20 Shevat 2015 – February 9, 2015
-By Doron Almog
When you were born, we called you Eran. Yes, Eran – the name of my beloved brother who never came back from the war.
We had such high hopes for you. We wanted you to be smart and funny, sensitive and strong โ just like my brother had been, my brother who had lain bleeding near his tank that went up in flames and consumed his precious soul. We so hoped you would heal the wound Eranโs loss had left within us. We so hoped you could continue the lifeโs journey he had begun, until he was snatched away before his time at the age of 20. Yet, as it seems, we were asking too muchโฆ
My beloved son Eran. With your birth, you became the sound box for my dear dying brother who lay on the battlefield, crying for help. A sound box with notes of a song from another world, where all human beings – though they be of another kind and of a different spirit – are given boundless love just the same. A world where prejudices and preconceived notions of children just like you, have no place. A world where mutual responsibility is not merely a byword โ rather, it is manifested in endless giving. There, ego is foregone for the sake of the greater good: giving a true quality of life to you and to others very much like you.
In my dreams, I fight an endless battle. Again and again I struggle to save my bleeding brother, yet victory eludes me. Thus I throw myself into days of unending activity and ceaseless devotion as I struggle to achieve Tikkun Olam on behalf of children like you everywhere. Children without ego, without strength, who are powerless to act and to cry out their message to the world. The void left by the death of my brother Eran was filled by your presence. You never once cried. You never once complained. Your every movement bespoke strangeness; your very being, an enigma. Yet you were, at the same time, joy itself. You were the embodiment of good.
Itโs been eight years since you left us, eight years since the nature of our struggle began to change. The vast space from amidst the sound box you left within me has begun to burst forth in song. The village we created on your behalf has transformed to a pinnacle of selfless endeavor for the sake of children just like you. It has become a model and City of Learning about the wonderful world that was yours, providing a Tikkun and cure for the ills and vanities of this worldโฆthat we might see a better one. A better society, a stronger society, a just society.
In all your days you never uttered a sound, yet you built a most wondrous sound box to give voice to the weak, the powerless, and the different from amidst society. And it is this voice, this expression of the pure, which will surely vanquish evil, even as its ever-growing intensity embraces the world in the Tikkun Olam for which we strive.
