The sweatshirt in our front closet

Every time I opened our front closet over the past several months, I saw the green Mickey Mouse sweatshirt from Fox and thought about him.

I wondered how he was doing, if he had finished his officer’s training course, and if he was commanding a group of soldiers in Gaza or in Lebanon. I thought about his wife, also an officer, in her mitpachat (head covering) and skirt, with her gun slung over her shoulder, serving right across the street from us at the army base in Gush Etzion. And I marveled over the two of them together, inspired and overwhelmed by the motivation and determination of the young people of Israel who serve their country, even at the expense of themselves.

Sometimes, a brief encounter makes a deep impression on your heart.

That is how I felt about Ivri and Miriam Dickshtein.

I was surprised by how often I would find myself thinking about them. Almost daily. Every time I opened the closet.

This past February, someone posted a message on our community WhatsApp group, saying that a young couple was looking for a place to stay in Alon Shvut over Shabbat. The wife was on call at the local army base, the husband had a weekend off from his training course, and they needed a place to be together.

My family and I were pleased to be able to facilitate the opportunity for this soldier couple to spend some badly needed time together in our separate guest unit. Over the course of that Thursday and Friday, I had a few phone calls and texts with Ivri, who wanted to be on top of preparing every last detail of what they would need for Shabbat. I was impressed by the thoughtfulness and gentility of this young man, who I later found out was only 21.

When they arrived, we met the sweetest couple. Salt of the earth. Young people with no entitlement. Young people who took nothing for granted. Young people who came by on Saturday night to ask for a broom and a mop (!) so that they could clean up after themselves before heading out early Sunday morning to their respective bases for another long week. Young people who were overly grateful. The kind that made you feel you were doing them the biggest favor in the world, while meanwhile they are the ones sacrificing on your behalf.

When I went into the guest room a few days later, I found Ivri’s sweatshirt that had mistakenly been left behind. I texted Ivri, who said that Miriam would come by to collect it. I told my husband he could also bring it to Ivri’s mother, Tzofiya, who we had realized is my husband’s colleague at work. Small country.

Nine months later, the sweatshirt happened to still be in the closet.

And then, one week ago, my phone rang while I was briefly in New York, waiting on the subway platform at 77^th and Lexington to head downtown. It was my son calling from Israel, where it was almost midnight. From the sound of his voice, I knew immediately that something was wrong. “Ema, did you see the news?” Running from destination to destination, I had not had a minute all day to open my phone. “Ema, it’s Ivri, the chayal (soldier) that stayed at our house.”

And just like that, the sweatshirt that had been in our closet for so many months suddenly took on so much more meaning. An item belonging to someone now gone, one instant to the next. A memory of time spent together in an all too short marriage of only 17 months.

The subway rolled into the station just as the tears began rolling down my cheeks.

In this very small country, sometimes a chance encounter can leave you with a broken heart.

From 6,000 miles away, I watched Ivri’s funeral online in the early hours of Friday morning. My heart ached as I listened to the parting words of Ivri’s five younger sisters, his friends, his teachers, his grandmothers, his mother, his father and Miriam.

They described a young man with a big heart and a pure soul. A man of humility and of kindness. A loyal friend, a loving son and brother. A soldier who knew exactly what he was fighting for and entered battle fully prepared to pay the ultimate price. A fearless and courageous warrior who was also not afraid to express emotion to his soldiers and who made it safe for them to share their needs. The only son of a celebrated IDF officer who was raised to put his country first. A Jew, an Ivri (in translation, a Hebrew), with strong Torah values, who knew what he believed in and was not afraid to stand alone when necessary.

Earlier today, we made the long trip out to Eli. The shiva tent was packed with hundreds of people who came to pay their last respects, to sing, to cry, to share, to listen, to hug, to be inspired, to just be. Our visit overlapped with that of Yoav Gallant, the previous defense minister. Miriam, hoarse with no voice, took the microphone from her in-laws and, in a whisper, thanked him for honoring them by coming. She remarked how meaningful it would have been for Ivri that he came because Ivri looked up to all his superiors and tried to learn from each one. She spoke about her husband’s passion for Israel and how she knew as his wife that she and the country would always share his love.

And then she made a request from Gallant, and from all of us, that we as a country be worthy of our soldiers. That we prove ourselves to be deserving of their greatness, of their courage, of their fight and of their sacrifice.

With tears in our eyes, we made our way up to Miriam to return Ivri’s sweatshirt and to share the impression that they had made upon us. With strength, and dignity, and tears in her eyes, she held it close and thanked us for coming.

In Israel, brief encounters with our young, heroic soldiers can leave your heart bursting with emotion – of all kinds. Soldiers that we will never forget.

Let us do our best to be worthy of them.