Hadar Goldin's Highest Aspiratio / The Daily Yesterday was the 7th of Adar, the Yahrzeit of Moshe Rabbenu, whose burial place is unknown.
This date was also designated as the memorial day for all of Israel's fallen soldiers whose burial place, like Moshe Rabenu's, is still unknown. 173 such IDF soldiers are commemorated on Mt. Herzl, where a ceremony in their memory was held yesterday.
On the 7th of Adar we also remember Israel's most recent fallen soldiers who have not yet been brought to burial - Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul.
The recently published book, "How to Build a Life - Learning Mesilat Yesharim with Hadar Goldin", features commentaries and ideas that Goldin wrote for himself in the margins of his own copy of Mesilat Yesharim when he was a student at the mechina in Eli, a Torah-based pre-army preparatory program.
I opened "How to Build a Life", and discovered a personal message that Hadar scribbled to himself at the age of 19, about Moshe Rabbenu:
"Moshe Rabbenu teaches me the following: from within one's inner world, containing all one's values, aspirations, character traits and desires - from within that inner world I take action. Getting up every morning, and remembering at all times that greatness exists in the world.
"A person who thinks this way can become a great person. I must belong to, I must connect to this greatness, to the royalty within me.
Do not be satisfied with a small truth. Strive, rather, for great faith, for a life of greatness...
"How often," Hadar asked himself within his scribbled notes in the margins of Mesilat Yesharim, "do you busy yourself with day-to-day trivialities, and how often do you turn your thoughts to life's deeper meaning? The role of Torah is to revive, to refresh, to return human thought to its proper place. I must occupy myself with Torah."
In memory of Moshe Rabbenu of blessed memory and of Israel's fallen soldiers, whose burial place is still unknown.
