Readers may recall that some time ago I wrote about a young reservist called David,(not his real name), who was struggling somewhat with his faith following October 7th. On the morning of Yom HaShoah, at 4 a.m., he sent me the following: “It’s 4am and I got out of Lebanon, couldn’t sleep so typed up my thoughts, feelings and emotions I wanted to share them with you.

Today, stepping out of Lebanon for a few hours, the noise quiets, but only on the outside.

The past two weeks have been intense. Long days, little sleep, constant tension. Two of our soldiers are now in the hospital, and that reality does not stay behind when you leave to rest. It comes with you. You carry it in your thoughts, in the silence, in the moments when everything suddenly slows down. Today is Yom Hashoah.

It is impossible not to feel the weight of it. A day of remembrance for a time when Jews had no army, no protection, no place to stand and defend themselves. A time when entire families were left vulnerable, when survival depended on chance, courage, and the hope that someone, somewhere, might stand up.

And here I am, in uniform.

Part of a generation that does stand. Part of a country that can defend itself. There is a massive contrast, and it is not something I take for granted for a second. The siren today does not just remember them. It connects us to them. It reminds us that their story did not end there. It continues through us, through the choices we make, and through the responsibility we carry.

On my uniform, I wear a patch which reads, “Never again is now.”

It is simple, but it says everything. It is not just a statement about the past. It is a responsibility in the present. A reminder that what we are doing here, even in the hardest moments, is part of that promise.

There is a strange contrast in it all. On one hand, I am physically removed from the front for a few days rest. On the other, mentally, I am still there with my unit, with the injured, with everything we have been through.

And then there is home.

My incredible wife and my kids. Life continuing without me for now. The quiet strength it takes on their side is no less significant or heroic than what my soldiers and I are doing here.

And this is not just about these past two weeks.

It has been two and a half years of miluim since October 7. Two and a half years of being called up again and again, of putting life on hold, of stepping away from family, work, and routine to answer something bigger. More than 760 days of miluim.

Some family and friends have asked me, “Why are you going again? Haven’t you done enough?”

It is a fair question.

But days like today answer it more clearly than I ever could.

The events of October 7 changed something fundamental. Not just in what we are fighting, but in why we show up every time we are called. The distance between past and present feels thinner. The responsibility feels heavier.

On Yom Hashoah, that connection becomes even sharper. The distance between then and now closes. The stories we grew up hearing are no longer just history. They are a reminder of what happens when there is no one to stand in the gap, and of why we must.

So when I am asked why I go again, the answer is not about how many days I have already given. It is about what those days stand for. It is about ensuring that “never again” is not just something we say, but something we live.

Yom Hashoah is not just about remembering the past. It is about carrying it forward. It is about responsibility. It is about making sure that history does not repeat itself. Yes, there was once a time when we could not defend ourselves, but now we stand ready, again and again, to ensure that we can and will.

Today is heavy, but it is also grounding and simple once we break it down. We remember. We carry it forward. And we keep going. Am Yisrael Chai.” Wise and emotional words from an unsung modern-day hero of Israel.

There are many ways to approach Yom HaShoah.

One can turn to history and recount the horrors of Auschwitz and Treblinka, or to theology and ask the unanswerable question of where God was. One can map out the responses of philosophers and rabbis, each offering a different framework for understanding what cannot truly be understood.

But this year, it feels more honest to begin somewhere else entirely: not with abstract ideas, but with a soldier sitting awake at 4 a.m., somewhere between Lebanon and home, trying to make sense of what it means to be a Jew on Yom HaShoah in the shadow of October 7.

What is so striking about David’s message is not only what he says, but the tension that runs through it.

He is physically removed from the front for a few days of rest, yet mentally he has not left at all. The war follows him into the quiet, into the silence, into the early hours of the morning when there is nothing left to distract from it.

At the same time, he is acutely aware of home—of a wife and children continuing life without him, of the quiet heroism that takes place far from the battlefield but is no less real.

And then, into that already heavy emotional space, comes Yom HaShoah.

The day does not merely arrive on the calendar; it presses itself into his consciousness, demanding reflection.

His central observation is deceptively simple: there was a time when Jews had no army, no protection, no ability to defend themselves- and now there is.

“And here I am, in uniform.”

That contrast is not presented as an ideological statement. It is experienced as a reality.

For David, the Holocaust is not something safely contained in the past, but something that sharpens his understanding of why he is where he is, doing what he is doing.

This is perhaps the most powerful aspect of his reflection. Yom HaShoah is often framed as a day of memory, and rightly so. But memory, on its own, can become passive. It can remain something we observe, something we commemorate, without necessarily allowing it to shape us.

David refuses that passivity.

On his uniform is a patch that reads, “Never again is now,” and in his words one begins to understand what that phrase actually demands.

It is not simply a theory; it is a commitment that must be lived out in practice, even when doing so is difficult, exhausting, and costly.

I would suggest that the enduring question is not only “Where was God?” but also “Where are we now?”

David’s message can be read as an answer to that question, not in theoretical terms, but in lived experience.

We are in a world in which Jews are no longer entirely dependent on the goodwill or indifference of others.

We are in a world in which Jewish existence includes the capacity for self-defense, and with that capacity comes a new kind of moral and historical responsibility. But David’s reflection is careful not to turn that reality into something simplistic or triumphant. He does not ignore the cost. He writes of injured soldiers, of constant tension, of the mental burden that does not dissipate even when he is temporarily away from the front. He speaks of distance from his family, and of the quiet strength required on their part as they continue life in his absence.

This refusal to flatten the experience into a single narrative is what gives his words their authenticity.

There is no attempt to resolve the tension, no effort to produce a neat conclusion. Instead, there is an acceptance that this is what it means to live as a Jew in this moment of history: to carry memory and responsibility together, even when they pull in different directions.

David’s idea that memory must be carried forward is not new, but in his hands it takes on a different texture. It is no longer an abstract principle, but something embodied in choices, in actions, in the willingness to continue showing up even when it would be easier not to.

He concludes with a line that can sometimes feel overfamiliar: “Am Yisrael Chai.” Yet here, it lands differently.

It is not a slogan, nor a rhetorical flourish, but the natural endpoint of everything that has come before.

The Jewish people live, not because history has been kind to them, but because, again and again, they have chosen to heed David’s urging.

They have remembered, they have carried, and they have kept going.

We must now all continue to do the same.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)