Uri Grossman was on active duty as his father was writing אשה בורחת מבשורה, published in English as “To the End of the Land.” Uri was killed in combat in July 2006. As a representative of the IDF came to the family home in the middle of the night, the author told himself, “That’s it, our life is over”. But that was not so.

Later, David Grossman said, “We lost a son, Michal and I. I see how much energy and how much it’s an everlasting struggle to remain yourself after such a tragedy. … One has to work very hard ... to believe in humankind, to trust someone, to believe in having a future, … It’s an act of choosing life.

…When most of your being is immersed under the water of death, when the gravity of grief is so strong, really, it’s a power that I cannot even describe—and yet you manage to uproot yourself, to surface, and [to go forward]. It’s really heroism”.  For Grossman, finishing his novel “was such an act of choosing life.”

As we gather tonight, we remember with respect and reverence those who lost their lives: men and women, old and young, veteran residents and new olim, parents and children, brothers and sisters. We remember those who were killed in battle and in acts of terror, in uniform and as civilians, on combat missions and while shopping, on foreign soil and at local bus stations. We remember them.

However significant and necessary memory may be, it is not sufficient. In addition to memory, we require something else: imagination. Imagination enhances and sharpens the memory, explains and justifies. Imagination guarantees continuity and fosters possibility. Imagination enables us to transmit hope to our children’s children’s children.

Even here, tonight, as we remember, we are called to imagine a future where war and combat will cease, when a great peace will embrace the world. We must hold onto that dream, no matter how battered and bruised it may be, so that those who died will not have perished in vain; so that we and Israelis everywhere will continue to make the heroic decision to choose life.