Six Million and One, Twelve Hundred and Two

I remember hearing it said once, perhaps by one of our Hebrew teachers – years before a documentary by that name was produced — that we should not say that six million Jews were murdered in the Shoah, but “six million and one.” Apparently because the human mind cannot absorb the number six million, but we can focus on one person.

I recalled that idea last week in Israel, when our hearts and the country came to a standstill with bated, mourning breath as we awaited the return of the little bodies of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, along with their mother, Shiri, and Oded Lifshitz, a grandfather who was also murdered in Gaza, at the age of 83, HY”D (a Hebrew acronym for “May their blood be avenged”). All of them were from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Lifshitz, a former journalist and one of the founders of the kibbutz, was known as a peace activist who would drive Gazan Arabs back and forth to Israeli hospitals for medical treatment. His widow, Yocheved, who had also been a hostage, said that he had cared about the Palestinians and “they betrayed him.”

Horrifyingly, there were whole families, and many more than two babies and children brutally murdered in the southern communities on Oct. 7, 2023. Most people don’t know their names, or if they read them at the time, have since forgotten. But everyone in Israel (and many throughout the world) know the names of the two little ginger-haired boys who were only four years old and nine months old when they were abducted. 

Scores of memes and pictures have been generated, based on the photos we do have of them, some with their abducted mother, some on their own – a chilling foreshadowing, as the little boys were first returned without her, one more cruel maneuver by Hamas; only a day and a half later was Shiri’s body sent back to Israel. 

We know that Ariel loved Batman, and a clip of him from the back, running up a pathway with the cape of his Batman costume flying in the wind, has gone viral.

Ariel and Kfir are what I would call the “two” of the “1200 and two” of Oct. 7. 

What’s more, those names are symbolic.

“Ariel” is one of the names of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple. Its source is in the book of Isaiah, 29:1. “Oh Ariel, Ariel, the city where David camped, add year to year, the festivals circling round again.” 

Ariel is also a town in the Shomron, founded in 1978, whose population grew enough so that in 1998 it was declared a city, and is now considered “the capital of Samaria.” It has a religiously and ethnically diverse population and boasts a hesder yeshiva (where students also do the army) and a university, including a medical school.

“Kfir” in Hebrew means “lion cub.” We find it in Isaiah 11:1. “Wolf will lie down beside lamb, the leopard will lie beside the young goat; calf, lion cub, fatter lamb together – a little child will tend them.” 

“Kfir” is also the name of a large Infantry Brigade in the IDF, that according to the IDF website “is on the front lines of the war against Palestinian terrorism.” Many soldiers from the Kfir Brigade died in this current war.

The name of their lion-hearted mother, “Shiri,” means “my song.”

After Oct. 7, all of Israel united in horror, in mourning, and then in determination to vanquish the enemy and to return our hostages. “Yachad nenatzeach” – “Together we will be victorious” – was the phrase seen everywhere – on bridges, by roadsides, on posters.

As the months, then a year and more, went by, some cracks appeared once again in the unity, as there were still hostages in Gaza, some of whom had been murdered. 

But on the 22nd day of Shvat, Feb. 20, all of Israel united again in tears, waiting in cold and rainy weather by the roadside in the rain, holding flags, or glued to our televisions and internet channels, to see the winding convoy of vehicles transporting the coffins of Oded Lifshitz, Shiri Bibas (we thought then) and little Ariel and Kfir to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv for the final identification. People cried and military people saluted as the convoy passed. 

It was the ultimate display of “chesed shel emet” – kindness with no hope of repayment, that expression we use when accompanying someone’s coffin, as he will never know, or be able to return the kindness.

Our national heart shattered, once again, for the 1200 and two of Oct. 7. And for more than 800 soldiers who fell in battle since then, and for all the hostages murdered in the Hamas tunnels. Because we cannot comprehend high numbers. It is too daunting for our minds and souls.

But we can wrap our hearts around two little redheaded boys. Boys whose names signify the holiness of Jerusalem and the courage of a lion cub. 

Six million and one.

Twelve hundred and two.

May their deaths, and all the deaths in Am Yisrael, be avenged, and may we know no more sorrow.

The translations of lines from Isaiah are by Prof. Shawn Zelig Aster and come from the new Magerman Edition of the Koren Tanakh. 

Toby Klein Greenwald is an award-winning journalist and theater director and editor-in-chief of WholeFamily.com. She and her husband, a liberator of Jerusalem in 1967, live in Efrat and their children live throughout the land of Israel and all have served in the IDF or National Service.