On this sacred mountain, Mount Herzl, lie generations of heroes and heroines. The wound is deeper than time itself. Time passes, but the pain never fades. I feel it myself in every cell of my body. My brother Yoni, who is buried here, fell 50 years ago. He led his heroic soldiers to rescue our hostages from Entebbe, Uganda.

I was an Israeli student in Boston at the time. My brother Iddo called me and told me that our eldest brother had fallen in battle. My world collapsed. I drove for seven agonizing hours to Cornell University, where my father was teaching. The moment I broke the bitter news of Yoni’s death to my parents was the hardest moment of my life.

Fifty years have passed since then, and there is not a day that I do not think of you, Yoni. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant hast thou been unto me. I miss you dearly. All of us in this family, the family of bereavement, dearly miss our loved ones. We all identify with the words from the Book of Lamentations: “Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.”

And alongside the pain, this pain that never passes, as I have heard from many of you, my brothers and sisters, this is a family of heroism! You have told me, with great justice: we remember not only how the sons and daughters died, we remember primarily how they lived, and what they fought for.

When Dobi Kogan, of blessed memory, a fighter in the Shaldag unit, fell in battle in the Gaza Strip, his wife Shaked cried out: “What keeps me stable facing the abyss is looking forward and upward, as the spirit of the nation and your spirit carry me.” And when reserve soldier Avichai Amsalem, of blessed memory, fell in the Western Negev, his sister Shira-Emuna wrote: “The essence of Avichai’s life was giving. He used to say: When I help someone who is struggling, it isn’t hard for me; this is the essence of the entire nation.”

The abyss opposite the essence. An abyss and an essence that are inextricably linked. The abyss of terrible pain, when the ground is pulled out from under one’s feet, and on the other hand, the foothold of essence, of meaning, the understanding of purpose. The shards of life that shattered into a dark abyss are gathered; they reunite, but differently, building an essence that always reminds us of the “what for.”

In the War of Redemption, continuing Israel’s previous wars, the essence is clearer than ever: To defend our national existence. To guard our home, our people, and our state. To ensure, with G-d’s help, the eternity of Israel. In every generation, they rise up against us to destroy us; in this generation as well.

The ayatollah regime in Iran planned another Holocaust. It plotted to destroy us with nuclear bombs and thousands of ballistic missiles. Had we not acted against the existential threat, had we not acted with determination and daring, the names of the death sites Natanz, Fordow, Isfahan might have joined the names of the death camps of the Holocaust: Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka.

But that did not happen because together with our great friend, the United States, we crushed the Iranian regime’s machinery of destruction in time. We removed an immediate existential threat. This is the essence of the campaign: to ensure that the thread of life of the people of Israel is not severed!

In the name of this essence, Moshe Yitzhak HaCohen Katz, of blessed memory, arrived from the United States as a lone soldier. Moshe was a paratrooper. He fell in battle in Southern Lebanon during ‘Operation Roaring Lion.’ In the name of this essence, Golani fighter Tuval Lifshitz, of blessed memory, from Beit She’an, insisted on fighting with his comrades against Hezbollah. When Tuval’s mother asked him when he would come home, he would reply: ‘Mom, we still have work to do, and we will do it.’

In the name of this essence, Druze Engineering Corps fighter Maher Khattar, of blessed memory, from Majdal Shams, went out to battle. Maher was impacted by Hezbollah’s criminal attack on Majdal Shams two years ago, an attack in which twelve children were murdered. Maher Khattar fell in battle last month alongside his friend Or Demri.

Jews and Druze, shoulder to shoulder, on a mission of unparalleled importance, a mission shared by our Christian, Muslim, Bedouin and Circassian brothers and members of other groups.

Members of the family of heroism, citizens of Israel: In our thousands of years of existence, we have stood many times on the edge of the abyss of annihilation. We were persecuted by our enemies. We paid heavy costs for the defense of our homeland and the preservation of our heritage.

But specifically in the darkest moments, the internal essence of our people was revealed as a solid rock in the heart of the abyss. From the abyss of Oct. 7, we burst forth, guided by the essence, to return the war to the gates of those who seek our lives, on seven fronts.

Our younger generation, a generation that did not know life in a foreign land, that did not know the dreams and yearnings for a promised land, that was born into the reality of an existing state, seemingly self-evident, it is specifically this generation that revealed itself in all its glory. The day before yesterday, I saw this once again: Nearly every year, my wife Sara and I meet with a group of IDF widows and orphans.

Every year, as you sit around the table and hear the stories, the heart struggles to contain the pain. Every year, it is a meeting saturated with tears and longing: with wonderful women who lost their partners in life; with children who will grow up on stories and pictures, but without a father whose hands hugged them when they came into the world.

In the meeting the day before yesterday, every family described to me, with great sadness, their private abyss. But at the same time, every family expressed a refined essence of pride in the fighters of Israel who did not stand idly by.

Among others, Anat Meir was there. Anat’s life for the past two and a half years has been defined by the line: ‘Not in vain, my brother, did you quarry.’ Her husband, Major David Meir of the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit, used to sing this song by Naomi Shemer to their son Shaked, who is now three years old.

On Oct. 7, David Meir, of blessed memory, charged the terrorists at the Kfar Aza junction and Kibbutz Be’eri. He fought with his comrades from the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit for long hours, but was ultimately mortally wounded. And Anat, sitting with her two sons around the table, emphasized: “Not in vain, my brother, did you quarry,” because from the stones of sacrifice of our heroes, the building of the nation will continue to be built. Even the wounded, who experienced a feeling of falling into a deep abyss, are forming a new essence with the support around them.

We salute those wounded in body and spirit for the fortitude they display in their journey of rehabilitation. We offer a prayer for their full recovery. We are investing, and we will continue to invest, as the State of Israel, all the resources necessary for their recovery journey.

One of them is Ari Spitz, an inspiring symbol of Israeli heroism, who lost both legs and an arm in battle. But Ari did not lose his compass. Tonight, he will light one of the Independence torches atop this mountain. When Ari Spitz declares, “To the glory of the State of Israel,” we will all cheer for him and for all the wounded whose bodies bear the scars of war.

From the abyss, up the path, to the summit, this is the essence of the wonderful people of Israel. May the memory of the fallen of Israel’s wars be blessed and kept in our hearts forever.