Philosophical Reflections on Memory (Volume 68)

With God’s help

I'm re-uploading here. A column I wrote last year, in memory of my friend from the youth, Rami Buchris, the late, who was killed in a tank exercise in Sinai on the eve of Hanukkah 5740. Unfortunately, I have a class today and cannot make it to the cemetery, so I decided to raise the matter again in his memory.

Rami's tombstone in the Haifa military cemetery reads Lieutenant David Ram Buchris, but his real name was Rami, not Ram. His late father, Ephraim, a personality of his own stature (I knew him very well even before we met, from the stories, and afterwards we had a strong relationship until his passing), said that in consultation with a Talmud inspector at the Ministry of Education, he and his mother Deborah decided to name him Rami after the Amora Rami bar Hama. In a panel I participated in at the National Library together with another friend of Rami, Dr. Meir BozagloWe learned the subject of this, and it is not lacking, in which Rami Bar Hama appears (I think this was the subject for which his name was chosen).

When we arrived at the midrash at the beginning of the ninth grade (9th grade), I met Rami, a young boy from Kiryat Yam, a development town in the Haifa Bay. It quickly became clear to me that he was an amazing personality, head and shoulders above the rest of us. Talented, charismatic, mature and responsible, educated, profound and a social leader, truly out of my league. That in itself was instructive, and broke quite a few stereotypes for me. Since then, my soul has been attached to his soul, and we became very good friends until his fall. When the news reached me that Rami had been killed, I felt that my world had been destroyed, and to this day on Memorial Day (and other days as well) he walks beside me. Many times at different crossroads in my life I have asked myself what Rami would say (and what Ephraim would say), and I have made decisions together with them. In light of what I wrote in that column, perhaps it was really together with them.

May their memory be blessed.