RUTHFULLY YOURS

There is a saying in Hebrew, usually used in relation to layoffs in the workplace: “Graveyards are full of people who were deemed ‘irreplaceable.’”

The idea behind this characteristic tidbit of witty cynicism is that no matter how valuable an employee, there is always someone around who will be capable of taking over his or her job.

Indeed, we all die at some point, and the world carries on without us, no matter how special we are or how good we are at what we do.

No people grasp this concept better than the Jews. In spite of a history marked by mass murder at the hands of our enemies, we continue to produce new members of the tribe, without skipping a beat.

Even the Holocaust, which wiped out 6 million of Europe’s finest, did not lead anyone to assume that because the best and the brightest were no longer among the living, there would be no one to come in their stead.

Such is the state of mankind. Whether gradually replaced through the natural cycle of being that culminates in death, or finished off by forces of tragedy or evil, everyone is destined to cease to exist – in human form, at least.

The one thing that neither natural causes nor pernicious plots have succeeded in killing, however, is the Jewish spirit. For this there truly never has been a substitute.

It is this flame that refuses to get extinguished in the face of plagues or pogroms or Palestinian terrorism. It is this spark that never goes out. How appropriate, then, that the symbol most used for commemorating our lost loved ones is fire. It is the torch we bear that we pass on from generation to generation. It is what enabled us to establish a state in our homeland, and then to turn it into a political, cultural, economic, and sociological wonder – while simultaneously burying the bodies of our babies, who grew up to become our protectors in uniform.

And though it is this divine drive that keeps us going, the responsibility that accompanies it is often unbearable. It is the root of our tongue-in-cheek plea to God to “choose somebody else for a change.”

Indeed, serving as a light unto the nations is a terrible and thankless job, and we keep wishing we could retire already. But we keep being told by the big boss that no matter how many graveyards we continue to fill, we are forever irreplaceable.

As we mark Israel’s Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism, we are reminded of the price we pay for the task imposed upon us. All of us bereaved grandparents, parents, children, husbands, wives, fiances, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, and friends – who grieve privately the rest of the year – are spending these 24 hours paying public tribute to our lost loves, each of whom is utterly irreplaceable.

No ceremonial speeches do justice to the individuals whose names we recite with our heads bowed in sadness and in pain today. Nor is there genuine solace in the knowledge that we owe our well-being to those who sacrificed their lives to safeguard it.

It is an impossible emotional paradox that cannot be solved or reconciled with human logic. Those of us who believe that there is a grand plan, in which we simply have to trust, can take comfort on occasion. Others undoubtedly have a harder time of it, since they don’t even have a god at whom to vent their rage and devastation.

Even more difficult is what lies ahead. Given the situation in the region, and the rest of the world’s response to it, by this time next year we are likely to be mourning many more irreplaceable souls.

It is impossible to brace ourselves for horrors to come. Still, we can and must be prepared to do what it takes to minimize them.

We never applied for the position from which we have not been permitted to resign. But our tears of self-pity tend to obfuscate a crucial element in our “chosenness”: we were imbued with an inner flare. It is the beam that has kept us procreating, creating, inventing, innovating, building, enhancing, and perfecting, regardless of our external circumstances. It is what makes us both capable and worthy of fulfilling our assignment.

Now is the time for us to acknowledge and be grateful for that gift – as it is the one real ray of light on an otherwise dim horizon.

Ruthie Blum, a former senior editor at The Jerusalem Post, is the author of a book on the radicalization of the Middle East, soon to be released by RVP Press.