The tension between strength and heartbreak

I remember seeing Dror's children being released back into Israel after being taken h*stage in G*za.

I recognize their faces from the clips that I saw, way back on November 25, 2023. That means that they waited for two years to the day for their father's body to be returned home.

Noam and Alma's parents sent them through the window, and then they followed. They all split up. Their mother, Yonat, was m*rdered on that fateful first day in Be'eri. Dror too was k*lled, but his body was taken as leverage, a weapon against Israel.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed that they "found" his body in Nuseirat on Monday.

And now, Dror Or z"l is finally home for burial.

Friends describe Dror as gentle, private, and principled. A family man. A community man. A man who chose a life built on shared responsibility and quiet decency.

He worked in the kibbutz's printing press, and then he moved back to his culinary roots and made handmade cheeses.

His children (they also have one older child who was not there that day) now have finally been given what no family should ever have to wait for, the right to bury their dead with dignity.

But Dror’s return reminds us that time does not heal what is still unresolved.

It reminds us that we live in the tension between strength and heartbreak.

Between rebuilding and unbearable loss.

Between going on with life and being pulled backwards into that morning again and again.

Today, we are asked the same question we keep being asked as a people:

What kind of society will we be because of this?

How fiercely will we protect life?

How faithfully will we remember?

How responsibly will we carry the weight of those who can no longer speak?

May Dror Or’s memory be a blessing.

May Yonat and Dror's children be wrapped in love, stability, and protection.

May they feel supported by the people of Israel for all of their days.