My first yizkor

I knew this day would come. It was the seventh day of Passover, and I stood – on purpose – in the very back of the synagogue, dreading the inevitable. I watched as most of my fellow congregants silently exited the room as yizkor, the memorial prayer for the dead, was about to begin.

But my feet, like lead weights stuck to the floor, would take me nowhere. I would never leave again. In past years, I would always number myself as one of the lucky ones who counted no member of their immediate family among the departed, as one of those who could still leave when the time came for yizkor. Though my parents are elderly, they remain in relatively good health, and I silently blessed God each time I could once again escape this somber section of the service.

I never dreamed, in my worst nightmare, that the first time I would remain behind for yizkor would be for my son.

Ari was killed 18 months ago in Nablus while serving in the Nahal Brigade. Although yizkor is recited numerous times during the year, I gladly accepted the rabbinic allowance to wait until the cycle of one full year has passed before beginning to recite the prayer for a loved one.

As a kid growing up, yizkor was a murky and mysterious time. As it approached in the prayer service, our parents would push us out of the room, and we would gladly go. Parent and child alike were relieved and thankful that we knew nothing of what was about to transpire. This was one section of the siddur that we systematically skipped over, blissfully ignorant of its contents.

Like most young people in the Western world – Israel, sadly, may be an exception – we knew very little about death, having rarely encountered it, and only thought about it in abstract, philosophical terms. Perhaps because my parents are Holocaust survivors, they were even more anxious to shield us from anything painful.

As we would file back in, minutes later, I would see a different congregation than the one I'd left: The women praying around me had been transformed into sobbing statues with blank faces and far-off looks, transported to a world I could barely imagine.

What had they experienced; what had they suffered? I didn't have a clue, because hardly a word was ever uttered about yizkor, about what was said or what was done in those few moments while I was away.

AND NOW, here I was on this last day of Pessah, in my 50th year, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with my three daughters, reciting yizkor for our beloved Ari. How I wished I could push my own kids out the door!

I watched painfully as our youngest, only 10 years old, slowly read the short prayer asking God to embrace Ari in the World to Come, and I thought: A 10-year-old doesn't belong here. The unfamiliar text in small print was hard enough to read without having to battle the tears filling my eyes.

And then, the dreaded spot in the prayer where the deceased's name is mentioned and his relationship to the reader indicated jumped out at me. My mouth had never uttered a more obscene phrase as I whispered B'ni, my son in that yizkor prayer.My son?!

My heart yearned to be that little girl again, the one who had to be dragged back into services from the shul playground, or from chatting and laughing with girlfriends.

Alas, I'm all grown up now, far removed – altogether too far removed – from the protective bubble of the home in which I grew up. Now I am the parent, charged with the responsibility to love and protect my family with every breath. I chose of my own free will to come to Israel and be part of the redemption of our nation. Twelve years ago, trying to explain the "absurdity" of our aliya to family and friends, I vividly recall saying, "I know what I'm getting myself into." Yet in shul on that day, I realized how naive I had been; I had had no concept whatsoever of what I was getting myself into.

I am rarely at a loss for words, yet there is one question I am continually asked for which I have no response: "Do you regret moving to Israel?" My heart beats faster, my mind races and my mouth opens, but no words come out. What can somebody say – yes? No?

My son is gone, and here I am, beginning a lifetime of staying in for yizkor. Suspended between life and death, somewhere between this world and the next, I stand there praying, crying, longing for that sweet, smiling little boy with the pure heart and innocent grin, the boy who put an extra NIS 50 in his tzedaka box before every mission.

The hurt I feel is mixed with unabashed pride that Ari did what had to be done to protect his fellow soldiers, his family and his people. He gave everything in defense of this ancient, modern land that is the legacy of every Jew.

Dear God, as I now join, forever, the other mothers at yizkor time, I pray that You will close this exclusive club to which no one wants to belong, and that young people will no longer have to struggle with yizkor's devastating words. Oh, and if it's not too much to ask, will You give Ari a kiss for me?

The writer is the mother of Sgt. Ari Weiss, who fell in battle on September 30, 2002.

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Two weeks before Ari's death

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Jerusalem Post ^ | Sept 12, 2002 | ELLI WOHLGELERNTER

Posted on 09/12/2002 4:12:00 PM CDT by Israeli

Every Jewish mother worries whether her son has enough to eat, especially when he's serving in the army. This is the story about one such Jewish mother who did something about it.

It is also the story of caring strangers she met who didn't hesitate to donate food for her son and the 35 hungry comrades in arms serving with him in Nablus.

The soldier is St.-Sgt. Ari Weiss, 21, a member of a Nahal unit currently stationed in a house in downtown Nablus. He's a good soldier, and a good son, who calls his mom every week and certainly before and after every holiday.

So when he called his mother, Susie, in Ra'anana after Rosh Hashana to relate his holiday experience, he told of his 25-hour stakeout the first night and day, and the second day spent praying and sleeping.

"He said he could only take with him for the stakeout what he could put in his pocket, so he took a halla, a bag of candy, and a mahzor," said Susie. "He said everything worked out well, but all I kept hearing is 'we're starving, we're starving.'"

She asked what she could do, but her son said there was nothing to do.

"I had one more question: How many are you? He said 35, and with that I hung up."

Off she went walking down Rehov Ahuza, the main drag in Ra'anana, wondering what to do. Suddenly she came upon Kippa Aduma, the shwarma hangout she knows Ari loves.

"I went to the manager of the store, Roni, and said, 'My son is in Nablus. He's stuck in some hellhole with no fridge, and he's hungry.' He interrupted my sentence and asked the same question I did: 'How many are there?' I told him 35, and he said, 'What time do you need it?' " After arranging for the pickup, Weiss walked down the street, satisfied she has done her motherly duty. Wandering into a wholesale grocery, she thought, Why not?

"I gave him the speil, and he said, 'What do you want from me?' I looked around and I saw candies and chocolate, but I thought they would melt. Then I saw a case of drinks. He said, 'How many do you need?' I said two, and he gave me 80 drinks."

Feeling empowered, Weiss continued down the street and walked into Balkan Bakery.

"I started giving the shpeil, and he, too, interrupted me and said, 'We close at 8, be here at 7:30 and I'll give you everything I have left.'"

Amazed at the spur-of-the moment CARE package she suddenly found herself organizing, Weiss ambled farther down the street and into Meatland, a frozen meat and condiments grocery store. "I gave the same shpeil, though this time in English because they are South African. I said how about some cookies, and he said, 'OK, three cases.' I said they don't need so much, and he said, 'Each soldier needs his own.'

"All this took place in the span of a half hour." Was it a Rosh Hashana-Yom Kippur feeling that was guiding her and the shop owners? Was it another indication of the rarely written story of the real spirit of Israel, the near unanimous support for the tired boys in the trenches?

"Everyone made it so easy," said Weiss. "I was gratified, it was a warm feeling. Israelis are always put down as being rude, and here I didn't even have to finish my request in my lame language, and they already understood what I wanted to say and were asking, 'How many.' And they didn't know me from a hole in the wall."

Weiss wife of Jerusalem Post columnist Stewart Weiss wasn't done. Later in the day she took her younger children to Roladin, a bakery in Kadima, which gives tours of the facility.

"As they served cookies and cakes to the kids, I said to the girls behind the counter, 'You don't happen to have any extra stuff I can take to my soldier tonight?' And she said, 'Wait right here.' Five minutes later she comes out with 15 individual honey cakes, with signs decorating the top saying, "l'chayal tzava, shana tova."

Chatting with her girlfriends during the day, she told them what was happening, and when she got home there were more bags of goodies left by the friends, "who by the way thanked me for the opportunity to do this."

There was one more thing to figure out: this being an army operation, coordinating delivery to the soldiers required a military maneuver. Weiss spoke to her son, who said he was a half hour from Ariel, and that if she could get the food there between 11 and 12 that night, he would take care of the rest.

"I told the head of my unit that my mother is getting us some food, and maybe someone can go to Ariel and she'll bring us food there," said Ari Weiss.

So from downtown Nablus an armored jeep drove to the temporary base outside town, and there a driver took the unit's car and coordinated with Ari's sister, Penina. The two of them pulled into the gas station outside Ariel at the same time. "The driver freaked out, he though he was picking up a couple of bags of shwarma," said Susie Weiss. "He drove back to the base, switched the stuff to the jeep, and then drove to the middle of Nablus to their house, where a couple of guys in full gear unloaded and brought it in.

"An hour later I got a phone call from Ari, with peals of laughter and screaming in the background. Not only was he king of the day, but I have 34 new boyfriends," she laughed. "Soldiers were grabbing the phone saying, 'Geveret Weiss, at lo yada'at ma at aseet lanu' (Mrs. Weiss, you have no idea what you have done for us)."

For Ari, it was all about the pride of a proud son.

"Everyone loved my mom, everyone was really thankful and gobbled it up," he said. "We didn't even eat it all, there's still some cake, pastries, and drinks left over. They asked if my mom paid for it, I told them that the stores donated it. I was smiling because I saw how my mother had organized it, and that meant more than the food itself."

For Susie, it was all about being a Jewish mother. "My goal was for them to have enough to last through Yom Kippur," she said.

......................................

Death of a hero: Ari Weiss (note: heartwrenching connection to read)

Jersualem Post ^ | 1 October 2002 | Jerusalem Post

Posted on 10/01/2002 8:34:55 PM CDT by July 4th

Two weeks ago, a photograph of a bright, young soldier appeared in this newspaper alongside an article about how his mother, with the assistance of some generous strangers, had helped to feed him and his 34 comrades serving in Nablus. Yesterday, that same soldier's photograph graced the front page, albeit in far more heartrending and painful circumstances.

Sgt. Ari Joshua Weiss of the Nahal Brigade was just three weeks short of his 22nd birthday when he was shot and killed by Palestinian terrorists on Monday during a fierce gun battle in Nablus. Another soldier, Shai Haim, was badly wounded in the exchange of fire. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Weiss, whose father Rabbi Stewart Weiss is director of the Jewish Outreach Center of Ra'anana and a Jerusalem Post columnist, made aliya with his family from Dallas, Texas, a decade ago. Weiss is survived by his parents, five siblings, and his maternal grandparents, both of whom are Holocaust survivors.

Any time that a young life is snuffed out in the line of duty is, of course, a cause for inconsolable grief, something with which this country has become all too familiar these past two years.

While parents elsewhere are accustomed to seeing their children off to college or a career at 18, Israeli mothers and fathers must send their young men and women off to a war that was forced upon them.

But Weiss' untimely death in uniform carries with it an additional component, one that many of us often do not sufficiently appreciate the enormous sacrifice that immigrants have made in helping to build and defend this land.

Like so many other Western immigrants, the Weiss family left behind the comforts and familiarity of their birthplace. They packed their belongings, left their families, and set out to live their dream: to build the State of Israel.

It wasn't long before they rose to prominence in the Ra'anana community, delivering food to the needy, organizing classes and seminars, or assisting other new immigrants in overcoming the challenges of absorption and acculturation. Rabbi Weiss, together with his wife Susie, strove to enrich the society around them, whether by bringing guest speakers of national renown to lecture, or by offering pre-holiday educational programs.

But, like other immigrants, the Weisses brought more than just their own talents and energies to this country. They brought their family, and their future, with them as well. Despite the risks, and irrespective of the difficulties, they chose to make this their home, and there was nothing which made them prouder than to see their eldest son don the uniform of the IDF, the Jewish people's army.

Like any native-born couple, the Weiss family lived with the daily worries and fears, listening intently to the news, and praying for the safety and well-being of their son and his comrades. But whereas for many parents, army service is part of the standard track to adulthood, for the Weiss family, and other immigrants like them, it embodies far more. It is part of the process of becoming truly Israeli, and of fully participating in the various joys and sorrows that come with it.

In a column which appeared on April 14, Rabbi Weiss poignantly captured these feelings when he wrote about his childhood friend, Rabbi Aryeh Weiss of Kiryat Arba, whose son had been killed in action: "With each day's new list of victims, we hold our breath as we hear the latest casualty reports. Will we recognize the name? Will the attack have been on a bus route we frequent? Will the soldier hail from our town? For those of us with boys in the army, we grip the wheel a little tighter, and perk our ears up each hour on the hour."

"Each time a soldier breathes his last," Rabbi Weiss noted in conclusion, "each time a hero is slain in the noble war against terror, a little bit of each of us dies with him."

The same can be said for Ari Weiss, his beloved son. He died a hero's death, defending his people and his land. And along with him, a little bit of each of us died too. May his memory be for a blessing.

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