4 | JUNE 27 • 2024 
J
N

PURELY COMMENTARY

essay
Seeing Off a Fallen Soldier 
I

srael is a small country. 
Nearly everyone at the 
appropriate age serves 
in the military, nearly 
everyone except in the haredi 
and Arab sectors. But in 
the secular, 
national 
religious, 
Druze, and 
other minority 
communities, 
and in many 
Bedouin 
communities, 
nearly everyone serves in the 
Israel Defense Forces. Now, 
during the current ongoing 
war, everyone knows soldiers 
whose lives are at risk. The 
bad news can come at any 
time.
Most recently, the bad 
news came to a family in 
our neighborhood. Eliyahu 
Moshe Shlomo Zimbalist was 
killed in action on Friday, 
June 14. His family lives at 
the top of the street up the 
hill from my home in Beit 
Shemesh. I attend the same 
synagogue as he did, as his 
family does. 
The burial took place the 
afternoon of June 16 on Har 

Herzl, the military cemetery 
in Jerusalem. 
The neighborhood has 
a ritual to acknowledge 
the death of a soldier from 
among our people. Hundreds 
of people come out to line 
both sides of the street from 
the family home toward the 
road to Jerusalem. People 
stand silently, many carrying 
Israeli flags. Some sing, 

quietly, softly, songs of hope 
and faith: 
“Our brothers, the whole 
house of Israel, who are 
placed in trouble, or in 
captivity, whether on land 
or at sea, may the One who 
is present have mercy for 
on them, and take them out 
from trouble to freedom, 
from darkness to light, and 
from slavery to redemption, 
now, quickly, and in near 
time.” 
And: “The soul is yours, 
and the body is your work; 
please protect your work.”
And: “In every generation, 
they arise against us to 
destroy us, but the holy 
blessed One rescues us from 
their hands.” 
Caretakers from the 
volunteer Hatzalah first 
respondent group circulate 
through the crowd, 
identified by their vests 
with the legend, “medic” or 
“psychologist.” 

More than a few in the 
crowd sniffle quietly; a few 
are audibly crying. One 
soldier cannot seem to stop 
crying. A medic comes over 
and attends to his needs. 
After some time, perhaps 
a half hour, a neighbor 
leads the soldiers toward 
the family home. Then two 
or three Hatzalah vehicles 
come through the road, and 
then the bus conveying the 
family toward the cemetery 
in Jerusalem pulls out. 
The crowd parts to make 
room for the bus, and then 
quietly follows the bus for 
the first few hundred meters 
of its journey. 

Louis Finkelman currently 
resides in Beit Shemesh, 
Israel. Until recently, he taught 
literature and writing at Lawrence 
Technological University in 
Southfield, Michigan, and served 
as half the rabbinic team at 
Congregation Or Chadash in 
Oak Park, Michigan.

Louis 
Finkelman

ABOVE: Neighbors assemble on both sides of the road in Beit Shemesh. BELOW: Mourners speak at the 
funeral of Eliyahu Moshe Shlomo Zimbalist on Har Herzl. 

