Grieving Parents Call to Embrace Unity in the Face of Loss and Tragedy

"Yehonatan, my beloved son, we were merited to be your parents. You were such a gentle, emotional and believing person, without an ounce of rough attitude or cynicism," echoed the father, Hagai Lober, of Staff Sgt. (res.) Elisha Yehonatan Lober, who lost his life fighting to defend Israel in the battles in southern Gaza.

The bereaved parents' focus on the benefit of society while feeling the anguish of losing their son showcases their greatness.

“Before Simchat Torah we all went through a difficult time. We felt that our beloved nation was falling apart. The damned enemies came and reminded us that we are one nation and forced us to speak to each other and fight side by side. […] We request of the media and of every one of our nation please, one day of unity to uplift his soul, please don’t write of broadcast anything divisive, please, speak good [of others], find the good of the decision makers and of our amazing people who Yehonatan was proud to fight for.”

That such words were stated by grieving parents in the circumstances of losing their son indeed exemplifies a transcendence of the instinctive human capacity. They thus share a similar characteristic to sacred words, as if they emanate from the same field beyond the human egoistic forces, where we all unite as a single desire.

In states where many people would naturally wish to have time for themselves, and in situations where it is possible to seek blame and redemption for what happened to their son, they instead come out with no less than a spiritual message: a calling for the unity of the people.

The bereaved parents' focus on the benefit of society while feeling the anguish of losing their son showcases their greatness. In states where many people would naturally wish to have time for themselves, and in situations where it is possible to seek blame and redemption for what happened to their son, they instead come out with no less than a spiritual message: a calling for the unity of the people.

In order not to disregard the parents’ pleas, we should embrace their sentiments and try to internalize their deep emotions. By doing so, we can shatter the walls of division that stand between us, experience a significant transformation, live in unity, love, a readiness to forgive one another, and a mutual yearning to come out of ourselves for the greater good of humanity.

Why Do I Need to Feel Ashamed?

We have been given a quality of shame so that through certain efforts, we will gradually rise from our inborn corporeal lives, where we are locked within our desires to enjoy for self-benefit, to spiritual life in the opposite desire—bestowal.

By doing so, we arrange ourselves in conditions to attract nature’s force of love and bestowal, and when we feel this sublime spiritual force, we then see our own egoistic nature opposite it.

In the method of Kabbalah, we relate to shame constructively as a stage in our advancement to the spiritual goal—the attainment of the desire to bestow—and we do so in a group setting. That is, we surround ourselves with people who share a similar desire to achieve a spiritual goal in life, and we then start working on how we can come closer and connect to these people according to the principle, “love your friend as yourself.”

By doing so, we arrange ourselves in conditions to attract nature’s force of love and bestowal, and when we feel this sublime spiritual force, we then see our own egoistic nature opposite it. Such a process continues until we feel ashamed of our nature in comparison to the altruistic spiritual nature, and we use this revelation constructively in order to exit our current corporeal level of wishing to constantly receive fulfillment for personal benefit, and rise to the level of nature itself, with a desire purely to bestow and to love.