Yom HaZikaron Text Study

…And the land will grow stillCrimson skies dimming, mistingSlowly paling againOver smoking frontiers As the nation stands upTorn at heart but existing To receive its first wonderIn two thousand yearsAs the moment draws nearIt will rise, darkness facing Stand straight in the moonlight In terror and joy ...When across from it step outTowards it slowly pacing In plain sight of all A young girl and a boy Dressed in battle gear, dirtyShoes heavy with grime On the path they will climb upWhile their lips remain sealed To change garb, to wipe browThey have not yet found time Still bone weary from days And from nights in the field Full of endless fatigueAnd all drained of emotion Yet the dew of their youthIs still seen on their head Thus like statues they standStiff and still with no motion And no sign that will show If they live or are dead Then a nation in tearsAnd amazed at this matter Will ask: who are you? And the two will then say With soft voice: We--Are the silver platter On which the Jews' state Was presented today Then they fall back in darknessAs the dazed nation looks And the rest can be found In the history books.Translated by David P Stern

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making a circle with no end and no God