#147: Behind the Bima - Eitan and Varda Morell, Parents of Staff Sgt. Maoz Morell HY''D

from Boa Ron Florida this is behind the beima on this week's episode Rabbi Goldberg and co-host Rabbi Philip mosit are joined by Eton and varda Morel parents of Staff Sergeant MOS who died heroically in Gaza Hashim MOS was a brave and heroic Soul who made the ultimate sacrifice defending our people in our land in moments of unfathomable loss and sacrifice we find the true essence of Courage love and indominable Spirit of our nation today's conversation is not just a story of Valor and sacrifice but a testament to the enduring strength of families who stand at the Forefront of defending our values in our homeland plus BRS is in the midst of their Global campaign all this and more behind the Bea hi I'm Rabbi Goldberg I'm Rabbi mosit I'm Rabbi Brody we're coming to you from in front of the Bea to talk to you about the annual BRS Global campaign if you enjoy our articles listen to our shum or benefit from behind the Bea you are not going to want to miss this opportunity to give a little back cuz you know that there is nowhere that you can get content like this anywhere else and we need your help to support it BRS Global is our opportunity every year to reach out to you to invite you to partner to collaborate and to empower us to continue to reach people through shum through behind the Bea through podcasts and panels and articles and discussions we need your help to reach more people to inspire more people this year we've given you an incentive give $180 to the Global campaign you get a raffle ticket what's in the raffle heo a weekend in bker tone synagogue and time with this guy time with all of us a great job is in person two domestic plane tickets to South Florida is go VIP and special opportunity to spend time with Rabbi bro with Rabbi Brody so go to BRS online.org Global BRS online.org Global and join our Global Community today thank you [Music] it's a true honor to go behind the beo with Aton Morel the father of Staff Sergeant MOS Morel Hashem one of the heroic grave courageous soldiers who tragically gave his life really defending our people and our land and we begin a Time by just telling you how much our community here in boaton and we know Jews around the world are sending you love and support and comfort and and our hearts are broken with yours and pained with you and and not only m not being part of your family but the world not having the opportunity to learn and grow and be inspired by the future that undoubtedly he was going to to bring and and so just to Simply communicate that and transmit our our love to you and our our heartfelt fos to you thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us no problem so maybe you know if you could start just just tell us when where you grew up tell us a little bit about your your family and where you live and I grew up in uh Upstate New York place called Bingington it's a small town with uh very few Jews and even fewer from Jews we were one of just a handful of families who were sh shabis there and I was born there and I lived there my whole life until I came to Israel after I graduated high school in 1988 and uh I've been in Israel ever since almost 35 years and uh yeah Binghamton was a very special place to grow up uh um we never since there are very few from Jews I always felt that we sort of grew up in a little bubble where whatever we did that was what was done I had no anything else to uh I knew nothing else we didn't have any pressure at all and those of us that grew up there uh in those years of the 70s almost everyone remained from almost all people I was just talking about this during the Shiva with someone an oldtime bigton person uh the principal of our school there he came there in 1972 and he had four from families in the entire school and all of their children are all still from today which was I think an amazing uh fact so it was a wonderful that's such an interesting phenomenon and it's true bingamon Albany Rochester those communities we know and we have in our community people from those places I don't know Binghamton all those places are bigger than Binghamton Rochester Albany cuse Buffalo are all bigger than bigton got it got it got it and did you and you stayed After High School so did did you grow up in a Zionist home where did you get that yeah I grew up in a Zionist home my father was a professor at the University of judaic stud he professor of judic studies he taught Hebrew at the University in town and he would every seven years get a sabatical would come to Israel we went to uh uh Camp mosan the summer B AA camps I went to uh away to from high schools to Mt I went to MTA um yeah we were pretty I would say traditionally zionists from family just inspired you to stay when you stayed where where did you stay how did you stay did you go to I for the year in El 1988 and I came to Shivam for the year and that was 35 years ago so wow year in sh ofm like people do shaa bet nowadays it's more standard less that those days it was a little more of a thing and then I stayed in additional year where I served in the Israeli Army wow year and then after that I went back to Yeshiva for another six months and then I tried out my parents really wanted me to I went to Yu for two semesters I did not love being in America and I mean w was okay but I wanted really to be in Israel so after that I came back to Israel and I went to University in Baran where that year I met my wife and we got married in 1993 and uh this is where incredible you you had family in Israel or or you just you were I did not have any family in Israel my sister met Aliyah a year and a half ago but for the past uh 30 something years I really didn't have any close family in Israel we have distant relatives who are not religious who live on a kibuts and that's it um now I have a sister here and I have my children and my grandchildren it's amazing that that you said you joined the army it's more popular now it's hard to say popular now but more popular now Rabbi Brody has a daughter who who joined the army who served in in the Army in Israel um what what inspired that when people around you weren't doing that I'll tell you um I knew that I wanted to live in Israel I didn't know then that I was going to be staying but I felt that if I wanted to be full fully a part of Israeli Society to understand the nuances to feel that I was equal to everyone in Israeli Society I knew serving in the Army was one of the crucial things to make that happen and I was that was I think one of my major motivations thinking back on it and uh Looking Back Now from my perspective now I know that that was 100% correct so interesting reab Goldberg mentioned it's more popular now for for graduates to go into the army but back then did they did they think of you like like what were you did they embrace you did they think right first of all I have four other friend this was very very unusual I had four other friends that went to the Army together with me from shvan like Americans it was very unusual and I think I was the first one like I was like going to the and then and then they all joined in so we were five of us together and so that that helped and I will say that the five of us are very very very close uh even till today uh they played a major role in the last 10 days of my life and what was everything that's going on now and uh they're like my family here in Israel we you know it's my my fault to miss communication vard is not able to join us for this conversation but can can you tell us a little bit about how she ended up um you met at bar Lan yeah she's here in the background she just hear she'll join us in two minutes okay great so we'll get we'll get the we'll get the get the what did you study in Baron uh Arabic Middle Eastern studies wow uh and a little Jewish history nothing I can do anything with really nothing to do with what I do what was the plan what what did you want to become I had no plan I know I grew up in a home of uh my father was a professor so you know we in those days Lial Arts was still a thing nowadays it's unheard of um and I didn't really have a plan honestly um butash things have worked out over the years amazing and where do you live today I live in a called telmon not telmon tal that's near Rana more known amongst Americans This is talmon in English it would be t l m o n which is um a settlement in the West Bank about 3 kilometers west of rala if you've been to if you're familiar with the city of modiin and you stand in modin and you look to the east you'll see that there's mountains looming over moiin and that's where I live in those mountains so we have good friends there the Shah of the Shire as well they are neighbors yeah now you also have have this to bond around I'm sure I don't know this we have two other families that have lost their sons in the last in this war here in Timon Timon has three Fallen Soldiers now and some wounded and in our neighboring yeshu Nya they also have three we're very very well represented in that right two are represented in a club nobody wants to belong to which we can't even can't even imagine can't even imagine um yeah V is joining us okay V thank you so much really we appreciate your we can't imagine how complicated difficult painful the courage of takes to be part of these conversations and and we know you do it to to get Mosa's memory and his life and the difference he made out there so Aton was telling us about his his journey that ended him up in Israel and uh and in Bara and how the two of you met where did you grow up and how did you end up you don't have to give the years by the way that you graduated high school women are more that's okay embarrass but how did yeah how did you end up in Israel and aparan I grew no I wasn't in barand I grew up in Silver Spring Maryland and um I was was involved in Mana my whole life but um but I wouldn't call you know just for the social aspects but um the during 11th grade I was invited to join a group of of the through Baka um the that joined the second March of the living and um and we did like a whole preparation for that um actually through the I think through the feder in in Washington the Jewish Federation like I got a they subsidized most of my trip and we did like many classes to prepare us about you know Jewish life before the war and then um and and that being in Poland and being um being aitz on Y and then flying to Israel and being in Israel for y yikon in yat that's when I really connected ideologically to the land of Israel and um I really became a very a very very serious Zionist then so um but I I came to Israel for the year and I and I went to Mika in bite the gun and I wasn't planning on staying but uh I was planning on going back and getting an education and then only you know coming back to Israel sometime in the future and then during my year we had a an afternoon um like a lunch time H with um Rabbi slay from the old city if you heard of him and um and he was very very zionis and one time I would had a conversation with him um after class and he he said to me basically that you know I said I'm planning on going back and I'll get married and then I'll come back to Israel and he said you know that the boy that's right for you is g to be here be in Israel and that's where things change changed for me and I decided that I was going to stay and I move decided to join the Israeli program the following year to it's a Teachers College as well like they have an American program but it's a teacher college and um and that's the year that I met Aon that next year so he was right wow so I want to ask both of you a question and and you know it's obviously putting you on the spot it's a difficult question I I I know you indirectly through family and I suspect I know the answer um but I want to ask you what when both of you who grew up in America and had every right to return to America and were on the trajectory and path your friends built a future and a life in America when you chose to stay in Israel did you did you even understand or did you even anticipate the implications of that decision to build a family and to have children and to have a son who would serve and what that risk meant and and looking back with this incomprehensible loss and unbearably painful loss if if you could redo it again or do it it differently would you do it differently understanding the price that the two of you have paid for the Jewish people um we would not have done anything differently I don't think either one of us um we have in this war we had three sons serving at the same time by the way right and that I just want to say when that H like you know each time I had a son go to the Army so while they're in the Army you worry about it right like you know sometimes things are you know heat up I remember our our second son that was in the Army things like you know they there was there was we were worried that there was going to be some sort of you know issue down south and and things were heating up but I never really ever thought about the fact that if something happens three of our sons are going to be in the like fighting a war at the same time and when that happened on October 7th Although our two older Sons were were up north where things were quieter but nobody knew nobody knew what was going to be up north either and the fact that you know that like half of my children half of our children were in were fighting this war like that wasn't something I ever imagined but it wasn't something I don't think that either of us would ever want to change you know I mean our son was killed um as a a hero for all of am Israel and fighting the war like making you know um making sure that the rest of the the rest of us can live in this in can Jews all over the world and in Israel can live as Jews so I don't think that's something we regret but obviously you know it's it's our it's a personal tragedy for us but I think that we feel that it's a tremendous to have children that served in the Army I see that as aot not anything else um in many ways I really I'm comforted and I see it as his that MOS died in the way he died and I can tell you exactly how he died and it was a very heroic um life and death that he had and those things Comfort us obviously on a personal level we very pained and saddened but we also understand um the bigger picture and the bigger picture does give us comfort and of course I don't think we would change anything we're very happy with our decisions but what happens with the other children the other boys that are in the Army is there a protocol which says if someone's been killed in battle then the other the other children can't go back into Gaza or they can't fight any longer are they allowed to stay in the Army do they have to withdraw so um both of our older boys were in the Army for like two and a half months and then they were discharged one of them is going back in they were and so they were not actually still in the Army now when it happened um I think that when a child falls in the Army it could affect the other children who haven't served in the Army yet in the sense that I think the parents have to sign off on them going to a combat unit um but I don't think it affects I'm not sure what say we also learning the rules our son who is married with three children and um is supposed to be going back in in the beginning the whole month of Nissan like through PESA so um he he made it very clear that if there is anything that we have to sign that he expects us to sign it that he's going back and there's no question about it I mean he is I he is an adult with three children so I don't know really how much say your parents have over you at that point um and we we have one other we have one son who still you know he's 16 years old and we haven't gotten to that part yet but I think that we haven't even discuss this but I think that probably if he feels that combat is what he wants to do we would we wouldn't stop him no no it's not it's not just wouldn't stop him you would act you would sign that paper oh yeah yeah meaning it could be that that's not the path for him for other reasons but right but Mo's death would not be what would stop us from you know from him doing that that's extraordinary and you're extraordinary tell us about your extraordinary son we want to learn about moosa's life and his life shouldn't be defined by his last moment or the way he left this world but you know you mentioned dayon that that he lived heroically we'll talk about that but he also died heroically could you tell us a little bit so we we can appreciate the price that that is being paid by people like MOS um you got that knock on the door the knock no parent to has a child in the army ever wants to get I know of I heard of uh somebody who has a note on the door that says that there's there's in this home in this family there children serving the Army don't knock on the door if you need anything call like that's how jarring a knock on the door can be throughout this war when someone is serving what was that like tell you just a quick story about that that when the war started um there was somebody here in our in our yesu that has a dog and he went off to war and his wife didn't want to take care of the dog so we volunteered to take care of his dog and then he came for like a month for like a month and then he came back we didn't know like we didn't know this couple it's like a new couple new couple we didn't know what they even like like you know our daughter picked up the dog from the wife like we never even saw the wife we didn't know what any so one day uh I come we come back we came we drive back we drive back and we see a soldier standing outside of our house waiting for us and V was like what's going on who is this what does he want so it was him coming he was home from the Army he wanted to take his dog back what's going on who this but that's how our Edge people should appreciate that the is terrible about it but actually um what in Israel so how it's now during the war and like we knew this also a a knock at the door means um means means that your that your soldier that one of your soldiers was killed but a phone call means that they were wounded so Moos was actually everything started and if and if the soldier can speak then they make sure that they speak to the parent on on the phone when they call so this started with um on Thursday at about 12:30 in the afternoon say that now or yeah's do it I'm just talking about the phone call oh okay started with a phone call that they called us and said that you know Moos was seriously wounded and we should pack up a bag you know make sure to take all the things that we need and then like they were probably already right outside of our house waiting but like they said in 10 minutes somebody's going to come and take you to the hospital so they purposely don't knock on the door when a soldier is wounded wow so you take you packed your things and what happened wait okay okay um you want to talk no no whatever you want um there so we we packed our things we were when like this they called us um at first and said that he seriously wounded and then they 10 minutes later they showed up that's all we noted psua seriously injured and he was in siroka which is in bva that's about an hour and a half from here so the hour and a half we had absolutely no idea as to what his condition was and the people who are taking you they don't know I think it's done intentionally and we have no idea no idea we get there after an hour and a half and they say first thing we're going to take you to see him so they whisk us into the turn ICU unit and we see them lying there you know hooked up to all the ICU stuff and we still have no idea because there's a huge range of what injured even injured seriously can mean and we know that and then we see him he's lying there he's unconscious but we have no idea and the doctor takes him into office and he sits us down he tells us very uh sensitively but very uh clearly that he is uh what they call in in Hebrew psua an which means I guess terminal he has uh severe damage uh to irr irreversible brain CR irreversible brain damage and there is basically no hope there's nothing to do there's no hope and but he's alive still and we don't know you know we expect him to progress to brain death in the next hours or in a few short days and so from the first minute we were there we were told there's no hope and then we walked out of that room obviously broken and there in the Army there's a there's a what's called aat Nim uh wounded person's officer what it's basically she's in charge of lazing between his army unit and the families of the wounded soldiers in the unit she's in charge of dealing with the wounded she's our person to talk to so she tells us look I've been doing this for 10 years and I will tell you that even though it doesn't look like it right now um you've been given a gift because most parents get a knock on the door they're told their son has fallen and then there's a funeral but you have an opportunity with most people don't have to to heed to say goodbye to part with your son and so that's what we did the next uh so we we we we try to to say goodbye and to part with him and not just us all of his friends he had a lot of friends a lot of close friends and his friends from all the different circles from from our community where we live and from his high school and from his Yeshiva and different rebies and people that were in his life they all started streaming into the hospital and you know in ICU there's you know it's very sick people and they're you know you're only allowed two people in a room but everyone knew no room seven whatever they want they can have whatever they want anyone who wants to come in and uh Saturday night a lot of his friends are in the army they were home for Shabbat we had like 25 30 people in his room on on Saturday night so everyone in his life came to that room and parted with them and by Saturday night M Shabbat we felt like okay we had our time to part with him because we also we understood this is a one-way thing if if he would continue to live it's severe brain damage there's no way that can be fixed and we're ready we're ready we're ready to move on to the next stage and the doctor sits us down and he says uh look he's stable he has not progressed um if he said he said when I spoke to you on Thursday I did not think that we would still be here now but he hasn't progressed and there's a medical reason for that and he explained it to us and if we thought we had seen the worst possible thing at this point we realized no there's a worst thing the worst thing is that he stays as he is for who knows weeks months years and that really was a big crisis a big would say a mush bear was a very very hard thing and then um the rav of our community Rosenfeld um put us together with the raido rat I don't know if you've heard ofat udat sorry udat I assume that you've heard of M sure so is like the sorry raat I get his name wrong raat is like the of end of life right is the and all the all the issues of beginning of Life and R is an expert in end of life and he lives in yam near Beva and he's on the in Israel when someone is brain dead there's a committee that makes the official decision and uh Rudi rot is one of the people that sits on that committee if you want a RV to sit on the committee he's the RV that would be sitting on the committee and he's really an expert in all the issues around this and organ donation and all the issues that could be now we weren't there yet the doctor kept telling us we'll talk about brandith when we get to it we're not there yet and that was a problem that we weren't there yet for us and um he spoke with us and explained everything to us and it was helpful and uh Sunday goes by again no change Monday morning Monday morning uh was important because everyone in moosa's life had come through and and parted with him and everybody that came to the hospital I made sure to explain to them exactly the situation because we had a lot of people doing tang toim and in our community and I know that they were in wider and wider circles all over the world people were ding from o um but people knew that he was severely injured but there is a huge space between there's a huge gap between severely injured and what he had where the doctors say there's no hope and people kept telling to us you know oh there's going to be a miracle it's going to me a miracle I'm praying for a miracle don't believe that there'll be a miracle and for us we felt that you know obviously if there would be a miracle we'll take it but we had to prepare ourselves and our children for the eventuality of not having a miracle and we know that have a CL of you can't rely on the A and therefore we felt that that would be very unhealthy for us to believe that there will be a nice even though everyone you know a lot of people were telling us and so we we obviously would be happy if there was a nice but we felt that we needed to prepare for what ala was according to every doctor and we had other people look at them everyone agreed to so at that point we sent out a notice to people explaining using all the code words you know irreversible brain damage psua anur terminally you know wounded and and then we asked for people to D for Rim because we felt that was appropriate rim for us for him forel that was a more appropriate way to be nav navigating our to and uh and then on Sunday on Sunday his everyone said goodbye to him except for one important Link in the chain of his life and the only ones that haven't is his army unit his team who he's been with for two years who he spent almost a hundred days fighting in Gaza with incredibly Incredibly Close with these guys two years through all very difficult he was in an elite unit he was in the paratroopers but within the paratroopers there's a more elite special unit of paratroopers like it's called say like their Elite reconnaissance unit right just to explain a regular paratrooper spends from the day he enters the Army till he day he's ready to go to battle till the way till the day he's fully trained is seven months in my son's unit it's 14 months it's double the training double the skills double the what they expect of you and so they were together for a very long time and um they had not yet been in and now were they were they were scheduled to leave Gaza on Sunday morning after two months in Gaza and uh Sunday morning they got out of Gaza they have make sure that they keep them on a base for one day where they do certain I think uh decompressing and psychological stuff and they let them take a shower there's no showers in Gaza literally two months without showers and uh and then Monday morning they send them home but they didn't they didn't go home they had a bus a mini buus that took them directly from there from the base to Soka to the hospital in Beva to visit uh to visit MOS and they came into the room it was about 3:30 in the afternoon already and of course like every when I explained to them exactly um what the situation was and they did not fully understand that until I explained it to them and later that day we decided to do a special what we hadn't done yet um a special de of just our family just the siblings and Us in Mo's room we'd all of course been in and out of that room many times but we didn't ever have the whole family and just a family so we got everyone together took a little bit time to do that and um we sat in the room with him and um we sang and we said some f out it was very short less than 10 minutes I would say and all of a sudden and we didn't know we did this because we were in a situation where we did not know what to do with the kids we have married children we're us we're all in the hospital this entire time and we thought that maybe we would be looking at a longer time than we expected so he said oh should we send them home should we leave leave them here we didn't know what to do and one of the concerns of our children was that you know something would happen they wouldn't have time to get back and so we decided to do Justa just not just to have done it we didn't want to call it like a pra but more of a AA and so we're all in there we're singing it was very intense and all of a sudden we see the numbers on the ICU unit you know they have the all the numbers the all things he's hooked up to start they start going crazy and then they start diving down the numbers are are going down and we look at each other and we realize as we're in there this this is it so all of our family all together just together we all said as we finished comes running in and I look at her and I'm like so is that it and she said wow that's how he left and we felt that he was waiting to say goodbye to his army unit the people that he was with all his time time and once once he had that and then we came in and did like a more official goodbye that allowed his nshama to to leave and it wasn't brain death in the end his whole everything just crashed so we didn't have really an issue of organ donation and uh and that's that's how he passed wow wow wow feel like it was a big scoot I mean we understand that that is not a common thing that people have that kind of a thing and we we definitely feel that that was a big scoot that he had and that we had no question about it what you mentioned that the way it happened was heroic and this Elite unit do do you want to share with us what happened sure um so he's in a unit called sayanim which is an elite unit within the paratroopers and they just to give you some background on Su itself he wasn't in the Army he was home from the Army but he wasn't home he was with friends somewhere else he had actually taken our car somewhere that's like an hour from our house and he heard about things very early in the morning and he realized in the unit that he's in that they would for sure call him in immediately so before anything he he immediately was going to come back home where he needed to our home where he needed to take a few things but first he called us and we knew very early in the morning what was going on and he called the he called my wife's phone and she answered and when she answered the phone he knew that what he thought was was true was confirmed by the fact that she answered the phone and he was you know he knew that was the right thing to do and he he drove to the house he came into the house he was in the house for about I was in sh but my wife tells me about eight minutes not more like seven or eight minutes and then he took our car and drove to his base which is a further hour away where he parked the car I had to go afterwards and get it and his unit gathered there they got their equipment and they were brought down by helicopter to rate to the site of the uh of the party and from then until the day he fell he was home once for 72 hours wow wow um they the first three weeks before the team ruined before the Army entered what's it called in English the land Maneuvers I don't know what they called the ground Diversion the ground diversion before that there were about three weeks during that time they were very involved in all kinds of training things and during that first three weeks we actually did see him two times um but he wasn't home we saw him uh and then when he entered Gaza we of course didn't see him for the next seven weeks uh and we also couldn't speak with them on the phone they don't have any phone contact while they're there um during the hostage exchange there was a if you recall there was a ceasefire and so when there was a ceasefire they took them they were still remained within Gaza ready because they didn't know would be with the ceasefire but they took them to a more they were in a they're in like the most forward positions there so they moved backward back to within Gaza to a place where they could um do things like for the first time take a shower have hot food and they gave them phones to be able to speak with their families so we spoke to him one time in that first seven weeks intin and one other time he had an opportunity everyone there had an opportunity to send a recorded audio whatsa message in other words someone recorded them all and then after he got out of Gaza he he sent it all to the each parent got their message from their from their son and my my wife was hanging on the there's of course a WhatsApp group of the parents all the parents of the guys in his unit and uh everyone's writing oh yeah we got our message from our son everyone's getting it oh he told us this he told us this he told us this so oh he's not a big talker he's not a blah blah blah he doesn't like that whatever so we got an 11c message and uh he said I'll in Hebrew the exact words he says uh mommy ABA saaba meaning I'm Sababa which is isra slang for I'm fine I'm greatti you you've been you've been notified like you you have a sign of life that's all felt was necessary to say so he's not a big uh you know verbal man not a man of many words he's more a man of of Deeds um and then he was home for sever hours and then they went that was the last time we we saw him I mean I remember he he got home on a Wednesday afternoon and he left Mo chabis and like mot shabis like the minute shabis out he had to leave now I normally not all of my family but I personally hold RAM and mor Chavis and I always said it was B and I almost never had to join any M time that shabis I had to to drive him I was going to drive him all the way back to the base because in order to make it on time he would have had to leave on chabas and was like I'm not doing I'm not going on shus that's crazy I'm not doing it I said don't worry I'll drive you directly there but in the end he was able to get a shuttle of the army that left late and he was able to not have me drive him all the way so I drove him just to a certain to a certain spot about a half hour away from our house and I waited with the bus for him for a few minutes and the bus came and I gave him a hug and I gave him and that was the last time we saw him and that was about two months before he fell um now what happened with if you want to hear what happened on the day so this is just and I know this is still so raw for you we're we're 10 days out right you've just you've just gotten up from Shiva yeah Monday morning yeah we're not we're not processing weeks or months or years later this is still so raw you literally just got up from Shiva and during during those months while he was in Gaza was he in touch with his siblings no no they don't have a phone there's no phone because they're worried about yeah when no when he would call home the oh so the a this so we break it up into the first seven weeks and he came home for 72 hours and then the second set eight weeks so in the second eight weeks um they were able to call home more often they would bring them phones that were appropriate for them and he called home much more often like maybe once a week about once a week right um but I'm saying they weren't serving at the same time right or were they his brother the brothers Brothers yeah no the first part he would they were they were serving yeah they went into the Army on the seventh on that job as they were called and went up and they were in the Army till around Kaneka and Kaneka they let them out and told them we'll probably be calling you back and one of them already has is knows already that he's going back in I mean they give the was April 8th to May something but he looked at the dates it came outan to uh like Kat Nissan or something like that like it's not the first time they were called up it's what's called Theon saon you get called up and there's a beginning date they call you up immediately and there's no end date but the second time now he has a regular call up which has a beginning date and an end date so he knows how long it's going to be um and he saw it comes out the entire month of Nissan so he immediately called his offer and said that he has a on the night of yalid he has a family function can he get out for that even the Sater yeah got it um what happened he this the first in in Aza he was in in kanun the last two months and they had many battles there many battles he had month before he fell he had had a very serious battle where he had literally literally bullets flying just past his head he was standing with his officer in a house and they looked out the window and they seen the window across from them um a terrorist lifting a gun and aiming at them they dropped to the floor and and the bullets were like whizzing over their head and they had to crawl on their stomachs to the next window and um when his officer told me told us about this he told me these are things that we don't know we didn't we didn't know this about MOS because as normal people normal life you don't know this told me he had no fear he got up with his MOG and he just you know let it rip and uh another guy crawled to the other window and they were able to kill to kill those terrorists and all the terrorists were killed and none of the soldiers were were injured at all um they had very serious battles in kanun and they were there for almost a 100 days and nobody was hurt in his team at all injured at all and um until until this last incident and they were 17 soldiers on his team the entire time and after this incident the following Sunday when they came out of OA the non-injured and non- killed ones there were only seven wow um what happened was if you want to hear about the actual event that he fell in um so they're in their house what what they do is the way it works is you capture a house and then you live in the house for a few days depending on all kinds of things and then you move on you capture more area capture another house and then you live in that house and every house you capture you have to set it up you have to set up a guard set of all these things so they were in the house and um they lot of people were in like the main room there it was 9:00 in the morning and they were drinking coffee getting ready to do whatever they needed to do that day it was not supposed to be a very busy day nothing big on their schedule that day sort of like the what they call the the regular like you get into your regular routine of the war I mean there is a certain there is a certain routine and a grenade was thrown into the room um how the terrorist got close enough to throw a grenade is something that is part of the investigation there's a few theories all these little things we don't know yet and the Army does a very uh in-depth investigation into exactly exactly what happened and they have told us that they will share that with us and they're very transparent they that's what they told us that you know even if it's you know there are mistakes or there wasn't mistakes we don't know yet but we tell what we're going to know every everything in the end but it takes time to do the full investigation anyhow um a grenade was thrown into the room and the Grain in off and every single person there were a lot of people in the room and everyone in the room was injured my son was not in that room my son was sleeping in an adjoining in a another room in the in the in the apartment now I will say that as a parent um for many many years throughout his entire life it was always difficult to wake him up in the morning always always difficult now I know how to do it he thrw a grenade in the Next Room he jumped right up and he kep running into the room everyone there else everyone in the room is injured they had a paramedic and they had a medic a regular medic and a paramedic which is a higher level and they were dealing with the wounded but it wasn't enough it was a mass there was a lot of people injured I think maybe 12 people that needed medical attention at the same time so he starts helping with the medical attention going from from uh wounded soldier to wounded soldier uh all his other people who were there who told me he said he was like a machine he was going from Soldier to Soldier and I think the paramedic was like and the Medics were like yelling do this do this do this and his officer they were dealing with some more seriously injured and then his officer uh was injured in a very in a major artery near his neck and he was you know gushing blood and um but o did a certain technique called packing where you take a certain type of gauze and you have to basically stop the bleeding by pushing it into the wound in a certain way usually something that Medics do the regular soldiers aren't really well versed in this but um you know he had to do it and he did it and that saved his life like they told us he would have bled out for sure um and while they're dealing with the wounded it wasn't a random throwing of a grenade into the house this was a sophisticated planned attack on the house there were at least five um Hamas um terrorists who had a planned attack on the house which is not the usual inas usually in Aza they jump out with their RPGs which is anti-tank or anti- antipersonnel and they try to shoot it and then they you know almost always they're almost always killed but sometimes they kill some of some of the soldiers this was a planned attack and the grenade was just the opening Gambit Gambit of this and the idea was to draw them out so there was a whole B going on outside of the house with other soldiers and my son M was busy tending to the wounded together with the paramedic and the medic and um and then they had to evacuate the wounded the way the evacuations work is that there's armored personnel carriers called aari and some of them have like it's almost like an ambulance inside of them they have doctors and everything and they like pull up and they have to take him from the house to there it was downstairs they had to carry them downstairs and into thear and then the AAR drives them a little further away where a helicopter with the helicopter lands the helicopter lands for few seconds they load up they load up the wounded and the wound and they're taken um they're taken to the hospital so um we were told by a soldier who came to the Shiva who wasn't in he wasn't in this because he was on a on the top on the roof of a house a little further away but he watched the whole thing unfold from a rooftop and he said you see my O come down with the wounded guy go back up come down with the guy understanding that there's like firing and shooting all around go back and up and up and back until everyone was everyone was tended to and everyone was taken away at that point when they finished dealing with the wounded he ran to his m a m is a very big very heavy machine gun that was that was his weapon that was he there's one MOG in a in a team and he's a MOG the MOG is for giving heavy cover fire and whoever carries the mug has to be very very strong because it's a heavy thing it's the type of thing that nobody wants to do it and that was his job from day one in the Army and his friends told me that everyone else that that was was supposed to be K the mug found ways to get out of it it's a very hard thing it's very heavy and all these long Marchers that they did was all with the mug so he runs with his MOG up to the roof and on the roof is the my God the the commander of the whole of the whole larger unit the whole Battalion I guess you would say English together with one of his his uh communication Soldier who's always with him and he the Communist so Soldier the kashar was shooting his regular gun at the at the Terrace and Mos comes up and this this soldier's parents came to the Shiva and they had spoken to him and the way that it was described to us that they heard it from their son in the middle of all of this suddenly MOS shows up with his MOG and he had a big smile on his face this is what they said and he says to the guy you know like step back with your little like toy gun because compared to a m a regular M16 is like not it's like it's like nothing it's like a toy it's like doesn't do anything compared to a m a m is a heavy strong weapon so he's like oh let me take care of this like step aside with your little uh you know toy over there and he steps back and he comes forward with the mug and he's giving cover fire from the roof with the mug and that made it so the two terrorists there were more we know afterwards but at the time the two terrorists who were in the house across from them very very close like a feet feet away like very clear very close his M made it so they couldn't leave the house it it they couldn't leave because he's giving cover fire the minute they would leave they'd be hit so he uh it's called theot he trapped them in the house this is going on like 20 minutes and he's just keeping them there the whole time in the meantime they brought a tank and the tank shot at the building and the building crumbled on top of them killing the two terrorists but when the tank shot he was very close to it and a piece of building shrapnel fell off and went into his eye and into his brain and he fell like that with the mug and 38 minutes later which I was told is the fastest time in the entire War he was in the hospital um so basically the last hour of his life uh was spent tending to the wounded um one of which we know for sure he saved his life um and and basically keeping the terrorists at Bay and making it possible for the tank to kill them we when we were in the hospital there were other wounded soldiers there from from this same uh thing and um one of them inside their house besides his team there was another unit from okit okit are the guys that are the Dog Handlers they have attacked them dogs and they have bomb sniffing dogs and they were in the house together with his unit um and their Commander was number of them were wounded as well uh their Commander was wounded lightly pretty lightly and he was at the time he um Moos was calming him down because he felt a wet on his whole back and he thought that he was seriously wounded and it was all like blood and Mos rips off his clothes and he's looking for the wound and he says no you got schapel to the schucker the Scher is like a water pack that you carry so it punctured the Scher he says it's just water and he calmed him down and in the hospital he came down to uh M's room MOS of course was unconscious and he held his hand he was very moving and he was like crying he says thank you so much for taking care of me and also at the funeral another guy from OAS these are guys that he he did doesn't know they just happened to be in the house for a few days uh a guy comes up to me on his wheelchair and he says o carried me down the stairs to to evacuate me into the into Mo was very very strong he was very strong and uh thank you so much uh for that so you know obviously we're we were moved by all those things and um if it's okay with you I'd like to tell you other things about Moos not please please do but let me ask you his his name I know that he was uh incredibly strong had a lot of strength was in kung fu and other athletic very athletic other other Athletics MOS o is strength where where did he get the name MOS why did you give him the name we were going to call him a different name for one of his grandfathers and that was a plan he's our fourth we have six children five boys and then a girl my o is the fourth boy and on the day that he was born I called my brother in America and his wife and they wished us M and that was in the afternoon in Israel in the morning in in America later that afternoon in America unexpectedly out of nowhere my sister-in-law dropped dead from an what's it aneurism or just completely unexpected out of nowhere the same day that Mo was born I flew to America to be with my brother Shiva he was young married two small children and I came back just in time for the like to get to the Bri and in that time we felt a need to name our child something that expressed something about what was going on and we felt that the word ma what is a is a fortress a place of strength a place that you go there and you get strength and then from there you go out and then you come back to it that's the essence of what a is hasem is a place that we go to there to give us strength and we felt that we at that time in our life because of that tragedy needed to get strength and so we named him MOS that hopefully he would be something that is a source of strength for the US and he was his entire life that sounds like it physically strong athletic spiritually strong I know he was um tremendous relationship with Hashem and was a hezer and and may have been quiet like you said with his words but his actions uh demonstrated his relationship with Hashem and his Devotion to to am is so tell us a little bit more about about him at 22 that he had accomplished such a young age from a very young age from first grade already had a very hard time in school um learning how to read was very difficult for him he had certain learning disabilities and throughout all the years in school school was hard for him um here where we live almost all the boys go away for high school to dorms and in Israel um getting into what we call a good high school okay although you know there's debate about that is extremely difficult it's like getting into Princeton like some of the schools that these kids go to like where he went like it's like there's 60 spots for 800 applicants wow it's very competitive some of these places and he had a specific school that's like that that he wanted to go to that school and uh they accept Goods with learning disabilities and all that but only a certain amount you know like and they'd be like oh we already accepted two or three like that that's we can't accept more for this year and he only want to get to that school so he fought for it and he got in and um in throughout High School school was hard for him but he did it you know in Israel we have a thing called buut the matriculations he got the bot it wasn't easy for him he worked very hard and then after high school he he decided he wanted to go to a HZ Yeshiva and he wanted to go to a specific HZ Yeshiva that he liked because he liked the guys there and he liked the re he like the atmosphere he want to go there so he goes and he does and they test him on his gamar learning and he was being tested and all this was told to me by the Reby now and he saw he was he was very weak he was very weak and he tries to tell him in a gentle way that maybe you know here we learn gamorra all day long in this particular yiva that's like thing here maybe it's not the best place for you maybe you know and they didn't they didn't want to accept him and he was very weak in gamar and he wanted to go there so and all this I'm telling you I wasn't involved in this he did this on his own he went and spoke to a guy from our community who's an older guy there he knows he has Sway and that guy spoke to the rashash Shiva and convinced him and they accepted him and when he got to Yeshiva he asked for help he went to the rabbi and asked if he could have a Kus with him he went to older guys he went to Stronger guys and he asked to have kusas with him and learning with him and I heard this on the Shiva from multiple people they all confirmed this is how it went he'd walk into the basement and open the gamar they sit downa would read the first line of the gamar and explain it to him and other would be like I don't get it and and need to explain the second time I don't understand a third time I don't understand again and again till he understands okay move to the second line explain in the second line I don't understand I don't understand I don't understand till he understand third line saying fourth line every day he would go into the B midash and he would be a he would be working very hard break he was a but he wasn't G to be you know giving sheer there he wasn't what we call in Israel MAV he wasn't gonna be the uh postador okay that was clear but he was a every day throughout the entire year it went like that he came in and he fought in order to understand the gamar he was a in the b m Amash that went through a year they start the second year and then uh in the second year uh Midway through he felt a little like he's not giving 100% he feels what they call in Israel Alim like he's sitting on getting ansy I guess so he said to himself okay I'm getting Ane I'm not able to give 100% the b m this is the time to go to the Army the problem is that um his in heer yeshivas some heer yeshivas go to the Army in August and some H yeshivas go to the Army in May in March and his has Yeshiva w goes in August but he wanted to go in March so he worked it out to go in March because even though he was going to the Army he wanted to remain within the framework of the hu Yas the problem was is that when he got to the Army he was so good that he got into this higher unit and there you can't do it in Hester so he decided to leave the heair and the difference is when you're in heair in the Army All the Other Guys in your unit are H guys so you're with all from guys but here he's with everybody there weren't a lot of from guys in his unit there only one or two from guys in his unit so like you're on your own and the way I I would say it is that sometimes you see kids I see it in where we live and you see it that in high school from kids they're like is they're they're you know you have these guys that are burning learning and and and you see them in Israel a lot of guys with the p and the guardos m and they're like a Burning Flame of talking rookus he wasn't like that he was like what I would call have in the par now mer tamid small flame but conent he did what he needed to do gamar was hard for him but but he you always had a always had a book with him he always had book did everything he need to do he do talks properly you know and because of that he was able to thrive in an environment where other people around him are not from because because it he when you're a smaller Flame the huge flame requires so much maintenance if you're not in Yeshiva it's very hard to maintain it but the strong but small n tamid is something that can sustain you even in that environment and that's why he did very very well he would throughout the Army every time he had a few minutes break and this was told to me like just not even realizing that a big deal by his non-religious uh unit guys he would put out this little book and he would learn it for five minutes and every time what was a book this was a book that he loved and studied and it was very important to him it's a book called isim by and and he would learn that book they had he worked on his mote in the army they have a thing where the whole team sits once a week and they encourage the guys to say what they don't like criticize the other guys because they want them to get it all out there and to he refused to take part in that he said if I have a problem with someone I will speak to them privately I won't say it in front of everyone he refused to take part in that he worked on his midot always he had they didn't call it AA with one of non-religious guys he introduced him to missim and he sat here at the sh and he told me he gave me this book we used to learn it in the Army together since since uh his he fell there has been a b is sharim WhatsApp group of a daily learning and his memory with a five minute share twice a week that in about five minutes had over 300 people already on so he he he was like a a mmid in what he did he did things he did it clearly but he was able in that way to be in an environment with non-religious people um if you have another minute I'll tell you one more thing I don't know what your time is sure you have two minutes I have two minutes because then someone's coming from the president's office or something to our house um his one of his rabes who used to ask Hua questions to show showed me questions that he asked him throughout his time Army and he showed me a question from the 10th of October when they still had their phones when they were in the kibu Sim there they were looking for terrorists that were still hiding in the fields and in the things and he they were staying in homes of kib nikim who evacuated their homes and at that time there was a big balagan and there were it was like like a big problem of food they didn't have food so there was so the guys were like cooking like rice and in the homes of these so he asked his re is question can he eat that and so he an I'm not really starving you know like that's how he starts it but it wouldn't be louded so the r Ro vut it's m and explains him why because you're in a battle and Beno and all the things okay fine three weeks later he's in Gaza Gaza had a similar situation they're in houses they're in kitchens that are are equally not kosher to the kibutz kitchens they except there they equally don't have food in the beginning but there they don't have phones and I'm thinking to myself when I heard this if he hadn't asked him that question if he wouldn't have had the opportunity and Goda he wouldn't have been able to ask so two two options either the most likely option I think is that he wouldn't need it which would be very hard because everyone else is and the food was scarce in the beginning or option two he did eat it but he would feel guilty about it which is also not something you need when you're in the middle of this but he had the sock in his pocket so he knew already to do and I feel like kbu made that whole situation on October 10th crazy situation where in these nonos your homes and they need to cook that whole I mean have you ever been in that station I certainly haven't they he created this whole thing just so he would have that sock in his pocket when he's in it's amazing that you can after losing a son 10 days later be talking about and something good that he did for many people they lose their faith when the Wi-Fi goes out and you've lost your son and you're talking about hasem God doing something kind could could you I know I know that we're we're closing up we have the last few moments but can you talk about your relationship maybe it's too soon maybe it's too raw maybe it's too public but something about the faith the challenge of having faith even after such a difficult loss I'll tell you it's been a whirlwind the last 10 days we had the days in the hospital then we had the Shiva and in the Shiva we literally had hundreds of people here every day and only now we're really starting to go back I haven't gone back to my life yet I would say that the most difficult part of the Shiva for me by far was when we had to get up at the end of the Shiva and rejoin our life so I think that there's still a lot of difficult things for me emotionally and dealing with the grief I think that's mostly ahead of me not behind me so I don't feel like I can answer that right now because I I feel like you know let's talk in six months right right we appreciate that honesty and that that's a very real and raw and validating to others answer and so we we appreciate that we appreciate all this time you and and V joining us and it end the way we began and know bro feels we feel our heart is with you and and it must be painful to tell the story the way that you did not only the wonderful Parts um of moosa's life but but the heroic way that he left this world but his memory will will continue to be carried on by your telling the story and and we we can't express our our love and our appreciation and our support and our hope for your comfort strongly enough I just want to share a picture of him yeah this is a picture that we put in the paper of him this is his MOG you can't see it but it's right he always had the smile wow wow wow a beautiful smile may find a lot of comfort and and a lot of strength and thank you so much Aon okay thank you very much thank you catch us next time for another Peak behind the beima