After forty-four years, Yehuda Katz, who had been missing since the First Lebanon War, was finally laid to rest in Israel.
That is a sentence worth reading twice.
And in the very week when Yehuda, the last missing soldier from the Battle of Sultan Yacoub, was brought to burial, the Torah portion spoke about the mitzvah of returning a lost object. Our commentators explain that the basic obligation is to return something that has been lost to its owner. But there is a broader idea here as well: to restore what is missing to its proper place - in the body, in the soul, in our people. To bring back what has been lost, in every sense.
The Torah expresses this in three profound words: “You may not ignore it.” And indeed, the Jewish people did not look away. Even when decades have passed, even when the search is difficult, we do not say: “It’s lost. There’s no hope.”
This is also an opportunity to thank the many unsung heroes who made that possible.
The Torah continues: “And so shall you do with anything your brother loses.” Last week, quite literally, a lost brother came home, to be buried in the soil of the Land of Israel. That moving commitment to those who are missing should shape the way we approach every area of life.
May we continue to notice what is missing, to search, to restore, and never to give up on what has been lost. And may we be instrumental in returning everything to its rightful place.
Selichot at the Western Wall
It took me a few seconds to realize who was standing beside me.
I was in the women’s section on the balcony overlooking the Western Wall plaza, watching the enormous crowd that had come for Selichot. Next to me stood Noa Argamani, who was rescued from captivity in Gaza in Operation Arnon, and Ziv Abud, who survived the Nova festival massacre and was married last week to Eliya Cohen, himself a returned hostage.
Both women were deeply absorbed in the Selichot prayers, and I didn’t want to disturb them.
I looked across at the men’s section. There was Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Western Wall, leading the service. Around him stood Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Itay Regev, and Bar Kupershtein. All of them had been held in Hamas tunnels.
And now all of them were here, prayer books in hand, reciting Selichot with great emotion.
“Aneinu.” “Adon HaSelichot.” Every word suddenly carried another layer of meaning.
Then the cantor cried out: “Our God in Heaven, redeem us from the hands of all our enemies!”
And I looked at them-men and women who had actually been redeemed from the hands of our enemies. That, I thought, was the message of this extraordinary evening: Sometimes you can actually see prayers being answered before your eyes.
I remembered all the mass prayer gatherings held for them, here and around the world. I remembered their names being recited through tears.
But the story doesn’t end there.
Suli Eliav, director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, happened to pass by us.
He opened his prayer book and showed me the words that come a little later: “Our God in Heaven, bring the redemption near! Our God in Heaven, bring the day of salvation near!”
“This is the goal,” he told me. “Redemption. Salvation. I think we all need to dream bigger.
“Look around you. There are 50,000 people here, most of them young. And young people are filling synagogues all over the country. The Jewish people suffered a terrible blow. We paid a high price. But something else is happening too: We are rising to another level. We are finding our way back to ourselves.
“So yes, we are grateful. We are moved. But we can’t stop there. We need to dream big-the biggest dreams of all. We need to believe, to aspire, to pray and to act.
“May we merit to see all our prayers come true before our eyes.”
A New Look at the 13 Attributes of Mercy
Since the beginning of the month of Elul, hundreds of thousands of people have been coming every night to recite the Selichot prayers. At the heart of Selichot is the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy. People pray, cry out, sing, and declare again and again these words that describe the way God governs the world: how He has mercy and gives sinners second chances, how He treats us with compassion. These words were first introduced after the sin of the Golden Calf, when we expressed remorse for our sin and merited forgiveness.
When our Sages discuss God’s 13 Attributes of Mercy, they emphasize a different point: We recite these words not only to declare how much God is compassionate and gracious and how much He forgives and pardons us, but so that we should learn to imitate His ways. God is teaching us to emulate Him-to do acts of loving kindness and to be more accepting of others. The way you judge others is the way you will be judged by God; God mirrors your behavior.
Therefore, it is important that we not only recite the 13Attributes of Mercy, but that we strive to emulate them in our own lives.
May we learn to forgive others and thus merit our own forgiveness.
Translated by Yehoshua Siskin and Janine Muller Sherr
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