Transcript
Auto-generated transcript. Not time-synced to the video.
M so I wanted to share with you guys an
experience. I feel like I need to give
testimony to what I saw last week to
what we experienced last week because it
was so powerful. I feel I just need I
just need you guys know you guys know me
already. I usually come with like my
Bible ready to you know say you know
this this thing about the Torah portion
and that thing about the Torah portion.
And this week, I just feel like I need
to share my heart and unbburden like
this testimony of what I saw and
experienced and felt. On Wednesday
night, Jeremy and I um went to the
funeral of Daniel Perro, who was a tank
commander
uh whose body was returned
uh in this last deal.
and he was a tank commander that on
October 7th was uh with his team with uh
Itai and Tomare and with Matan and they
were one tank
right in front of that
wall of Gaza just standing in front of
these hordes of barbarians bursting
through and they didn't run away and
they just fought till their very very
very last strength. um Daniel and it and
Tom were killed and Matan was taken
captive and Daniel's body and it's body
were also taken captive and Daniel's
family for more than a 100 days didn't
even uh know what happened to him. They
thought that he was possibly captive by
the kamas and eventually found out that
he had been
uh that he had been killed because they
found a shirt with his blood. And so if
you guys can believe such a thing, we
actually went to the second funeral of
the same person. That's not something
that happens to you every day to go to
somebody's second funeral because they
didn't know if they were ever going to
get Daniel's body back. So they buried
his shirt with his blood. They did the
whole funeral with all the eulogies. Um
and then and then they had to open up
his grave when they got his body back
and do the whole funeral all over again.
So that was uh what we were doing on
Wednesday night. And we get to this
funeral of this just unbelievably heroic
boy uh only 22 years old who fought to
be a combat soldier because he had an
injury and they didn't want to even
accept him into combat. He had to fight
to be in combat and then just went up
against thousands of terrorists that
were just bursting through Gaza, killed
dozens of terrorists, saved hundreds of
lives. and he, you know, so we're at
this funeral and Jeremy and I are just
packed in there with thousands of people
coming to the second funeral and out of
nowhere
shows up Matan who had just two days
ago, two days earlier, been freed from
two years in Gaza. And I recognized him
because I had seen the video of him
being released. And I see him walk up to
the front of the funeral and it's like
thousands of people there in the
cemetery. You just hear
this like gasp of so many people at the
same time because you can't believe that
this person he's so pale and so
emaciated that he's standing there to
give to give you know honor to his
commander
and then we were there. Imagine 3 hours
of eulogies back to back. We're all just
standing in the cemetery in the military
cemetery. 3 hours of the most
unbelievable eulogies from his from the
president and and and you know army
generals and his friends and then uh
it's 3 hours and it felt almost like
nobody wanted it to end. His sister
actually said she says I don't want I
don't want this funeral to end. Is like
if you could say such a thing I don't
want a funeral to end. Who wouldn't want
a funeral? Was like, I don't want a
funeral the funeral to end because then
it's like it's over. It's real. And it
it was like no one wanted this funeral
to end. We're just 3 hours of talking
about this unbelievable hero. And then
his father gets up. He says, "Listen,
it's 11:00 at night. We've been here for
3 hours. I'm going to give the last
eulogy and then we're we're going to go
home." And out of nowhere, and this was
so unexpected,
Matan jumps up onto the stage, whispers
into Rav Daron, Daniel's father's ear,
and takes the microphone and starts
speaking, and no one can believe this.
We're like, what is happening? Somebody
who is 48 hours out of two years in Gaza
has the strength to come and speak. So I
just I want to share this with you and
then and then share with you guys what
we what we learned, you know, what we
felt after this. I just want to share
with you guys the it's it's just a small
clip. He he spoke for a while, but just
a small clip of uh what he said.
What's up?
foreign.
Daniel,
Daniel.
So
[Music]
The villain
is
[Music]
[Applause]
Is that unbelievable? And
try to imagine that it's a funeral
and thousands of people
burst into aorious applause in a
funeral.
And people just could not stop
applauding this. And you know, there's a
few things there that were so
remarkable. There were so I I think I
emptied the contents of my face into my
sweater at that moment. I was just like
holding my I couldn't I was holding my
head. I couldn't I didn't feel like I
could hold my own head up. I was it was
when he says there were when he says to
Danielle's family, I'm going to walk
with you. I'm going to take care of you
for the rest of our lives. Like he's
this is a person who should everybody
single one of us should be taking care
of for the rest of his life. he's not
two days out of Gaza and saying that he
wants to take care of them. And then
when he says, you know, his friends, his
friend, their other friend, Itai, is
still held in Gaza and he says, "I would
go in right now. I would go in right now
to Gaza to go and get him myself." He
actually said to the to the to his
commander, the first thing he said when
he was released was like, "I want to get
better and go right back into combat.
Like, I'm ready to keep on fighting."
And he was such a remarkable young man.
And you know, when we when we left the
funeral, Jeremy and I looked at each
other and we were just like, "What did
what did we just witness? What just
happened?" And it took me time. I'm I'm
trying to process what did I just see?
And then what struck me was
that it was as if the concentrate like
the most intense
essence
of the courage of the fallen
was being represented in Daniel. like
the willingness to run forward to your
most certain death to save others and
the courage of the living. people who
have the unbelievable strength to go on
and to cling to life and to love life
and hold on to the sanctity of life even
in the tunnels of Gaza for two years and
hold on to their godly image and not
forget who they are and what they are.
It was like the concentrate and the
essence of that was represented in that
moment in Matan. And as Matan is
standing over the grave of Daniel, it
was like an atomic bomb of the meeting
of the essence of the essence of the
heroism of the fallen and the heroism of
the living of
these of our modern heroes of this era
that we're living in. And it was like
watching this it was I felt as if a
portal between this world and the world
to come just opened up. something like
for a moment I felt like I was in a
revelation. I said I have to I I don't
know what this is but something opened
up. It felt like like heaven opened up
and there was this meeting for just a
moment of this incredible essence. And
then it struck me that really
is what makes Israel so unique because
you know there there are there are
nations there are peoples there are
cultures that have tremendous
self-sacrifice. We can say a lot of
things about kamas and their evil, but
what's theirs is theirs. They are
willing to sacrifice their lives and
give up their lives for what they think
is being called of them, what they think
is right, what they think is being, you
know, told to them by Allah.
And there are cultures in the world that
love life, that cling to life, that that
that want to have the joys of life and
the pleasures of life and the
consumerism of life. And we'll do, you
know, people people will pay a lot of
money for, you know, every supplement
and every drug just to have one, you
know, just to hold on to a bit of life.
I think what's so unique about Israel
is that Israel loves life. If you come
to Israel, even in the worst days of the
war, you'll see people getting married
and being happy and having children and
children running around and there's joy.
Even in the darkest darkest days,
there's always
a love of life, not giving up on the
actual goodness of life. But at the same
time, a willingness that we've seen to
run, not walk, to run
towards self-sacrifice,
losing limbs, losing life to help
others, to save others, to save lives.
And we see it again and again and again.
And you know,
a culture that's willing to
of people that are willing to die and
sacrifice their lives. Okay. But if you
don't really value life, does that
really mean anything? Is that really so
valuable? Does that is that is that
something to, you know, admire? Israel
loves life so much. And with all of that
love,
there are people like Daniel
who are willing to run run to give up
their life to save others. And it was
like this this meeting of that love of
life and the
courage and self-sacrifice that was so
moving. And you know, it it made me
think about, you know, we're now
starting I can't I can't talk to you
guys without going a little bit
biblical. We, you know, we just started
the book of Genesis and that really is
like the essence of the beginning of
God's message to us because there's the
tree of life, loving life. God makes us
in the makes man in the image of God,
the sanctity of life, but then there's
that knowledge of good and evil. Like
once evil comes into the world, you will
surely die. Death will come. Once evil
comes into the world, death is sure to
follow. And it's like this there's this
energy of clinging to life and this
force of death that come into the world
in the beginning of Genesis. And I think
that the book of Genesis is that
struggle. This book that we're going to
now be studying together once again in
this season is really about that
struggle of when do we cling to life and
when do we sacrifice. We're going to see
it with Abraham sacrificing, being
willing to sacrifice his son, with
arguing with God to cling to life even
of the Sodommites. Like, that's going to
be the struggle of this book. And the
book of Genesis eventually culminates in
Judah's willing to sacrifice himself to
save Benjamin. In Joseph saying to his
brothers, "Don't worry. God had a plan.
Like, I was I suffered. I was in
captivity, but it was all to save lives.
It was to prevent a famine. It was all
for good. And I think that that's, you
know, that is that is the unique
strength of Israel that we're seeing
come out right now. And, you know, we
should just merit to be worthy merit to
be worthy of these heroes.
Bye, guys.
[Music]