Two Years Without Yitzhar: On Grief, Memory, and Choosing Life
Two years have passed since Yitzhar Hoffman z”l, one of Israel’s greatest heroes, was killed in Gaza.
People often say that time heals. That grief softens, dulls, becomes manageable. I’ve learned that this isn’t quite true. Time doesn’t make it easier—it just makes the absence more permanent. More embedded. Less surprising, and therefore heavier in a different way.
What does change is the rhythm of missing.
At first, the pain is sharp and chaotic. Later, it becomes steady. Predictable. Always there.
I see this most clearly when I see his family.
His wife, carrying a loss no one should have to carry alone.
His boys, growing up without their father—missing him in ways they don’t yet have words for.
His parents, siblings, nephews, and nieces, each holding a different version of the same impossible void.
There is no sentence that finishes itself when you talk about them. Everything remains unfinished.
As a friend, I think about Yitzhar constantly—in the most ordinary moments.
When I have a personal dilemma and instinctively want his perspective.
When a professional question comes up and I already know what he would say.
When I hear something on the news and feel that familiar urge to check in with him, to hear his calm, grounded take.
And sometimes it’s even simpler than that.
I walk into shul and, for a split second, still expect to see him there.
To give him a hug.
To ask how he’s doing.
To share a word, a smile, a moment.
Those moments—the reflexes that haven’t learned the truth—are the hardest. They remind you that love doesn’t update itself according to reality.
Whenever we hear about the IDF’s special forces carrying out extraordinary missions—precision operations, quiet heroism, impossible feats—my thoughts go straight to Yitzhar.
Not because I know the details of what he did, and not because he would have ever spoken about it, but because I know the kind of person he was. The kind of strength he carried without noise. The kind of responsibility he took on without asking to be seen.
In those moments, it’s impossible not to think that Israel lost not just a soldier, but one of the people who made those achievements possible—a true hero, whose greatness was never meant for headlines.
And alongside the loss, something else has revealed itself—something deeply rooted in who Yitzhar was and in who we are as Am Yisrael. For every hero who fell, families and friends have chosen to carry the spirit forward. Over the past two years, thousands of initiatives have been born out of grief: nonprofit organizations, educational programs, leadership frameworks, and countless volunteering efforts. You see it in places like the beautiful viewpoint in Eshhar, built by Yitzhar together with local youth—a place of openness, perspective, and quiet reflection, now carrying his name and memory. You see it in the extraordinary work of Simcha LaYeled (שמחה לילד), where Yitzhar volunteered, bringing joy, dignity, and light to children with special needs—work that continues every day, long after he is gone. These projects don’t erase the pain, and they don’t pretend the burden isn’t heavy. But they testify to a choice: to live. To build. To grow. To keep spreading good in this world, even when doing so requires immense strength.
Yitzhar isn’t missed only because of how he died. He’s missed because of how he lived. Because of the space he occupied, without effort. Because he was someone you counted on being there—emotionally, morally, humanly.
Two years on, the world keeps moving. Children grow. News cycles turn. New crises arrive. But grief doesn’t follow headlines. It follows memory.
And memory, when it’s tied to love, doesn’t fade.
May Yitzhar’s memory continue to be a blessing—not in a ceremonial sense, but in the way he still shapes how we think, how we choose, how we show up for one another. And may his family feel, even in the deepest absence, how deeply he is still held.
