Zikaron

May their memory give us strength. For a child in Canada, Remembrance Day was always about old old men with foggy memories of faraway places. Here in Israel, the dates and places are here and here. So painful, the ceremony by torchlight tonight, so beautiful, so very very beautiful, the music, a flute, a violin, a cello and a piano, the buoyant and so Israeli melodies. So sad, and yet in some way I am strengthened tonight. The seder at the kibbutz celebrated coming home to Israel after two thousand years of longing. Yom HaShoah said, "Never again". Never again will this people be unready, unequipped. Tonight, the sad cost of never again. And all through the day til sunset, a palpable silence in the land. Traffic on the highway will stop still and drivers, passengers, will get out of their cars and stand together in the middle of the road, all over the country. And then, in one sudden switch, the land will break into singing and celebration. Someone said on the radio that this moment of changeup from sorrow to celebration is the true emblem of Israel, more than the flag and more than Hatikvah, that unison moment of change from sadness to dancing.