The Bones We Carry– Ran Gvili and October 8th
There are moments in the Torah that arrive with thunder. Plagues. Pillars of fire. Seas that split. And then there are moments that slip past us almost unnoticed—quiet details that seem small, but that carry within them an entire theology of what it means to be a people.
Parashat Beshalach is famous for miracles and music. This is the parashah of the splitting of the sea. This is the parashah of Az Yashir, the song sung by a people who have just walked through the impossible. And yet, before the sea splits, before a single note is sung, the Torah pauses—and tells us something almost mundane: “And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him.” One verse. No drama. No miracles. Just bones.
The sages tell us something extraordinary about that verse. While the Israelites were busy collecting gold and silver from the Egyptians—busy grabbing what they could before freedom arrived—Moses was doing something else entirely. He was searching for Joseph’s remains. Why Joseph’s Bones?
The Torah is teaching us that freedom is not measured by what you take with you. It is measured by who you refuse to abandon. Joseph had been dead for centuries. His bones lay buried in Egypt while an entire nation rushed toward a future he himself would never see. The Torah could have left this detail out. But it doesn’t. Because without Joseph, the Exodus itself is incomplete.
Joseph had been dead for centuries. But he had made the Israelites swear: Pakod yifkod Elohim etchem—God will surely redeem you—but when that day comes, you must take me with you. Do not leave me behind. Bring me home. And Moses keeps that promise. He did it because faith is measured not by efficiency, but by loyalty. This is who we are. Throughout our history, the Jewish people have lived by one moral axiom: we leave no one behind. Not the living. Not the dead. Not the captured. Not the broken. Not the forgotten.
The rabbis call what Moses does chesed shel emet—true kindness. The truest kindness of all. Why? Because Joseph can never repay him. Caring for the dead, the Talmud teaches, is the purest form of love. It is kindness with no audience and no reward. And notice this: Moses does this before the sea splits. The miracle waits. Only once the bones are lifted, only once responsibility is taken, does the water move.
And that brings us, painfully and powerfully, to our own moment. After 843 days, it is finally October 8th. After 843 days, the body of Ran Givili was returned to Israel so that he could be laid to rest with dignity—among his brothers and sisters, in his land, in our land. For nearly two and a half years, we lived with an absence that could not be explained away. Not a statistic. Not a headline. A person. A human being. A missing piece. Jewish tradition refuses to turn people into abstractions. The Mishnah teaches that Adam was first created alone to remind us that every single human being is an entire world. Which also means that when one person is missing, the world itself is not whole.
For 843 days, something in us was incomplete. It started on October 7th, 2023 with 251 hostages. 251 missing puzzles pieces. For the past 2.5 years, we have been laser focused on finding and returning those 251 beautiful souls. It has been painstaking and heartbreaking. But piece-by-piece, we have been putting the puzzle of Am Yisrael back together.
Like the image on the front of the Shabbat announcements, Ran was the final missing puzzle piece. That open space in the collective heart. And we could not truly exhale while Ran was still missing; just as Moses could not cross the sea without Joseph. Today, as we exhale. As we turn the calendar to October 8th, finally ending the longest day of our lives, a nightmare that lasted for 2.5 years, 20, 232 hours,
Ran Gvili’s return does not feel like victory. It feels like fulfillment. It is a collective emotion that lives in the body: in shoulders dropping, in jaws unclenching, in breath finally released.
For months, Israel has lived in suspended moral tension, holding grief and resolve, rage and responsibility, fear and faith. The clocks told the story just as much as the speeches. The war counter kept rising. The hostage clock kept running. And now, for the first time, one of them reversed direction. Ran’s return did not end the war. It did not resolve the trauma. But it restored something more fragile and more essential: the sense that the story still has a soul.
There is something else that matters deeply here. Ran Gvili’s body was not returned as part of an agreement. It was not handed over in a deal. It was not the result of negotiation.
He was brought home because Israel made a promise—and refused to stop. Israel said: we will bring him home. And they kept going. They searched. They acted. They took responsibility.
Just as Moses did not wait for Joseph’s bones to come to him—Israel did not wait. They carried out the work of chesed shel emet themselves. Because a people that understands dignity does not outsource memory. A people that understands responsibility does not move on until the promise is fulfilled.
And that understanding is present here in this sanctuary as well. For two years, we kept an empty chair on the bimah—waiting, hoping, refusing to pretend that everything was whole while it was not. We promised that the chair would remain until all the living hostages were returned home. Thank God that reality was actualized this past October. And so, we removed the empty chair. But we made another promise: that our October 7th memorial Israel Torah mantle would remain on the Torah in our ark until the final murdered hostage was also brought home.
And with Ran’s return to Israel this week, that reality has finally been actualized as well. This week, as we watched IDF soldiers carry Ran Gvili’s body in a casket draped with the Israeli flag, a scene that I imagine looked eerily similar to Moses carrying Joseph’s bones out of Egypt, we took off our yellow ribbons and removed our dog tags. Not because the pain disappeared, but because something shifted. A chapter closed.
And so today, at the end of our Torah reading, we will change the Torah mantle. Not as an act of celebration. Not as an act of forgetting. But as a moment of transition. Just as Moses lifted Joseph’s bones and allowed the people to move forward; today we acknowledge that something sacred has changed. Memory remains. Grief remains. Responsibility remains. But the weight has shifted.
And as we change the Torah mantle we will sing Am Yisrael Chai. Only after Joseph’s bones are carried forward does the sea split. Only after memory is honored does the song rise.
Jewish song is never naïve. Our tradition does not sing because pain has vanished. It sings because pain is carried—and hope is chosen anyway.
Our song today is one of hope. It is song that represents our collective exhale. It is a song that recognizes that the clock cannot be turned back. It is a song that acknowledges the past in order to look to the future. With the puzzle pieces intact, and a heart scarred yet whole, we can look to the future with hope. And we can ask: now, that October 8th has finally arrived, what will we do with the dawn of this new day?
