Singing as we carry the bones

Minutes before we removed the Torah scrolls from the ark to read Parashat Beshalach this past Monday, the news reached us. The body of Ran Gvili, z”l—the last Israeli hostage still held in Gaza—had been identified and was on its way back to the Land of Israel for eternal rest. For the first time in 843 days, we stopped praying for the return of the hostages.

I still vividly remember October 7, 2023. After chanting Hallel to the melody of Megillat Eichah, I improvised a prayer for the Israelis whom the news reported had been abducted. We never imagined this nightmare. We never thought we would need to create rituals to mourn those whose bodies were identified, and different rituals to celebrate the return of those who came back alive.

Almost instinctively, as I received the news while leading the morning prayers, I decided to skip Tachanun—the penitential prayers that are omitted both in moments of great joy and in a home sitting shivah. I still could not decipher which of the two this day represented, but I had no doubt that it was a day of conflicting, unfamiliar emotions.

“Is there a blessing to recite at this moment?” I asked myself.

Part of me wanted to say Shehecheyanu: at last, the long-awaited day had arrived when there were no longer Israeli hostages in Hamas’s hands. Another part of me wanted to say Baruch Dayan HaEmet, the blessing we recite when tearing kri’ah and beginning mourning for a loved one. How could we celebrate when Ran—who gave his life defending Kibbutz Alumim—was returning to Israel in a coffin?

As these emotions wrestled within me, the service continued and we began reading the Torah. In that uniquely Torah-like way—almost magical in its relevance—the text told the story of the Exodus from Egypt, and of the Israelites fulfilling their promise to carry with them the remains of Joseph, to be buried one day in the land of his ancestors. No matter how much time had passed, no matter how difficult it was to locate them, Moses would not leave Egypt without Joseph’s bones.

Midrashic tradition elaborates on this determination: Moses delays the Exodus to find Joseph’s remains—consulting the legendary Serach bat Asher, cutting pieces from Joseph’s silver goblet, or following a scent reminiscent of the Ark of the Covenant among Egypt’s royal tombs. Whichever legend one chooses, the point is unmistakable: Moses was willing to do whatever it took to ensure that Joseph would not be left behind in Egypt.

Leaving Joseph in Egypt would have meant leaving ourselves there. As literature sometimes captures what theology struggles to say, José Arcadio Buendía tells Úrsula in One Hundred Years of Solitude: “A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground.” We could not leave Egypt without our dead. As Jacques Derrida teaches, “we are drawn back to the places where our dead are buried”—and since Egypt is not a place we wish to return to, Joseph must leave with us.

In the rabbinic imagination, Joseph’s coffin later travels alongside the Ark of the Covenant. Origin and destination, past and future of the Jewish people, move together—each making the Divine presence tangible through their companionship. There is no one without the other.

But why does the Torah remind us of Joseph’s bones specifically at the beginning of Parashat Beshalach, just moments before the crossing of the sea? The Midrash places an interpretation in the mouth of Shimon of Kitron, commenting on the verse from Psalms: “The sea saw and fled.” What did the sea see? It saw the Israelites carrying Joseph’s bones.

In other words, it was precisely the act of carrying on their shoulders the remains of a dead man they refused to abandon that opened the path to redemption. Only then did the sea part. And only then did they sing.

Much like August 1949, when the remains of Theodor Herzl, the founding father of the State of Israel, were brought from Vienna. Trumpets sounded, choirs sang verses from Psalms, welcoming home a man who had not lived to see the fulfillment of his dream—yet whose bones completed it.

Because that is the essence of our people: to sing, even with a coffin on our shoulders. Perhaps aware that complete joy has never been our portion, the Jewish people remain convinced that our singing—even while bearing the weight of loss—is what opens the gates of redemption.

The Torah calls Joseph’s remains atzmot Yosef—a phrase that can also be read as “the essence of Joseph.” By carrying Joseph on their shoulders to bring him to burial in our land, the Israelites were carrying the very essence of the Jewish people: a people that moves toward the future without abandoning the past.

One of the most powerful images of this past week was that of a group of soldiers singing Ani Ma’amin in Gaza as Ran Gvili’s body had been identified. The same song was heard the following day at hundreds of commemorations marking the liberation of Auschwitz. The same song sung by Jews forced into the death chambers of extermination camps.

It is the song of a people who know that there is no path to redemption if we leave our dead behind. The song of a people who understand that returning their children to their land is not only an act of burial, but the fulfillment of a promise—our essence and our strength.

Blessed is the One who gave us the strength to live to witness this moment.
Blessed is the Judge of truth.
Blessed is the One who did not withdraw His kindness from the living or the dead.
Blessed is the One who brings our children home, and keeps faith with His promise.