GOOD MORNING! As the war in Gaza rages on – now closing in on almost four months – last week the Jewish people suffered their largest single-day death toll in this war with 24 soldiers killed. Every single death is horrible, terrible, and deeply painful; all of them are miniature universes of tragedy as our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers, etc. pay the ultimate price in defense of Israel and the Jewish people. Their deaths permanently affect untold generations of our people. There are simply no words.

Well I shouldn’t say no words. Today there is a widely practiced custom among the soldiers serving in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to write a final letter to their family and loved ones and keep it with them, only to be delivered if something should happen to them. Facing a life and death situation has a way of clarifying the mind – and their letters are remarkable.

These powerful letters serve as a final expression of who they are, why they are in the army, their gratitude to their families, and some final messages and requests. It’s become the custom among the grieving families to release these letters at some point during shiva – the week-long mourning period. As one might expect, these letters are both incredibly inspiring and very moving.

I have made an effort to read as many letters as I could find online and, as I will explain, I recommend that others do the same. The letters I read came from deceased soldiers from all walks of life – regular citizens, rabbis, Bedouins, and foreign immigrants.

We often wonder what we might do in support of our people during these terribly trying times. Of course, sharing our resources to help provide equipment and supplies for those on the front lines of protecting our people and the Holy Land is an obvious requirement. But I suggest that we also make an effort to learn about those who have fallen – who they were, what their dreams and aspirations were, and how they wished to be remembered – in their own words.

One of the more primal instincts within a person is the innate desire to be remembered. Perhaps it is because from a very early age people recognize that they will, at some point, “be” no longer. The very definition of mortal (from the Latin word for death – “mortalis”) is that every person born is also hurtling towards his own death. We instinctually recognize that we are very temporal beings, and we want to be remembered past our demise. This is, at least in part, why people have children, build monuments to themselves, or take on lifetime-defining works (e.g. “publish or perish”).

At the very least, we can help these brave soldiers be remembered, these precious souls who gave their lives in the service of their people and the Land of Israel. Their final letters are beyond poignant, and you will undoubtedly learn many different things – not the least of which will be a lesson on the extraordinary human spirit.

As I mentioned, I have read as many as I could find and was heartened by the soldiers’ innate gratitude for the opportunity to serve and fight for both their ideals and people. Incredibly, almost every one of the letters conveyed a deep contentment with their decision to serve, and often asked that their families be happy for them and not sad for what might have been.

(I was also struck by another recurring theme in many of these letters; the soldiers requested that if they were taken captive or kidnapped by Hamas that there were to be absolutely NO prisoner exchanges or any negotiations to free them. Many of them begged that their families not violate this last request.)

It is unsurprising that the underlying similarity in all these letters is a deep sense of gratitude. After all, the essence of a Jew is one of thankfulness – the etymology of the word Jew comes from the Hebrew name Judah, which comes from the Hebrew “toda – thank you.”

We find a similar concept in this week’s Torah portion; the Torah discusses the names that Moses gave his children and the reasons for them. As we shall soon see, they also have a recurring theme of gratitude and an aspiration for a land to call our own.

“[…] the name of one was Gershom, for he had said, ‘I was a stranger in a strange land’; and the name of the other was Eliezer, for ‘the God of my father came to my aid and he saved me from the sword of Pharaoh’” (Exodus 18:4-5).

Moses named his two sons after important experiences in his life. Presumably, his son Gershom was named for the events of his life in his adopted country, Midian, having arrived as an Egyptian immigrant and settling there to marry Tziporah the daughter of Jethro, one of the chieftains of Midian. His second son, Eliezer, was named after the miraculous event sparing him from Pharaoh’s death sentence and the resulting executioner’s sword (see Rashi ad loc. for the details of that incident).

Many of the commentators are bothered by the fact that, according to the chronological order of events in Moses’ life, he should have named his first child Eliezer because being saved from Pharaoh’s sword came many years prior to his arrival as an immigrant to Midian. So why did he choose to name his first son after events that took place later in his life?

In addition, the name Gershom (“a stranger in a strange land”) itself is rather perplexing; it definitely seems to slant toward the negative. Why should Moses express that he felt as a stranger in a strange land after being so warmly welcomed by Jethro and his family? They took him in even though they knew that he was a wanted convict and someone who had escaped from Egypt. Where is his gratitude to his wife, father-in-law, and extended family who gave him a home and family in Midian?

One of the ancient Aramaic translations of the Bible – known as Targum Yonasan ben Uziel – translates the verse similarly, but with a subtle addition; “I was a stranger in a strange land, a land that was not mine.” Why does the translator add those words to the end of this verse?

Remarkably, with those few words we can see that the Targum Yonasan ben Uziel was bothered by the very same question, and he therefore refocuses our attention to inform us what Moses is really saying.

In the original covenant that the Almighty made with our forefather Abraham, God is dismayed that Abraham asked for proof that his descendants would inherit the Land of Israel. God perceives this to be a lack of faith and decrees that the Jewish people will have to go into exile and be “strangers in a land that is not theirs” (Genesis 15:13). Of course, we later learn that the strange land that the Jewish people were to be exiled to is Egypt.

There is a remarkable lesson to be learned here and one that we come to understand as a driving force and motivation in Moses’ life. According to the Targum Yonasan ben Uziel, Moses, in naming his first child Gershom, is not referring to Midian but rather to how he felt growing up in Egypt!

This is VERY significant. Even though Moses grew up as a prince in Pharaoh’s house (he had been “found” by Pharaoh’s daughter and brought to the royal palace to raise him as her own child), Moses knew that he was a Jew (he had spent the first few years of his life with his mother who had been hired as a nursemaid for him).

Moses was a true prince of Egypt, but knowing who he really was caused him to feel like an undocumented Mexican living next door to the Trumps. He felt that he didn’t belong, he felt out of place and unwanted – “like a stranger in a strange land.” Even though he had every privilege and a royal status he still perceived Egypt as a foreign country.

Now we understand that, in fact, Moses named his children specifically in chronological order: the name of his first child describes his life growing up in Egypt, and the name of his second child describes his exit from Egypt. Moreover, it was also an expression of gratitude; he was letting his new adopted family know that he didn’t pine for the land or home in which he grew up.

Perhaps most significantly, we learn from Moses that growing up in a place with many privileges and comforts shouldn’t obscure the vision of living in our own land and on our own terms. We may be comfortable and accepted in the United States, but we should take it all with a grain of salt. If history has taught us anything, it has taught us this: We can never confuse being comfortable in a country with actually being in our own country.

This message should further drive home the lesson of what Israel is trying to achieve with the war in Gaza. This war has been horribly mislabeled as an exercise in retaliation for the horrors of Oct. 7th. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Jewish people are fighting an existential war against an implacable foe that has forsworn our extermination and is hell-bent on expelling us from our land.

We, as a people, owe a tremendous debt of gratitude for all that we have gained from the countries in history that took us in and allowed us to prosper (even as they prospered from us being there), but we should never lose sight of our ultimate goal; living in the Holy Land as a united nation with the overt presence of the Almighty in the Third Temple – may it come speedily in our days!

Yitro, Exodus 18:1 - 20:23

This is the Torah portion containing the giving of the Ten Commandments. Did you know that there are differences in the Ten Commandments as stated here (Exodus 20:1-14) and restated later in Deuteronomy 5:6-18? (Suggestion: have your children find the differences as a game at the Shabbat table during dinner.)

Moses' father-in-law, Jethro (Yitro or Yisro in Hebrew), joins the Jewish people in the desert, advises Moses on the best way to serve and judge the people – by appointing a hierarchy of intermediaries – and then returns home to Midian. The Ten Commandments are given, the first two were heard directly from God by every Jew and then the people begged Moses to be their intermediary for the remaining eight because the experience was too intense.

The portion concludes with the Almighty telling Moses to instruct the Jewish people not to make any images of God. They were then commanded to make an earthen altar, and eventually to make a stone altar, but without the use of a sword or metal tool.