April 21 was Yom Hazikaron, a day when the entire nation pauses, together, to commemorate our fallen soldiers and victims of terror. Over the past two years, I have been making a pilgrimage to Har Herzl, Israel’s national military cemetery in Jerusalem. I participate in a tour to learn about individual heroes buried there. And I pay my own respects to fallen soldiers — including soldiers whose funerals I attended, whose families I know, and to whom I feel connected.

In each of those years, the Israeli Air Force flyover, which immediately follows the national siren and two minutes of silence, has left me breathless. Just at the moment the siren dies down, those at Har Herzl are awestruck as four, low-flying fighter jets thunder overhead. As the jets reach Har Herzl, one symbolically falls away from the formation. The other three pilots travel on without their brother.

This year, there was an additional reason I wanted to visit Har Herzl on Yom Hazikaron. My son Zechariah Charish recently enlisted in the IDF, and he was going to be at Har Herzl in uniform, on duty. The IDF assigns each current soldier to an individual fallen soldier, to stand by his grave as an honor guard. When the family of the fallen arrives to visit their loved one, they find a young soldier keeping watch. They see that the IDF, and the Nation of Israel, are eternally grateful, and will never forget the ultimate sacrifice that their loved one — and they themselves — have made. L’hiyot am chofshi b’artzeinu. That we may live as a free people in our land.

Zechariah was assigned to a fallen solider who was born in Moscow in 1984 and made aliyah to Israel at the age of six. This soldier was a kind and brilliant boy. A talented violin player and chess........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)