This week has been intensely emotional.
The last hostage, Ran Gvili was returned home to be interred in Israel.
Ran was a 24 year old police officer who exhibited extraordinary bravery on October 7, saving the lives of many, neutralizing 14 terrorists before being severely wounded and then abducted into Gaza.
His extraordinary mother Tali said Ran was the first in and the last out.
His body was recovered in a massive military operation code named Operation Brave Heart, which involved hundreds of soldiers, reservists and dentists who were using their expertise to identify Ran’s body.
Hundreds of dead bodies needed to be examined.
Dan was the 250th to be examined and then identified.
There are so many details that surround this story and make it otherworldly.
In Hebrew each letter has a numerical value. If you calculate the value of the letters in Ran’s name those letters equal 250.
As the new broke the media was replete with images of hardened soldiers, covered in their weapons, burying their faces in their hands and weeping openly.
After the operation was concluded soldiers prayed, recited Psalms, sang the age old song of Jewish faith “Ani Maamin, I believe. While commanders quoted verses from this week’s Torah portion.
Why were they reading from our Parsha?
Because this week’s story is an echo of another event that took place thousands of years ago and is reported in the Portion.
The portion narrated that as the Jewish people are preparing to leave Egypt after centuries of oppression and persecution, Moses, their leader, is focused on one task.
He is searching for the bones of Joseph. Joseph had asked for a promise as he was dying. He requested that his bones go out of Egypt with the Jewish nation when they are redeemed.
Where were these holy bones? Why did they need to be searched for and found?
They had been submerged in the Nile river by the Egyptians who viewed Joseph as a good talisman who would protect their precious Nile river, the source of their sustenance.
In the present day, there is a holy covenant between the IDF and her soldiers-no one will be left behind. No matter what it takes, every soldier, dead or alive, will be brought home.
Perhaps this is rooted in the retrieval of the bones of Joseph who was also the first of his family taken hostage to Egypt and now becomes the last to leave.
Sound familiar?
Moses did not know where to find Joseph’s coffin. Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi highlights the parallels of searching and finding Joseph’s body with the hunt and unearthing of Ran’s.
She posits that behind both of these retrievals stands a woman, who waits patiently for the child to return.
In the case of Joseph it was his niece, Serach, the daughter of Joseph’s brother Asher, who knew the secret of Joseph’s burial place. She was the keeper of secrets in that generation. When Moses initially appeared on the scene and announced he was the Redeemer, the people turned to Serach to understand if he was a fraud.
Serach asked about the words this Moses used to introduce himself and was told Moses uttered the words
“Pakod pakadti, I have surely remembered you”.
These were the right words!! These were the code words by which the redeemer sent by Gd would reveal himself.
Gd was informing the Jewish people he had not forgotten them in their suffering and he would bring them back to the land.
Serach affirmed the veracity of Moses claim.
This is the same Serach
who waited 22 years while Joseph was incarcerated and held hostage in Egypt. When he was released it was Serach who was tasked to share the knews with the bereaved father Jacob, using her soft words and musical talent to weave the words of salvation into a song so that Jacob would not be shocked and perhaps mortally traumatized by this news.

Rena Quint is a Holocaust survivor.
Rena was a young girl during the War and has limited memories of what she experienced.
She barely remembers her own mother.
She does remember that the family was rounded up at the synagogue and there was a moment where she had a window to escape. She thinks her mother pushed her out the door. She can’t imagine what strength that required.
Many years later, Rena learned that all those who had been captured that day, were taken to Treblinka, where they perished.
In her book, A Daughter of Many Mothers, Rena chronicles her incredible journey of survival. She credits that survival to many women, mothers as she calls them, who protected her along her way.
Being a mother is a difficult job.
It is not defined or limited to being a biological mother, certainly as seen by Rena Quints experience.
Part of being a mother is having faith, often in the most trying of circumstances.
A mother has faith that the child will…survive…thrive…achieve excellence…transcend…she believes in her child, she sees the possibilities.
In Hebrew the word for mother is Em, or Ima.
The letters EM are the first two letters of the word EMUNA, which means faith.
Mothers give birth with faith, they give birth to faith, and their steadfast faith in Gd carries them through.
These Torah portions chronicle the journey of the Jewish nation through the exile of Egypt and to ultimate redemption.
The Talmud states that it was in the merit of the righteous women of that generation that the redemption took place.
This week’s Torah portion, Beshalach, gives us a glimpse of the stalwart nature of those women.
The portion narrates the Jews departure from Egypt and the remorse Pharaoh feels after their leaving.
He exhorts his army to take off in pursuit and can only convince them to do so by giving them great wealth which they carry in their chariots.
The Jews arrive at the shores of the Red Sea, where they find themselves at an impossible impasse.
The Egyptian army is closing in and before them and there is no hope, no road to be taken, only the Sea before them.
One of the Princes of the 12 Tribes begins to walk into the water and when the water reaches his nostrils and he is about to drown, the Sea miraculously splits and the Jews walk through to the other side.
The Midrash shares a conversation between two Jews as they traversed the Sea. One said to the other “it was muddy in Egypt and now it’s muddy here”
This proverbial conversation reflects an attitude.