, a reality so cruel it seems impossible to comprehend.

For months after October 7th, his family clung to hope that he was alive. Then came the devastating notification of his death. Still, they waited—hoping, praying for his body to be returned so they could lay him to rest with dignity. Tonight, finally, they could say goodbye.

But the moment that broke me—and everyone around me—came when Matan Angrest arrived. One of the 20 hostages just released from captivity, he stood at the graveside of his commander—frail, pale, barely able to walk after his ordeal in Gaza. Yet there he was. Standing, present, honoring the man who had led him. He spoke briefly but with bravery. He said, “I can’t believe I even made it here. This is the least I could do for Daniel and the whole crew… My commander will always be my commander, until the day I die. You will go with me until my last day and even in the world to come.”

How can anyone fathom such strength?

Then I looked to my left and saw something equally profound. A regular man in the crowd—except he wasn't regular at all. It was Jon Polin, father of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the hostages who never made it out of Gaza alive. There he stood, his own heart carved out by unimaginable loss, physically holding and supporting another grieving family through their pain.

There wasn't a dry eye in the crowd.

In all my years of studying Positive Psychology—a science focused heavily on the study of resilience, hope, and meaning—there is no data, no research, no theoretical framework that could explain the magnitude of what I experienced tonight. The textbooks speak of post-traumatic growth, of finding meaning in suffering, of the human capacity for resilience. But they fall silent before this. What I witnessed transcends every model and metric we've developed to understand human strength.

The dichotomy was awesome in the truest sense of the word—inspiring awe, wonder, and reverence. Here was a nation brought to its knees by grief, yet somehow standing taller than ever. Broken, but refusing to break. Mourning, but not losing hope. Burying their dead while embracing their returned living.

This is the paradox of the Jewish people that has sustained us through millennia. We cry—deeply, authentically, without restraint. Yet we don't surrender to despair. We attend second funerals for our fallen heroes. We watch emaciated hostages stumble to honor their commanders. We see bereaved fathers comfort other bereaved families.

And somehow, impossibly, we keep going.

Because that's what Daniel would have wanted. That's what Hersh would have wanted. That's what this nation has always done—we hold each other up when standing seems impossible. We find strength not despite our brokenness, but somehow through it.

As I left Har Herzl last night, I carried two feelings that shouldn't coexist but somehow do in the Jewish heart: profound sadness and profound pride. Sadness for all we've lost. Pride in who we are when faced with the unthinkable.

This is how this nation keeps going—together, broken but unbroken, supporting each other through the unbearable until, somehow, it becomes bearable.

May Daniel's memory be a blessing. May all our fallen be remembered.