The Meal We Sent to a Fallen Soldier
Every week, as part of our Sandwiches for Soldiers project, we deliver smoked pastrami sandwiches to soldiers.
Over 300,000 IDF soldiers are serving now on the south and northern fronts, so truth is our delivery of 100-200 sandwiches+cakes+soda+cards from our kids’ schools is barely a drop in the ocean.
But we always get nice thank yous from the soldiers, and from the commanders’ wives or mothers who are the ones who request and coordinate the weekly deliveries from our Jerusalem home to deep inside Gaza. And even though it’s not a huge delivery, it’s something. And if everyone (including my family and our neighbors and our generous donors) do something, that’s something, right?
Two weeks ago we got a special request, to deliver a Shabbat meal instead of sandwiches to around 100 soldiers including the ones in the photo above. Their faces are covered because they are an elite commando unit. The commander’s wife told us that these soldiers hadn’t left Gaza since they’d entered at the beginning of the War, moving silently from abandoned house to abandoned house, remaining in total darkness after nightfall so as not to draw the attention of the enemy.
That Friday night, sitting at my Shabbat table, I thought of these soldiers, eating the smoked meat and challah rolls we’d sent them in total darkness, and shivered at the disparity between my Shabbat meal and theirs.
The following Sunday we received a thank you note with this photo from the soldiers along with a video of them singing “Yedid Nefesh,” so beautifully, so hauntingly, as they filmed the sun beginning to set over the ruins of northern Gaza on Friday afternoon. The commander’s wife wrote us a few days later, “How are you? I wanted to tell you that my husband got out of Gaza and came home for 24 hours and he told me that on Friday night the soldiers had to rush into combat, and the only food the soldiers made sure to take on their backs into actual combat was the smoked meats! And that it was really really delicious and they were very excited about it!”
As the days passed by and we sent other deliveries that delivery of 2 weeks ago faded into distant memory, until I heard something today that shocked me. My husband found out that our delivery two weeks ago had reached the unit of Gal Eizenkot HY”D, the son of former IDF Chief of Staff and current government minister Gadi Eizenkot, who was killed last Thursday at the age of 25 while fighting Hamas terrorists.
For the past hours since I heard this surreal news, my mind can’t find rest. To know that our teensy drop in the ocean touched an actual soldier who gave his life protecting the people of Israel. That our nearly insignificant act of kindness provided this hero with his last Friday night dinner.
It reminds me how we, the Jews, are one. A single soul spread amongst millions of bodies. And when we give from our heart, even barely a drop in the ocean, we inevitably reach the heart of another.
May the family of Gal HY”D, and all the families of the many fallen heroes from this past week, find comfort among all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. And may Hashem guard over all our soldiers. And bring them home to their families, victorious and safe. Please God.
We always make a difference just we don’t usually get to see the effect our deeds or speech has on others. Tizku lemitzvos. May this war end speedily with our enemies totally uprooted and vanquished! All hostages released safely and all injured speedily healed! Moshiach now!