Dear Friends,
Earlier this week, as our TSTI in Israel 2026 mission was traveling north toward Metula—a town on the Lebanese border that had stood empty for nearly two years after being evacuated due to relentless rocket and drone attacks from Hezbollah—we received word that Israeli forces had recovered the remains of Sergeant First Class Ran Gvili and were bringing him home for burial.
Ran Gvili was the last remaining hostage taken by Hamas on October 7. We knew he was no longer alive. And still, as news spread that an intensive search was underway, the entire country seemed to be holding its breath.
There are no words that soften a moment like that. No reunion. No embrace. Just the return of a body to a people who never stopped insisting that this young man mattered. To be in Israel at that moment and to hear the news together, on the road, in a place that itself bears the scars of war and abandonment was powerful beyond words.
The soldiers who found Ran’s body immediately began singing Ani Ma’amin—”I believe.” It is a declaration of faith that became an anthem of resistance and hope during the Holocaust. People took to the streets to “welcome” him home. And as more than one person said to me, for the first time in over two years, people began to breathe again.
The next day, I read a post that stayed with me. It was written by a Palestinian journalist who expressed amazement at the time, energy, and risk Israel invested in recovering the body of a single hostage. He concluded that it must have reflected military pride or national honor. I understand why someone looking from the outside might have seen it that way but I don’t think that explanation captured what was really happening.
To understand it, we needed to go back much further.
In this week’s Torah portion, after generations of slavery, trauma, and loss, our ancestors finally leave Egypt. Yet, as the events unfold, the Torah pauses the drama of liberation to tell us something that might otherwise have seemed insignificant:
“And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him.”
Joseph had lived generations earlier. He had risen to power in Egypt, saved the region from famine, and ultimately reunited with his family. Before his death, he made them swear an oath: when God redeemed them and brought them out of that land, they were to take his bones with them and bring him home.
Joseph knew he would not live to see redemption. But he believed in it enough to bind the future to a promise. And when the moment finally came, despite the chaos, the urgency, and the fear, the people did not forget him.
They carried bones.
Even then, our people knew we could not truly move forward if we left our own behind.
Joseph’s bones were not carried because they were useful. They were carried because Jewish values insisted that promises made across generations still mattered.
That ancient instinct was not theoretical. It was alive.
That was why Israel searched for bodies.
That was why families were not told to “move on.”
That was why effort was expended even when the outcome could not be a living reunion.
It is why we recite Kaddish on our loved ones’ yahrzeits.
It is why we say Yizkor four times a year.
Not out of pride.
Not for honor.
But because this is who we have been taught to be.
Holding that truth does not require hardened hearts. Even as we mourn our own, we acknowledge the suffering of innocent people on all sides, and we pray for a future in which no family—Israeli or Palestinian—will have to endure this kind of loss.
This Shabbat we are reminded that our tradition has always measured strength not by what we conquer, but by what and whom we refuse to abandon.
May the memory of Ran Gvili be a blessing.
May the living find comfort.
And may we remain worthy heirs of the values we have carried from Egypt until now.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Daniel Cohen