It was a week of mourning. Everyone needs a hero. And Israel and the Jewish people had no sooner found one than they lost him. Intelligent, good-looking, modest, and, above all, a mensch, Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut, took people with him up to the stars.
In the heavens, above the sordid world of politics and the horrors of terror, Ramon united Israelis, Jews, and the rest of the world.
Ramon had restored the sort of pride that Israelis save for truly momentous occasions: the Entebbe rescue, the airlift of Ethiopian Jews. It should have come as no surprise that Ramon flew in the mission to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reaction in 1981. He was clearly the sort of man to help save the country and perhaps the world from the threat of nuclear devastation.
Ramon's last few days were spent seeking answers to the riddles of the universe.*
Now, the riddle for which we desperately seek answers, is why he and the other astronauts perished. And why, would a man who brought with him the great Jewish symbols of our religiona mezuzah, a Torah, a drawing of a 14 year old Holocaust survivor, have to go. After all, he went up not only as a representative of the State of Israel, but also as a Jew. As the representative of the Jewish people, he recited kiddush on Friday night. As a Jew he said the Shema Yisrael prayer as the space shuttle orbited over Jerusalem. As a Jew he insisted on eating only kosher food in outer space. And as a Jew he told the prime minister from this celestial perch, I think it is very, very important to preserve our historical tradition, an I mean historical and religious traditions--and this from a person who was a secular and not religious Jew.
Well, we are old enough to know that not all good people survive. The good and great ones, as Ilan Ramon was, live on as martyrs. And we, in our tradition, save a cherished place for these people along with all the other wonderful men and women who sacrificed their lives for their beloved countries, traditions, and families. We call this "Kiddush Hashem," dying to sanctify G-d's name. And sanctify G-d's name, Ramon certainly did! What Ramon demonstrated, despite his tragic ending, is that people can dream--and the Jewish people know how to do this better than anyone. What Ramon did teach is that secular and religious Jews could coexist, that with mutual respect, even people with differences can survive together. The real danger is not that a space craft can disintegrate. Space flight as all know is very risky. It is that our differences within Judaism would tear us a part. Ramon proved that when we all dream together, unity can be achieved. This should come with the knowledge that we all come from the same place. We are all a part of G-d, and we all will be going to the same place when our time comes.
The beauty of our tradition is that Ramon, our sacred parents, and all who perished at the hands of' "sonay yisrael," those who hate Jews, will one day be together. Legend teaches that as small as Eretz Yisrael is, when moshiach comes, all Jews will be gathered into Israel. And the miracle will be not so much that we will all return, but that that there will be room for us all in Israel.
Ramon taught us that there will be, indeed, a place for all of us--secular and religious, rich and poor, sophisticated and uneducated--because we all dared to dream that life can become a better place to live.