There is a heaviness to Yom Hazikaron that is difficult to capture in words. The density of the experience—the emotional toll, the cultural and sociological significance—is compounded by the very real familiarity with loss. It is not a conceptual day on which we honor those who paid the ultimate price in wars long ago. There are real names, recent memories and fresh wounds still painfully raw.

The heaviness is palpable. In Israel, it is impossible to escape the day. The sirens bring the country to a halt, giving people, regardless of their location, an opportunity to connect with a collective consciousness and tap into a frequency of grief and national sorrow. The heavily choreographed ceremonies, mirroring religious devotion, formalize and ritualize memory and loss. They cut across communities and settings.

One of my earliest memories from grade school was a reenactment the 7th graders performed of a famous war ballad sung by Yehoram Gaon, titled The Ballad for the Medic. I was in 5th grade—just ten years old—and these kids, only slightly older, were acting out the song in all its heartbreaking detail. Even as a child, the power of the moment was crushing. I remember silently crying, tears rolling down my cheeks as I watched them. To this day, I tear up whenever I hear that song.

This ballad is one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, in a genre of music that accompanies the echoing memories of those we’ve lost. These songs serve as a gateway into the realm of collective mourning.

What compounds the weight of the day is that, despite its collective rhythm, Yom Hazikaron is deeply personal—everyone has lost someone they care about. For me, it’s two close friends killed in the Second Lebanon War: Yaniv Temerson and Alex Bonimovitch, of blessed memory. The tragedy of familiarity with loss is perplexing. The guilt of living on is ever-present. The distance is humbling. And still, the density of the day has texture.

It is with this burden—one with historic reverberations—that we transition immediately into Yom Ha’atzmaut, the day we celebrate Israeli independence. The metaphor of ripping off a band-aid to describe the abruptness of this shift is, in fact, not a metaphor. With wounds still open and loss still fresh, we are asked to move into a heightened mode of celebration.

There is the speed of light, the speed of sound, and then there is the speed of the Israeli emotional rollercoaster.

For some, it’s too much. In Israel and here, some understandably choose not to celebrate Independence Day this year. There are 59 hostages, and we cannot truly celebrate freedom without them. I understand them.

And yet, even without forgetting for a second the enormity of the moment—or the urgency of bringing them all home—I believe we must celebrate our independence.

We have been celebrating since the very first year of statehood, through wars, financial crises and political upheavals. With all the heartbreak, with all the pain, with all the confounding failures of leadership—that is not what defines us.

The story of sovereignty is the story of agency. It is our story. We, all of us, are its authors and its protagonists.

One of the recurring sentiments of Yom Hazikaron is that those who paid the ultimate sacrifice have commanded us to live. That is part of the meaning infused into the proximity and resonance of these two days. This year is no different. It creates an equation we accept, but do not welcome: that our agency, our freedom, our future is worth fighting for, worth paying a heavy price for and worth doing everything we can to preserve.

The juxtaposition of mourning and celebration forces us to live with the ugliness of war, death and destruction, so that we do not become callous to it. It reminds us of what we have lost, so that we can better see what we have gained.

I don’t know who is reading this.
You may or may not be Israeli.
You may or may not feel the gravitational pull of these two days.
You may be mourning.
You may be celebrating.
Or you may be doing both, all at once.

Wherever you are, whatever you are feeling, know that memory and hope are not opposites. They are two sides of the same story. Our story.

For me and my wife, being far from our home in Israel the past two months has been excruciating—many of our closest family and friends serve in the IDF. But we, Jews outside of Israel, have a critical role to play as well, beyond material support. Beyond political support. We are here to remind the world that Jews are here to stay.

Against this backdrop, we planned our 9th annual Z3 Conference. In early November, just shy of four weeks after the unthinkable horror of October 7, our community came together. We gathered to cry, remember, learn, heal and persevere.

To achieve this, the day began by marking October 7 and ended on a higher note by singing “Hatikvah” together at the closing plenary.

See the 2023 conference recap here.

While we are still processing the results of the survey, early findings and testimonials demonstrate that we were successful in creating the much-needed environment and setting for our community in this moment of pain:

1. Two-thirds of the participants reported feeling a moment of hope and an increased sense of peoplehood during the conference, arising from factors like “community,” “a sense of belonging,” “inspirational speakers” and “ability to network.” This shows the gathering is achieving its goals.
2. Our Net Promoter Score has jumped from 28% in 2021 to 37% in 2022 to 58% this year. Our community appreciated the event and will highly recommend it to others. Over 90% of attendees said the event was excellent.
3. There were 64 participants who detailed in writing the actions they plan to take because of their Z3 inspiration, including volunteering, expanding awareness and programming at their home organizations. With guests coming from all around North America and beyond, we welcomed:
   • Leadership Lab: Four cohorts, 96 people—including both teens and adults.
   • Ancillary Events: Five events in synagogues, day schools and the community.
4. In addition, impressions of our new social media channels and unique content grew 20-fold, expanding our reach and engagement exponentially.

I’m incredibly proud of the team for coming together and pulling off this important event even under the most emotionally challenging of circumstances. And I’m thankful to you, our supporters, for believing in this work—it’s needed now more than ever.

Am Yisrael Chai.

There is no better holiday to celebrate during the times of COVID-19, than Passover. I mean, really, the symbolism is almost too much to bear. We have plagues (pick your favorite), fanatical cleaning and social distancing ordinances that resemble the biblical guideline to celebrate the Passover just with one’s closest family. And just like Pharaoh, this too we will survive.

Jokes aside, there is a deeper reason why Pesach couldn’t come in a better moment for our community.

“And we Left Egypt in a hurry.”

Those are the words that open the Maggid storytelling section of the Passover Haggadah. And what is the story of Passover if not the story of freedom? Indeed, the central story of the Haggadah is about the enslavement of our biblical ancestors, but we also include stories of rabbinic leaders who participated in the rebellion against the Romans and songs such as Chad Gadya, which depicts many waves of persecution that our people endured. In later generations, the Haggadah was used as an inspiration for the movement to free Soviet Jewry.

In most cases, when asked about enslavement or the lack of freedom, people will describe it as a physical state, especially when the pyramids come to mind. And it is true—the suffering we reenact during the Seder is supposed to remind us of the materials we used to build the pyramids, the poverty that we lived in as slaves and the plagues which destroyed Egypt.

That being said, there is another type of enslavement which we note in the Seder, and that is the enslavement of our identity and the inability to express our beliefs. After all, the Biblical story tells us that the reason Moses pleaded to leave Egypt was so that the Hebrews may worship their G-d. but leaving Egypt was not enough—our traditions tell us that it took even more energy and time to get rid of a slave mentality.

Leaving Egypt physically was not enough. But unlike the miraculous delivery from Egypt, this stage in our collective freedom was not ordained by G-d—each person had to achieve it individually. While our physical freedom was a communal event, escaping the mentality of slavery can only be achieved on our own.

This year, in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are not able to celebrate with our families (seriously, stay home!) and communities. Jews around the world will be alone for the Seder for the first time in their lives. While this is indeed a difficult moment, there can be a silver lining.

Perhaps this year, we can take a moment to pause and try and elevate Pesach to a holiday in which we can achieve a new plane in our personal and communal consciousness. We can take this moment to reflect on what we have, and what we have lost because of this pandemic, perhaps to free ourselves from our daily micro-enslavements and plan for a new and better world post-COVID-19.

Perhaps in this time of aloneness and solitude, we can reach new heights of consciousness and being. To put it in the words of the great Bob Marley: “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our mind.”

I look forward to celebrating with all of you together in our JCC as soon as it is safe to do so! Chag Sameach!