Page 3 - HaMizrachi RH-YK 5784 - North America

FROM THE
Editor

“Life with an ideal worth dying for is a life Jewish strength. After the horrific murder
worth living” (Dov Indig). of eleven Israelis at the Munich Olympics,
he wrote: “Alongside the sadness I was
didn’t live through the Yom Kippur also happy – the world remains the same,
War, nor the pain, mourning and
disillusionment that followed it. I’ve but how different the state of the Jewish
Ialways known the facts – that 2,656 people thirty years after the Holocaust!
brave young men died, and over 9,000 were This time, when Jews are being killed,
the Jewish people have a state, they have
wounded, sacrificing themselves to hold an army, and they are capable of taking
off the Syrian and Egyptian armies until retribution on their enemies… What an
reserve troops could arrive. But it wasn’t enormous difference there is between the
until I read Letters to Talia that I truly
understood what our people sacrificed Jewish people in the Holocaust – “like a
sheep being led to slaughter” (Yishayahu
during those dark and painful days fifty
years ago. 53:7) – and the Jewish people of our own
generation – “poised like a lion, to tear
Letters to Talia records two years of cor- off arm and scalp” (Devarim 33:20)... Here
respondence between Dov Indig hy”d, a G-d has done us this great kindness, estab-
deeply idealistic hesder student, and Talia, lishing a state for us immediately after for after two millennia of exile, our gen-
a high school girl from a secular kibbutz in the Holocaust and giving us superhuman eration is blessed with a Jewish state. But
northern Israel – a correspondence that powers to beat all our enemies… When
tragically ended when Dov was killed in we race along in tanks, storming a target they are also a challenge, to we who must
a holding action on the Golan Heights and firing, and there is the loud noise of carry on his legacy. Are we doing our part
on the second day of the war. The letters engines and shells bursting, with every to strengthen our people and our Land, to
began after Dov met Talia’s father during shell that I load into the turret I shout, advance the final redemption, to build a
his military service. Taken by the young ‘Jewish blood is not cheap!’” state worthy of Dov’s sacrifice?
religious soldier’s thoughtfulness, Talia’s Indeed, Jewish blood is no longer cheap. May this year bring only blessing and
father urged her to reach out to Dov and peace, to all of Am Yisrael. And may we
ask him her questions about Judaism. We are fortunate to live at a time when soon see the day when Dov, and all of his
every soldier sacrificed, every victim of
The letters reveal both Dov and Talia to terror, is properly felt as an incalculable brothers in arms, are reunited in joy once
be deeply thoughtful young people. A loss. What path would Dov have taken, again.
bookworm, Dov was conversant in Jewish what impact would he have had on our
philosophy, Religious Zionist thought and people, had he lived? Where would we
a broad range of secular subjects, knowl- be today, if those 2,656 young men who
edge he drew upon to passionately defend gave their lives to defend us had lived? Elie Mischel
and explain the Torah’s perspective on an Fifty years later, these questions are no
impressive array of topics – from mixed less painful.
dancing and intermarriage, to evolution “If the State of Israel is a Jewish state, in
and the Holocaust.
which the life, culture and spirit of the
Most striking of all is Dov’s intense ideal- Jewish people are being renewed, in which
ism and his pride in serving in the IDF. As the Jewish people are living their ideals
he began his third tour of duty in March, and heritage, in which the Jewish people
1973, Dov wrote to Talia: “Hurray! I’m a are strengthening their Jewish identity
soldier!... Every time I put on my uniform and developing it, then it’s worth living
and receive my rifle I’m filled with joy and here, and even fighting if necessary – and
pride and strength… What pride I feel with even dying for it, if it is so decreed.”
my weapon in my hand!”
Dov wrote these words only a few months Rabbi Elie Mischel
The child of Holocaust survivors, Dov before he gave his own life in defense of is the Editor of HaMizrachi magazine.
was painfully aware of the significance of his people. They are at once a comfort,

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