A full transcript of this episode is available below.

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On TEXTing: IRL – Ideas for Real Life, Elana Stein Hain brings the big dilemmas facing North American Jews into conversation with classic and modern Torah texts.

Vayikra: Living with Sacrifice and Closeness in the Shadow of War Transcript

Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.

Elana: Hi everyone. Welcome back to TEXTing IRL: Ideas for Real Life, where we wrestle with the big dilemmas of our time, through the lens of classical and modern tour texts. I’m your host, Elana Stein Hain. We’re recording on March 5th, 2026, during war with Iran.

Over the past two and a half years, Israel has been at war, and after a lull of about six months, we’re back at war, now directly with Iran. Living through wars entails life-altering phenomena, from restricted activities to increased fear and anxiety, aAnd most significantly to loss of loved ones. There are so many families living with loss, an important subgroup of those being Israelis and Jewish Israelis who have lost soldiers, people who have sacrificed their lives to protect the Jewish state and the Jewish people. 

As we begin the book of Vayikra, Leviticus, a book that’s literally about sacrifices, korbanot, I wanted to invite an Israeli colleague to show us a little bit about what sacrifice feels like today for those who are living in its aftermath. My chavruta today is David Dishon. 

Now, David co-founded Shalom Hartman Institute’s Charles E. Smith High School in 1985, and he was its principal for two years. He currently teaches Jewish studies there. He’s also teaching in a gap year program known as Torah Va’Avodah, TVA. His publications include two books in Hebrew, The Culture of Dissent in Judaism, and The Skeptic Shall Live by His Faith. You may not even realize it, but I bet you’ve used his haggadah; he and Noam Zion co-authored it. It’s called A Different Night: The Family Participation Haggadah. 

David is a teacher of mine and a friend and his beloved grandson, Staff Sergeant Eytan Dishon, zichrono levracha, of blessed memory, of the Givati Brigade, was killed in battle on November 20th, 2023. Thank you so much for joining me on the show today, David. 

David: Thank you, Elana. It’s a pleasure to be here. I would like maybe that we, we could dedicate our learning this evening to the memory of my grandson, Eytan Dishon, who was really an outstanding young man. He was, he studied, very, very seriously at the Yeshiva in Kiryat Arba. He served in the army in Givati Brigade. He was the commander of a namer, an armored personnel colleague carrier. And he was shot and killed by a sniper in Gaza on November 20th, 2023. And may his memory be for a blessing and hopefully today will, perhaps he can inspire some people the way he’s inspired us. 

Elana: Amen. Amen. And the way you’ve inspired people too. So let’s start by examining the word sacrifice itself. Okay? Mosha Halbertal points out in this great book of his called On Sacrifice that sacrifice has three meanings. I wanna start with two of them. Okay? The primary use, he writes, a sacrifice is a gift, an offering given from humans to God. It involves an object, usually an animal, which is transferred from the human to the divine realm. That’s the first use. 

Then he goes on in its second use, which emerged later. The term refers to giving up a vital interest, for a higher cause. Someone may sacrifice his property, comfort limb, or even life, for his children, country, or in order to fulfill an obligation. This latter sense of sacrifice also entails giving, but in this case, it’s giving up or for and not giving to. 

And then Halbertal actually points to a connection between these two senses of sacrifice. He says, the verb “to sacrifice for” can actually be construed indirectly as giving a gift by the individual to the nation or for the good of others. 

So David, when you think about the many sacrifices made in these two, two and a half years, and especially of your beloved grandson, Eytan, how do you make sense of Halbertal’s words in these two meanings of sacrifice?  

David: Okay. Actually, I don’t think the, the, the notion of sacrifice played a big, major role in coping with this loss. I never saw it as, as giving a present to, to God. I really don’t think that the God, the way I construe him, would want a present like that. He would much more take pleasure in all the wonderful things that Eytan did when he was alive. 

And in the second, in the second notion, actually, you know, it does make sense to me. In fact, that’s what we’re doing. Everybody who’s risking their life is risking their life for something that they believe is greater than, than they’re own life. That’s why they were willing to risk it. 

And no question that in the, in the case of Eytan and so many of the soldiers, they weren’t just taken by force to, to the army. This is something that they wanted to do. This is something that they believed they had to do, was, it was an obligation in order to preserve something much greater than themselves. 

Elana: Well, so it, it’s interesting when you say they had a choice. You know, Halbertal has a third meaning of korban, which is really the meaning in modern Hebrew. It’s “victim.” It says the third meaning of korban is manifested by an intriguing development in its use in many languages and in modern Hebrew, korban denotes not only an offering, but also a victim of a crime, right? 

Now, obviously there’s a difference between someone who chooses valiance to sacrifice for something and someone who’s quote unquote “just a victim.” I wonder if one of the reasons why the concept of korbam, when I first brought it up to you was sort of like, wow, absolutely not, is because of this sense of victimhood as opposed to agency? 

You know, it’s there. There’s definitely something about that. I mean, we’re living through this war in Iran and sadly, a few people, nine people were killed in Beit Shemesh by a rocket. They’re victims, they’re korbanot in that third sense. Eytan is not a korban in that sense, Eytan is the sacrificing for. It’s the agency. It’s different.

David: Well, you’re, you’re absolutely right. In fact, it calls to me a big debate in Israel that took place, I think maybe 10 years ago, et cetera, when families of victims of terrorism, some of them children, some of them old people, they wanted to be included in the national remembrance of the soldiers, which took place on the Yom Hazikaron, Israel Memorial Day, which is the day before Yom Haatzmaut, Independence Day, and they really want to be included in these, in these ceremonies, in this memory. They lobbied for it, they fought for it, and ultimately they won. 

I must admit, at the beginning I was kind of a opposed to, I said, you know, what kind of heroism is there in being a victim? You just happen to be on a bus at the wrong time. 

But ultimately I understand, I think, the pain these people feel, but it, it’s not the same thing as, as people who voluntarily put themselves in harm, harm’s way. It’s not the, not the same thing. You know, I certainly do not see Eytan as a victim. I don’t see our family as victims. This, the fact that Eytan was there in that armored personnel carrier was the result of his whole identity and the whole way that he was educated.

Elana: You know it, it’s an interesting thing. I know that the term korban, we, we haven’t talked about the etymology itself, which is really about closeness and this distinction that you’re making between, and God forbid not to at all misunderstand actually what it means to be a victim, and that that victimhood is something that causes as much pain, more pain, same pain, right? But there’s something here about the question of being close and coming close, and the choice to put yourself in harm’s way. And I wonder if you can speak to that a little bit, the concept of closeness in the word korban from karov.

David: Right. You’re, you’re alluding to the meaning of korban that I do relate to most, which is from the Hebrew karov, which means near, nearness. And something about, you know, the korbanot, talking in Vayikra, making a gesture that brings you close to God. And that the people who are close to God are people who sanctify the world. 

It says later in Vayikra, Vayikra 10, about the, the deaths of the two oldest sons of Aharon on the very day that the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, was dedicated. And Moshe says to Aharon, bikrovai ekadesh, I will sanctify myself through those who are near me, referring to the two sons of the Aaron who were killed because they brought some kind of unusual or non-commanded incense into the temple area. Maybe over-enthusiasm on their part, they were punished, but at the same time they’re called krovai, they’re called the those that are near to me. So the idea of, the idea of a sacrifice is reflecting something that is, that is near to God, that is dear to God. 

And I heard this many, many times when we sat Sheba for, for Eytan, from different people about how, how close he was to God before he fell. And, and even more so afterwards. 

Elana: Wow. This, this is, I mean, what you’re sharing with us is a very personal theological take on all of this because, you know, you’re taking a moment where Aaron’s sons were punished and you’re actually flipping it and saying, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Actually, I, I want you to understand that there is a possibility of closeness, and it’s not about punishment per se. And I am just wondering, you as a, a, a person who is so theologically infused—

David: Elana, it’s not me. It’s not me flipping it, it’s the rabbis and the Midrash. They flip it. 

Elana: Yes, you’re right. You’re right. But that doesn’t mean that everyone’s going to internalize that in the same way. And I’m just wondering, you have been at the Hartman Institute for decades and I’m just wondering if you would share with us as a person who is, has such a religious sensibility. What helps you cope? Meaning, I understand what you just said, but what helps you cope with your relationship with God given this kind of loss? 

David: Well, actually I’m very happy to, to talk about that even briefly. That’s, studying at the Hartman Institute gave, gave me so much. Just took me from a very, very kind of innocent stage all through learning Maimonides and learning Rav Soloveitchik and all these different approaches. 

And I must preface and say that each, each individual has a different approach. There’s no one approach that is appropriate for everybody, particularly in this area. Certain things that are for very comforting for some people could be outrageous for other people. So I’m just gonna give my own personal perspective in the way I’ve come to understand it now through my studies with David Hartman and my wonderful colleagues at the Hartman, particularly in this area, Israel Knohl.

I’d like to take my perspective from the Book of Job, which I think is an amazingly deep book and clearly a critique of certain conventional,religious beliefs that were around at the time. And I, I wanna focus on the answer given by God to Job. At the end of the book, there are four chapters where God gives us magnificent speech pointing to all kinds of amazing things in nature, different animals. 

And then his last two chapters about these two monsters. One is land monster and one is the livyathan, sea monster and just, you know, how huge and enormous and threatening and dangerous they are. And he keeps saying to Job rhetorically, and again, can you tame them? Can you handle the, these powers? 

And I get, I get from, I have to ask, ask myself, okay, how is that different from things that Job’s colleagues kept throwing at him all the time? And I think, I think in a way it is different. I get two takes from that, that speech, the four chapter speech at the end of Job. 

Number one is clearly, there’s no way that we can understand God. There’s no way to kinda understand God’s ways. If God is God, then he’s beyond human understanding. And all attempts, like the, like Job’s so-called friends, did, they said, well, if you’re suffering, it must be a punishment, you must be punished for this, et cetera. And the Book of Job is saying, no, you’ve got it wrong. God says in the very last chapter, he says, friends, pray for Job because you have not, you have not conceived me correctly the way Job did. You had a very simplistic idea, if you sin it’s a punishment and that cannot cover all the, might cover some of the cases, not gonna cover all. 

Elana: But I just wanna point out how incredibly radical that is because when you look in the five books of Moses, when you look in the Bible, it, of course sin brings punishment. Meaning, and what you’re saying is that Job, Iyov is uprooting all of that. Okay, so that’s the first piece that you take from it. What’s the second you were saying? 

David: That’s right. Absolutely. That’s, that’s why it’s such an amazing book. Now let me tell you something else it’s uprooting. I think it’s uproot—ih, I don’t wanna say it’s uprooting, My, my thing would be, it’s giving you an alternative.

Elana: Okay. Right, right, Maybe a better way,

David: It’s giving an alternative to chapter one in Genesis, okay? Because, and this is only something I’ve realized maybe in the last 10 years or so. Chapter one in Genesis pronounces the creation as something very orderly. One day, the second day, the third day, et cetera. It’s all leading up to the supreme crown of creation: Human beings, created in the image of God, right? B’tzelem Elohim. The, they’re the masters of the universe. And on each day it says God saw, vayar Elohim ki tovi, God looked at what he did and said, this is good. It’s good, it’s orderly, it’s beautiful, human beings stand at the pinnacle. That’s one orientation about the universe, about the world. 

The second orientation is in those four chapters in Job where it’s saying there’s chaos. There are huge forces. You can, you can’t make sense of, you don’t understand them. You can barely hold them in. God has to work hard to hold, to hold them in, even though he created them. And a man is, is not, he’s only mentioned peripherally. He’s only mentioned one time where he says, God brings the rain into the areas where no man, where no man lived. 

In other words, he’s saying to them, and Maimonides emphasizes this in Moreh, in his guide, that man is not the center of the universe and things do not go revolve around man. And man is a very tiny part. And today we can, you know, with billions of galaxies and all that stuff, he’s a tiny little part of the, of the picture. He’s not the center. 

Elana: Wow. 

David: And you know what else? In the whole four chapters, you never see the word tov. You never see the word it’s “good.” It’s just there. Okay, so I take these things as two orientations to human beings, to the universe—what is our status? 

I would say that everybody knows the first chapter of Genesis, and that to me says that, that that should be the basic orientation. That’s the way. It’s not a, by the way, it’s not a matter of fact. It’s the way we choose to look at the world. It’s our orientation. We’re talking about two, two orientations, Genesis orientation and a Job orientation. In the Genesis orientation, human beings are the center. They’re noble, they’re dignified, they’re in, they’re in the, in the image of God. And in the Job orientation, human beings are a tiny little part of a huge picture, which cannot in any way be understood.

And some things we have to understand through the Job, I would say, but most things we can understand through the, through the, the Genesis orientation. But we always know that there’s also the Job orientation, and that’s the one that we have to look at. So when I look at Eytan, frankly, to me it’s not a matter of justice or sin or punishment or anything. It’s just… It’s a matter of the, this is the way the world is. 

Elana: So David, I’m wondering, you know, this is incredibly powerful, the Iyov, the Job, chaos, and humans not in the center, and the Genesis, the Bereshit, where humans are the pinnacle and everything is orderly. I’m wondering when you have felt each of these in the past two and a half years, because there’s no doubt that you don’t just stay in Iyov. I know you.

David: You’re, you’re absolutely right. Absolutely right. When it, I would say when it comes to values, how you treat other people, how you look at yourself, how you look at the, the… One’s sense of mission or purpose in life, all that is the Genesis perspective. 

I use the Iyov perspective much more in, in, for instance, dealing with, with nature, when there’s disease, when there’s old age, when, things… I just celebrated my 74th birthday, so there’s stuff that it’s hard for me to do that I used to do so easily. So I, that’s, that’s part of life. We all wanna have long lives and there’s a price you pay for it. And that’s just, that’s just the way it is. That’s a, that’s an Iyov question. 

Elana: Yeah. Yeah. That’s very helpful. 

David: And, but when it turns to looking at people, et cetera, b’tzelem Elohim, image of God, most important thing in the world, human life is like saving the whole universe. That’s, that’s where I use that. 

Elana: That’s beautiful. Well, I wanna end, I mean, there’s gonna be an end and an end, but the last text that I wanna look at very briefly is, you know, there’s this gorgeous text in Vayikra Rabba, the Midrash, that just notices and people can check the show notes, they’ll see what we’re talking about. It just notices that there’s a verse in Leviticus 26, that God says, I’ll remember my covenant with Jacob and also with Isaac, and my covenant with Abraham I’ll remember, and I’ll remember the land, so the only one who doesn’t get their own term “remember” is Isaac, is Yitzchak.

And Vayikra Rabba says something remarkable. It’s the rabbis talking to Rabbi Brachi. He says, well, God already remembers Isaac because God sees Isaac’s ashes as though they are gathered on the altar. Now this is strange because obviously Isaac didn’t die at the, he didn’t die at the binding of Isaac. But the concept here is that Isaac’s sacrifice is always before God’s eyes, always remembered. 

And I, I feel like there’s a similar sense for families that have sacrificed, of those who’ve sacrificed their lives in war, the memory of them and their sacrifice—it’s just, it’s always there. 

David: Yeah. I think that, first of all, I thank you for making me aware of this Midrash, which I really didn’t know about before. And you also pointed out that the commentator of this Midrash, called the Etz Yosef, has a very beautiful idea that, he says that when somebody, you know, gives their life for that kind of holy purpose, then it’s not a memory. Because if somebody is before your eyes all the time and you’re not remembering them, you’re experiencing them, you’re living with them. 

And I think that something very can really speak to bereaved parents and grandparents because Eytan is not a memory. He’s an ongoing inspiration to ourselves, to the people, all the people who knew them, and thanks to all kinds of projects that we do in his name, and his deeds have gone around in much wider circles. So it’s not really a memory, somebody who was willing to make that sacrifice, that, I think that’s what they’re saying. Yeah. Okay. So in the circumstances Isaac was spared, but really he was, he was willing to go through with it. It’s as if his ashes were there. And Eytan was killed, and most of his friends and colleagues were, were not. And… but they were all equally prepared to, to sacrifice themselves. So, there, see I used the word sacrifice spontaneously on my own. 

Elana: There you go. We got you there. 

David: Thank you for, for…

Elana: No, I know what you’re saying. A presence, not just a memory, a presence. You know, David, I wanna thank you for being willing to have this.

David: I, I have his picture right here in front. I mean, it’s always—

Elana: Oh, show us his picture, please, show us his picture. Show us his picture, please. 

David: Or Eytan. 

Elana: Let’s see, let’s see. 

David: Or Eytan. 

Elana: Beautiful. 

David: He, he died in Kislev, two weeks before Chanukah. 

Elana: What a beautiful smile. Well, his presence is here. It’s here. Thank you. Yeah. 

You know, I want us to end. This is how I want us to end. There’s this beautiful excerpt from the eulogy that you gave for Eytan, and I think it expresses the ethos of being willing to endure loss. So I wanna play that recording for our audience. Okay? As a way of ending. 

David: Two weeks ago, we celebrated at the Shiva, 50 years since my aliya. I made Aliyah at the age of 21 by myself in, in Israel, which was just under the shock of the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago. And I said to them, to the boys. It’s been 50 years since my aliya and I don’t regret it. I don’t regret it even for a single minute, and I still don’t regret it. 

I know there is a heavy price to pay lihiyot am chofshi be’artzeinu, to be a free people in our land. Until now, I have enjoyed the freedom and the depth of a meaningful life, a Jewish life in Eretz Yisrael, and others have paid the price. Now it’s our turn. I don’t feel angry. I don’t feel disappointed. I just feel a deep pride in Eytan and his family, and a deep determination that our enemies will not win. Every day we live in a Jewish state is a victory over Hamas. 

Eytan gave his life with awareness, with knowledge that he could be called upon for the supreme sacrifice. He accepted it willingly. He didn’t flinch. Because of him, and men and women like him, we are, we have a, we are living as a free people in our land. Is it worth all the pain? Different people will give different answers. My answer at this moment is absolutely, it is absolutely worth it. Shezikaron shel Eytan yedaben otanu lihiyot Yehudim yoter tovim, anashim yoter tovim, shenihiyeh reu’yim la’korban shel hakrava. Lech, lech shalom, neched yakar baruch shel ha’aretz, saper la’avot ve-la’imahot lemalah, she-od avinu chai, am Yisrael chai. 

That was addressed to the, my YTDA American colleagues.

Elana: Your students. 

David: Yeah. 

Elana: You know, David, I watched that eulogy shortly after you delivered it, and I don’t think I’m gonna forget it for a very long time. Do you have any closing words for everyone? 

David: Just that these people who, some young, some old whatever, they, whatever they are, they, they inspire us and they inspire us to go and strengthen ourselves in living a life of emunah and ahava, of faith in Hashem and love for all of Hashem’s creatures. That’s what we want to emphasize, the whole, the religion of life, not the religion of death and making greater life better for more people. That’s what we wanna take from, from their presence, not only from their memory. 

Elana: Thank you. Thank you all for listening to our show. Special thanks to my chavruta this week, David Dishon.