Mickey Zivan room-mate of Eyal Yifrach

You can say that coming from today or even more coming from last week to say the least about anything there's Just a few things going on there. When leaving is as someone who lives there, as someone who made aliyah with his family and and to know Sorry. And to know the amount of life that is there and what a great life is there and to leave there just on a regular basis. There's nothing simple about doing that. But then to leave knowing that multiple friends, multiple family friends, brothers of friends, guys who I learned with in yeshiva, my own brother is fighting inside Gaza makes things no easier. the beginning of the fighting. A boy from Yeshiva lost his foot. A boy who sat next who sat behind me for a whole year. Buckeye show last week was killed. I never planned about when I planned to come to America and speak about everything. I never thought I would have to speak about Bakai. But just two words about [Music] him. For the whole year that I was sitting in front of Bakai, I was convinced that he had a serious eye condition. His eyes are always this bloodshot red always. And in Israel, it's common for high schoolers to volunteer for viral. And then usually after 12th grade they stop volunteering and or go into the army or go to yeshiva or mina and they start building their their yiddish guy and they start learning and there doesn't really that doesn't really leave a lot of time for volunteering. When Bakai came to Yeshiva, unlike others, he would learn the whole day and after a full day of learning, he would go to Jerusalem to do a shift of Mindon and then make it back to yeshiva to start learning the next morning, which will explain why his eyes were always red. And if that wasn't enough that he was doing that while he was in yeshiva after he went into the army and he'd be two or three weeks into the in the army without sleep or not. So he would go home say hello to his mother and then go back to Jerusalem to do another double shift of mad. Those are the type of people that are defending. Those are the type of soldiers that we're talking about. Now with the talk that that there might be a pulling out of Gaza right now and that the soldiers are leaving now I was faced with a new a new challenge. How am I supposed to talk to my friends now? boys who are 20 years old, 21, 22, some are older. So even younger, 19, maybe 18. coming out of Gaza after coming out of war and what they've gone through and what we hear about in the press and what we read about about the the Israeli child killers and the the Israeli army and the terrible things that they've done and the families that they've destroyed. This I don't deny. The numbers that they report are probably true, but how am I supposed to tell it to my friend? Or why is a boy who's 20 years old, why does he have to have to go on with the rest of his life with the conscience that he possibly killed a family or possibly he had to to shoot the missile or he had to shoot when the father was standing in front of him with a gun and his child in the other hand? Why does a boy who's 20 years old have to go through that? 21, 22, the rest of his life with that on his conscience. And on top of that, majority of the world's population to agree with those and call him a killer, a child killer. We just read. That's what I'm crying about today. These are guys who learned in yeshiva. These are guys who all they wanted to do was defend their country and this is what they have to come back to. Now with all of this and on top of that my roommate and what happened there? What am I supposed to feel? What am I supposed to think now going on in life? How am I supposed to deal with what just happened the past 2 months? Like I said, I had a brother who was in the was in the army down south. So why when whenever he had the chance, he would send a few pictures from down south. One picture was a tank. So I said to him, "Listen, I'm 20 years old. We lived in Israel for 6 years. I've seen a tank before." Or he sends a picture of a tractor, a D9. Said, "I've seen a picture of a D9 before. He said, "No, no, no, no, no. You're missing the picture. Look at the tank. That's an Israeli tank. Look on top of the tank. There's four heads popping out. That's David. He's from America. He came back to fight. That's 40 years old. He left his work. He's a lawyer. He left his work to come. That's it. That's Jacob. That's him. And look behind them. My friends say that we're entering Gaza now. We're not entering Gaza. To enter Gaza, that means you have to be outside or something. Gaza is part of we're not entering anything. We're continue. We're going in. That's what's in the picture. Sends me another picture of this ice cream truck looking thing. Instead of ice cream, there's a big schwarm in the middle and there's a p and there's people handing out free sh to all the soldiers. And he puts us a caption. That's what's going on. is the yeshiva where boys come to learn for as long as they want to and when they're done learning they go into the army for as long as they want to. They come from all over the country and they come with a will that or an understanding that the Torah that they're coming to learn is not to be a they're not going to become a rabbi. They're not going to become a worldrenowned speaker or an author or so on and so forth, but that every job of everything that they learn helps Amad. And when they go into the army and wherever they go into the army whatever unit and forever as long as they go that's also for the toah and the the army this is for and this is for and that's willing and they're willing to sacrifice maybe 6 7 8 years of their life before university before starting out having a real family life cuz they know that's what that's what's needed from them now. For that same reasonal came to Ali personally knew that he had a dream to go far in the army to be in a special unit to do great things but he understood like he once explained to me that that in the army if doesn't go to yeshiva there won't be an ayal in the army. So for that he chose to go to yeshiva. He chose to take a serious path. One where he knew he was going to have to to fight every morning to understand to figure out figure things out. The first morning that came to yeshiva or the first morning that he came to check out the yeshiva. Let's start with that. I go up to him and I ask him what's your name? What are you doing here? He said, "I'm coming out to check out I'm coming to check out the yeshiva. I'm thinking about learning here." So I asked him, "How long are you planning on coming for?" So he said, "This is like a Sunday morning." He said, "Probably by tonight I'll probably leave." Comes next chabas and he's still there. And asked him what he's doing. and he said, "I'm not ready to decide that this is where I'm going to make my home until I'm 100% sure this is what I want." So, he spent the week and that's who he was. Knew that if he wanted to go somewhere and if he wanted to be something and he wanted to get there, he knew what it take that he knew what it took to get there and what he needed to do. His explained that during the eulogies that on the first day that ayat came so asked him who are you where did you come from? So he said my name is but where I came from is not really doesn't really matter. So he said okay but where did you learn in high school? Said I didn't really learn in high school. What do you mean? did a thing called 12th graders who go to undeveloped communities in Israel and they spend their 12th grade there instead of 12th grade as I know is a fun year. A year not much of learning and more of and touring and enjoying life before getting life getting serious. But Aya spent his 12th grade year in Batyam. And Batyam, if there's an undeveloped community that needs help, that's Batyam. He spent there he learned in a school mixed with religious and non-religious boys and girls. And upon being there for about a month, he understood that when a a non-religious boy had a bar [Music] mitzvah, there wasn't much of a bar mitzvah. His parents threw him a party there was there was no much of a bar mitzvah there. So yeah being who he was started the bar mitzvah project. Bar mitzvah project mean that every boy secular or non secular religious or not religious had bar mitzvah. So made sure that at least 20 or 30 older guys would go to the bar mitzvah and there would be serious dancing and there'd be a bar mitzvah. Yafo which is not far from Batan didn't have a youth movement for the you for the religious youth. So Ayal went to Yafo and started a youth movement for the children of Yafo. That's what he did during his 12th grade year. So when he is asked where were you in 12th grade? What would you learn in 12th grade? He honestly said I don't I didn't really learn in 12th grade. So what do you want to do here? The rabbi asked him. He said I'm here to learn. For the first two weeks he didn't understand a thing. When I say he didn't understand a thing, I'm telling you honestly, he didn't understand a thing. You would see see him sitting there in the maj and he didn't understand a thing. Not much. But he sat there and he learned to make a longer story short the Thursday that Thursday before he was taken along with Giladali. And I'm sorry I just I didn't get to know Frank and I was a room with Sadikim and there's plenty of stories about them. Unfortunately, I didn't get to know. Therefore, I could only speak to about that Thursday came up behind of Yakov, slapped him on the back, looked him in the eyes, and smiled and said, "Listen, I figured it all out. I understand the whole sh you just give, I understand everything." He asked him questions. He answered, he started giving the questions back and forth. That Thursday night's history where I begin is Friday afternoon after that Thursday night. Friday afternoon, we go to Shuim in Jerusalem for from big After one of the shim, I get a text message from my father in the text message which is like a police text message passed along to throughout explaining that Gilad and Afali didn't get home that night and that if anybody has anything any information to report immediately to the police. Now I have only brothers and if somebody doesn't come home at night or someone doesn't show up for a few hours besides for my mother, nobody's really freaking out. So honestly, when I first read the test message, I quickly closed it and started getting ready to go get back to Yeshua for Shabas. But then I started seeing people mingling around whispering something's going on. So I go up to my friend and I ask him maka what's going on. So he said there's a rumor that there's a third what? A third boy. What do you mean a third boy? He said yeah third boy. You know the ones were missing. Oh, I didn't I didn't realize they were even still missing. There's a third. Where is he from? Who is he? He said, "Rumor has it from uh from the yeshiva." So I said, "Who is he?" We said, "Listen, he's new, darkish, strong." You [Music] know, you're talking [Music] about he said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Him, him." He said, "He was in your room." No, our room is family. In the room we have guys who before the army, after the army, young, [Music] old, we do everything together. Birthdays are celebrated. We have sometimes we go to somebody's house for Shabbat Shabbat. When you're learning the mid and you look up for a second, out of 300 guys in the room, could always picture, I could always know where the guys in my room are sitting. Right now I can picture right now where they're sitting right now in the Bach their places. Coincidentally enough that we hit checked back to the yeshiva. That was before everybody was making a big deal out of it. We get to yeshiva and then immediately they posted that there's going to be tim at the yeshiva. I don't know about the people in this room, but after 20 years of life, thank God, the only people I've ever heard to say before is maybe a friend's friend friend or the mother's friends, sisters, son, so on and maximum you say one, two, and even then it's one, two, let's go, continue on with life. But suddenly the person that you're saying to him is the name in front of you is the guy who sleeps next to you and the guy who slept next to you just two two nights ago. The same guy that you were supposed to explain. We were just joking about the he had just given me the biggest slap on the back that I was waiting to get back at him. He had just made me cop. That's the name I was saying to him for I saw him less than 12 hours ago. How's that possible? Baby J fills up. Everybody comes in. It's Friday afternoon usually getting ready for Shabbat. Meanwhile, everyone's in the Bash. Rabbi starts going to one, two, three, four, five. And I'm thinking to myself, this is coming from one who's been spoiled with his whole life with barely even a family, a relative having to pass away here. I'm thinking, what's going on? I'm thinking to myself, if this is what God's plan is, [Music] I got it. Hashem's plan. You're going to take three boys. You're going to pretend like they're going to they're captured. May they go missing and everybody's going to come start saying. Everyone's going to start freaking out. We're going to remember that there's a guy that life is serious and we're not living in our own in our own life and things are real. I understand. We got the message. Now, please bring the boys home. There's some three mothers waiting. We'd like to learn with him in yeshiva. We got the idea. enough more teing. Seven, eight. I'm thinking to myself, I've read enough stories and stories and the and the rabbi and he davins and right when he finishes ding for the miracle, the miracle happens. And I'm thinking to myself, why not now? Why can't we have a story like this? Shabbat in only 2 hours, 3 hours. This would be a perfect miracle. Everybody would understand that there's a God. Everyone would understand that this is real, that we're not messing around. Bid, as I'm thinking to myself that we need a miracle, I look up for a second. This is my two friends. One of them with his hands in the air like he's, you know, score a touchdown, whatever. The other one looking up to this guy and screaming is a n is a n What a miracle. What a [Music] miracle. Could it possibly be that after just 20 years of life, only 2 years in yeshiva, Mickey Zan caused a miracle with his timing. My friend hands me a phone on the phone descripted as the most daring Israeli army's raid. by one of the top counter terrorist units. As they went into the village and they took out three terrorists, they bought they brought back three boys, two boys. Nobody was injured. Nobody was hurt. Story's over. It's been taken care of. They're on their way home right now to their respective families. And was found inva on his way home. He got stuck there and he slept the night and was making his way home. Story's over. Thinking to myself, we should start dancing. Make sure there's a party. The Shabbat is going to be the best Shabbat ever. But as a good got a good education growing up and I was told that when my father gives me something so first you have to say thank you and then you could start jumping up for joy and the rabbi obviously didn't get the message and he kept going on with it. So I decided if up until I was having kavanote to find the the three boys now have kabota to say thank you for finding the three boys. So I start saying thank you 20 minutes for the tealing doesn't stop go to the back of the midash pretend to have pretend to blow my nose I look at my friend the same one who had his hands up in the air the same one who was screaming is by the look on his face could tell that whatever rumor we thought was True. And whatever boys that they thought they found and whoever they thought they found in that the opposite was true. That Shabbat we stayed up the whole night learning followed by the same thing the following night. The Sunday morning I go up to the bash to start learning. See like half my friends there. I thought it was pretty clear that when there's like a situation like this, I thought guys would maybe jump out of bed and start learning this is what we have to do. But nobody's there. Go downstairs to start looking. Go down more. Go down. I get down to the office, start hearing a screaming, phones off the hook. I go in to the conference room. See 30 guys sitting there. Each one with a phone in his hand. Coffee spilled on the table. Food everywhere. Someone's tripping over me while he's running out. Paper's flying. I grab my phone. What's going on now? So he said there's going to be a daming at the Kota tonight. But not just any ding. There are times in Israel there are a few times a year when the kot fills up. The k fills up. It's not the most uncommon thing. But he said tonight everybody's going to be there. We're talking about everybody. We're talking about everyone from every type of Judaism. It was clear and com and just understood by everybody without even talking about it that if not every Jew was there secular not secular kipa nakipa black hat not black hat didn't matter if not everyone was there or not everyone felt that they needed to be there or or someone didn't know about it then not only would that be maybe pathetic, for lack of a better word, but it wouldn't be. And if we wanted to bring back the three boys, nothing would work besides for that. So, we called everybody. Everyone was given a number to call of a different yeshiva, a different community, a different organization, the north, the south to make sure that everyone got to the kota that night. If anyone had the unpleasurable experience of ever opening up an Israeli newspaper or ever a Jewish news newspaper for that matter, we're clearly understand that one of the few good things that the Jews happen to be very good at is disagreeing with each other. And that if there's one thing we don't like that we like to do is not agree with the other one. And sometimes we like to make that known very well. And when there's elections, we even we even up it a little bit. We do a great job. I was given a number of a big player in the movement. Calling from a place called a religious Zionist organization calling a member in the movement. Like I said, elections not so far behind us. Nobody needs to be reminded of what went on and what was back and forth. So I call the I call the number. He answers. I quickly say my name and where I'm coming from, hoping that he doesn't hear, hoping just to get out that there's going to be a the we'd like you to be there. He says to me, wait, what's your name? Where you from? So I like whisper you're calling from. I said yes. Yes. He started yelling at me for five minutes straight to tell me that every was at his were there to last night saying to him for the three boys and that help in his words if we're not strong then he can't be strong and if the yeshiva doesn't hold up then we're not they're not going to hold up and if we don't or start organizing and getting on our feet and if we're sitting around crying it's not going to work and we're all going to he said right now chose you guys not you guys specifically that you're you're Zionist you're not Zionist fact that you took one of your boys it's on you now needs you now not only will be at the kota we're going to send buses we're going to send buses from all our places all these shivot will have buses to go and if you need help getting buses from other people call me I'll make sure that there's buses from other people. Naturally, I just called I looked at the caller ID just to make sure I had the right number. I'm looking at him in shock. I didn't know. Hung up the phone. I went downstairs. Told my friends that the are coming. Another friend walks in. Tel Aviv University is coming. Baran's coming. The people from the south are coming. The people from the north are coming. So on and so forth. Then headed the hotel handing out to standing in the front of the hotel square where the where the stairs are where the shook meets meets the stairs. I see everyone who's coming in guys who just got back from Thailand black hats. It was like one weird family picture. Everyone walking down the stairs like that. And of course, you have the the random group of Chinese tourists that have to come down with their umbrellas and their their cameras and they don't understand what's going on and you don't understand what's going on and you don't know how to explain to them how to please keep moving and they're taken back by the whole scene. They I understand if they're taken back by the whole scene, then obviously there's something going on here that I should really understand what's going on here. Not only was the hotel filled up that night, doesn't matter how many thousands of people there were there, there was no place to move. But the fact was that everyone got there. Everyone was comfortable there. Didn't really matter who is the one standing next to you or the one standing behind you, the one standing in front of you. And whatever happened there at the kota that night was a little preview or a little promo for what am was about to get ready for for the days up until now that happened there at the kota followed by another such event in Tel Aviv and throughout the country. Tim said everywhere stack up projects. Women lighting candles. Women who never lock lit candles before Shabbat. Now lighting candles before Shabbat. Asking how to do doing for the three boys. Guys who never put on fill in before asking how to put on fillin and where can he get a set of fill so he could put on every day cuz that's what he wants to do. That's what he feels is necessary right now. Never put on fill in but there's something inside of him that screams I need to put on fill in now. Not only now, just for once. I want to put it on every day until the boys come home. Being the one who speaks English in Yeshiva and also I'm here tonight not because I was Aya's best friend or close um we were in the room together. We were friends, but I'm here tonight before you because I speak English and I'm the one who can do this. There's much people much other other people who are more fit to do something like this and can tell you a lot more about Ayal and his and what happened. But uh you're stuck with me for now. And they asked me to speak before the press, the foreign press, to talk about the yeshiva, to talk about, to talk about everything. Naturally, not knowing what to say for myself or to say about the situation at all, I call a meeting within the room. Like I said before, the room is a family. And I go and I ask the room, "What what am I supposed to say before the press? If the whole world is about to hear what I have to say, what should I say? It should come from the room. Should come from the people who are the most close to him. Everyone says their idea. He says this, he says that. Another friend comes up to me. He says there's only one thing the world needs to know. And not the whole world needs to know, but the Jewish people need to know also that when people try to do this to us, these these these terrorists and they try to do this to us and they try and take away our ru or they try and break something, they try and harm the nation cuz they understand when the nation is together, they stand no chance, whatever they have to do. But when they do this, they get the opposite reaction. When you're trying to harm us in the way and you take one of us, you take three boys. One boy is enough. But three boys, this is the type of reaction that you get. Some sort of Israeli type reaction. When I say Israeli, I'm talking about everyone in this room. Everyone in this room is Israeli. The word Israeli comes from is Jacob's second name. Jacob is was the Abraham son if you heard of them. We all come from them. So when he was telling me that this is an Israeli reaction, I was thinking about everyone in this room. Everyone in this room was involved. And I know you guys felt it cuz we felt you guys feeling it. And that's the way it is. So when these people take one of us or two of us or three of us This is the type of reaction you get. It's in built into the whole Jewish people, built into the family software that when times like this come, we come together just like any other family. When things like this happen, they come together. Same no different the Jewish people in Israel or outside of Israel. That's what we said to them. That's what we said to the world that Thursday because we were in Aal's room. So the Shiva sent us to Aal's parents and to their house in sitting with a's father singing songs and he's has a smile on his face. I asked him what's going on. He said, "I don't have any new news to tell you. If they knew where they were, they would find them, but I just got back from a meeting with Shimon Paris." And I was screaming at Shimon Paris and I was telling him, "Shimon, the whole world loves you. You're the face of politics for Israel. The Israel that the world wants us to be." Start screaming out. Why don't you scream? You're not doing anything. So share looked at him and said, "Listen, if you want me to scream, I can scream. At the end of the day, you guys are Jews and the world doesn't really care right now." He said, "But I will tell you one thing. This is coming from Shimon Paris. For as long as I've been around, and for as long as Shimon Paris has been around, there's been Israeli politics. For as long as there's been Israeli politics, it's been Shimon Paris. He said, "For as long as I've been around, I've never seen anything like this. For as long as I've been around, not the when we started this nation, when we started the the state, not the six day war, not the Yumipo war, there hasn't been a time like this. There hasn't been energy like this in the streets coming from Shiman. We go into the kitchen, we speak with the mother, Eris If anyone could imagine or anyone tried to imagine, I stopped trying to imagine cuz there's no one besides the mother who could really understand the kind of mother kind of pain that the mother goes through. And we're talking about then they hadn't yet found the bodies. They we still believe that they were being tortured and the worst happening. And here 10 guys from yeshiva. 10 guys who've been spending the past year, two years, three years, four years in yeshiva, learning at Muna, learning faith, learning about Hashem. And here's this woman standing before us with this smile on her face, with this glow about her. On a side note, if anybody ever goes to Israel and they want an experience, just go to the house, stare at them for two seconds and be on your way because and there she is giving us the biggest of our lives, saying how if this is what we're meant to be, if this is how it's supposed to be, then this is how it's going to be. As hard as it is, as difficult as it is, we're servants in his world, not the other way around. Hashem wants it to be this way. This is how it's going to be. She had just gotten back from the Geneva, the the United Nations there. In Hebrew it's called the um she called it the um master how and she says when you're when you're pleading for three boys three boys who coming back from week of learning Tawa or education and there's nothing more innocent than learning Tawa and getting an education to there's no money involved if anything you lose money there's no honor involved at least that young. There's nothing more you can ask for a 19-year-old, an 18-year-old to do with his life. And then that Thursday night to try and get home to spend Shabbat with his family to spend the Shabbat with his father cuz his father's birthday. What more how many 19 year olds, how many 17, 16 year old boys are like that in the world? spend their weeks learning for no degree, for no honor, for no extra cash, and the weekends or on Thursday night they're spending their Thursday night trying to get home just so they could spend the weekend with their family. How many people are like that? How many guys are like that in the world? And here she is. Here I She's explaining here I am pleading for three of them just for someone to lift up their finger. just for someone to open their mouth, to send a tweet, to take a picture of themselves holding the anything, just for someone to say that they were actually kidnapped by terrorists. And that was too much to ask. She said, "When you're cleaning for them and all you see before you is a closed door, another closed door, a closed door, a closed door, a closed door, there's one door open. There's one door that she said that was always listening to me. She would later say during the whole Shiva that during this whole time she always felt that there was someone holding her up the whole way. That's coming from the mother. I understood then that if the mother or the child who was being tortured or the unknown was happening to him could understand that there was something going on here and so can I. If she was ready to take this upon herself then so can I. But she left us with one more message before we left. She said listen throughout your life you could always ask yourself llama. You could always ask yourself why my son why me? Why our community, the community in Alad already lost a few boys this summer, this this week, this year? Why now? Why does this dapka happen to have have to happen to me? What did I do wrong? What did I mess up? What did I mess slip up? What is who deserves that their their son gets taken away from them? That she has to live every night and not know where he is. Why? But she says there comes a point in life when you tell yourself I'm gonna stop asking myself why. I'm going to stop asking myself llama and with one little dot with one little chic between the lament and the mehe you turn that lama and you turn it into lema. You turn into for what? For what is this happening to me and for what was I chosen? For what was it my son? Not what did I do? Not why I why me and why my son but why da my son? What am I supposed to do? What kind of thing is expected for me now to do? Not only what is expected for me to do but how can I do what is expected me for me to do to the highest level. So she says we got the message we called upon people to take in Shabbat earlier. Women so doing creep guys putting on fill in guys doing whatever they can. people from the north coming to the kota the d night calling at all hours what what can we do what can we do there were times in yeshiva that we had tons of programs going on and we had we had flyers going out and we had business cards made up with tim for the soldiers and we had this and we had that and there was a time the rabbi said now is enough from the yeshiva now we have to let other people take other stuff because there's so many people who are asking what to that we had to give. We had to make sure that there was what for other people to do. That was what's going on. I wish I could tell the make a sad story happy or give it a Disney Disney ending, but as we know that wasn't the case. But for those who thought like myself that the minute that this story ends that we got to such a peak and we got to such a and we got to such amazing places that thousands of years we haven't gotten to. And now that the story is going to be over, now the time is going to start. Now is the time to start throwing mud at each other, pointing fingers, the police, this, they did that, they didn't do enough. Calling calling upon the Jews here, they didn't do enough, they didn't donate enough money, this and that. There couldn't be more wrong. I couldn't be more wrong. Cuz after that, it only got stronger. I'm talking from someone who was there in Israel up until last week unfortunately to come here. But it only got stronger. The amount of people calling, the amount of people going down south, the amount of soldiers, guys who are 40 years old, 30 years old, 35 calling up the army asking them what they can do, when can they come in. I'm not talking about like the the religious fanatics, the guys who who who love the army or or want to do that. I'm talking about guys who have no haven't been in the army for maybe 15 10 years, but they're calling up asking what they do, when can I come in, what's needed, just anything. There were guys who were so excited not even not just to go into the army, not to go down to Gaza, not to go to the fighting, just to take up a guard duty to fill someone else's position who went to the Gaza. That's what they wanted to do. Let me do something. Let me fulfill my let me be part of this. Help me be part of this. You speak to the soldiers when when they went into the man of kaf and the man of bu that they went in with everyone. You see the videos of the officers speaking to the soldiers before they go in. You go into the hospital in Soka where they keep the the injured soldiers. I went into a room. There's two soldiers laying there. One of them is a dead. One of them is from New York. And in between them is 100 bottles of drink, 100 bottles of Coke and SD, whatever. And if they're not there the rest of their lives, I don't know how they're going to finish it. Somebody walks into the room, puts down 10 pies of pizza. The next person that comes in, brings her baked goods. I ask this family, they're standing there, where they're from. They're from Kamad. Kamad for those who don't know, back and forth between Kad and Soka hospitals around 7 hours, 8 hours. That's what they wanted to do for two guys. They have no idea who they are. But it was worth the drive 8 hours to come visit these soldiers. nice person comes in Moroccan sa with her spinjim and their Moroccan doughy stuff whatever they they make and it's delicious but they're feeding me and I'm I don't know why they're feeding me cuz I'm not a soldier but she says if you're coming to support the soldiers then I have to support you this non-religious woman and she's telling me how it's a big haka to support soldiers and if you're supporting soldiers then she has to support me because that's also part of the I'm looking at her like what's going on. She's looking at me like, "What's going on?" But that was what was going on. I called up before I came to America and asked her what she wanted me to say. being her the mother. Being her the the first the the mother. I asked her what she wanted me to say. What should I say? She said that there was one two years ago. Matsmu where everybody does barbecues and like July 4th in Israel and Ayala didn't show up to the barbecue, the family barbecue. So we're looking around and we were looking for him. We didn't know. We're calling him. We didn't know where he was. A family friend had just seen him though. They called to they sent us a picture of him. He had brought in hundreds of his little Israeli flags. took his backpack to the heart of Tel Aviv. I was giving out Israeli flags by himself saying to everyone who we saw said, "I don't really know the people." This was her words. She said, "I don't really know the people in America. I don't know what they're like." She said, "But tell them that story." Cuz that's the kids we're talking about. Same thing goes for Same thing goes for Napali. Same thing goes for every soldier is there. And she said also one more thing. She said that's very easy to feel helpless. Helpless like you have nothing to do. And she said she was getting all these calls from people out of Israel and people in Israel who didn't know what to do and they felt helpless because they couldn't be there. During the war people weren't in the army so they felt helpless. I couldn't was my job. She said there are people whose job was it was to go and search for my sons. There are people whose job it is to go into Gaza and fight. There are people whose job it is to learn in yeshiva and that's their job. And there's people and everyone else who's not there. It's not like they were given they weren't given a job. She said, "Everyone has it upon themselves to take it upon themselves to fill in their job." She said, "I was the mother of one of the boys who brought Ami is together. That was my job." And there might be no harder job than that. That doesn't mean that everyone any other mother and every other father and every other kid and every other 19-year-old doesn't have a job here, too. She said, "Tell them that everyone has a job. Everyone here has a job." Today's mourning the last debate mikdash some people say that there's even no reason to mourn these days because of the amount of to the amount of togetherness that there is and the fact that we have Israel and we have a strong army and a strong government. She said the only thing that we're really waiting for is the B mikdash to come down. She said that's all everything else is ready. But she said remind them and she said also Mickey also know for yourself that everyone has a job and the man of there was in Israel and there was in America if we don't continue with the way understood that where he needed to go he needed to go to yeshiv he needed a certain place and he was willing to to take that risk and to to take that uncomfortability to push himself to make himself to get to that That's what's called upon from everyone in this room. That's what's called upon from everyone around the world. He said to take it upon themselves to do what it needs to do what they need to do to be that one more battery to be that one more wheel. This whole thing called everyone is a piece of she said live that type of life isn't just a statement. It wasn't just a song that they learned in Gan and that they continued and you hear like the birthright kids like chanting in the kotab but everyone is part of and everyone has a job to fulfill that to be a part of that there's nothing more to explain than those three words that we have something special from the three boys was brought a lot. Not only do we find the tunnels or whatever security that was brought, but it could I can honestly say that from those three boys from Gilad and Afali, the Jewish people came together. and Jewish people came together all over the world. But now it's on us that we were born in this generation. We were in this generation for a reason to continue to make sure that that doesn't end. Like she told us in the beginning there's a lema there's a for what for what was I born in this generation that generation am came together and it's my responsibility to make sure that only continues on amen