Suddenly, he becomes your son Of the thousan ds who came for the burial of Dvir Sorek, 18 going on 19 in a few days, it is doubtful that all of them knew him personally. But that’s how it is in Israel. When something like this happens, suddenly he becomes your son. Everybody knows a kid like him, has a kid like him, loves a kid like him, and that is why it is personal, after all, and hurts so much. The terrorists who did this always choose the best among us, and they did it again. What was Dvir carrying when they accosted him near Efrat in Gush Etzion? No weapon – but books. He was carrying books. He was returning from Jerusalem with books for his teachers at the Torah academy Ohr Mahanayim Yeshiva where he was a beloved student. Books, naturally, from the son of a journalist, and the grandson of a rabbi – his first teachers. Given that, he was prepared for a glorious future, and how terrible it is to speak of a 19-year-old in the past tense. How much more of this? Always David’s lament to Jonathan comes to mind – “I am distressed for you, my brother, Jonathan…your love to me was wonderful…” They do their handiwork well, the terrorists. Was it the books that offended them? They have no use for books. To them, perhaps, books are indeed a weapon. They made us great. For us, books are the source of life – the one book, the Torah, the presence that towers over our very existence, and it was in Torah that Dvir excelled. His rabbis attest to this. His fellow students attest to this as well and to his warmth and fellowship. The Torah made Dvir powerful, as it makes all of Israel powerful -- and this they cannot abide, and so they are tasked, and incited, and paid, to kill. Dvir was also attached to the IDF, as part of a program that combines Yeshiva study with military service. He was therefore dutiful to both tribes, of Issachar and Zevulun—a weight, we learn, he carried cheerfully. So many in Israel are like him, like Dvir, and yet Dvir can never be duplicated or replaced. He represented the heart and soul of Israel…the world’s one and only Jewish State, for which he too was one of a kind. Let Israel arouse itself in strength through the legacy of Dvir Sorek, aged 18, going on 19, years so heart-achingly tender and full of promise. New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the international book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal.” His Holocaust to Montreal memoir “Escape from Mount Moriah” has been honored from page to screen at CANNES. His Inside Journalism thriller , “The Bathsheba Deadline,” is being prepared for the movies. Contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Website: www.jackengelhard.com
