Today is a day of mourning, both national and personal, each and every one of us has loved ones that are gone.

Together, a great nation mourns its fallen: Ami, my neighborhood hero, who was only 16-years-old. Freddie, an ember plucked from the fire on Seder night, 1947; he had survived the Holocaust, and yet was killed on the battlefield. Maoz and his son Nir, Eran and his father Dubi, boys who followed the fathers they barely got to know. Hussein Ali, a bride-groom who never made it to his wedding day. Hadar, guardian of the walls of Jerusalem, who died as she protected them, just this year.

The list of our fallen goes on and on. None of them had planned for death. None of us brings children into the world with the thought that one day we will bury them in the soil and say the Mourner’s Prayer, Kaddish, standing over their open graves. Fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, grandparents, I stand in front of you and my heart is broken, my heart is torn. Your children, your loved ones, the fruit of your hopes, the subject of your adoration — there is no limit to the sorrow and suffering, there is no answer for the silent call — only the silence of death.

Read the full article at Times of Israel