Israel Marks 54th Day of Remembrance for 21,182 servicemen, police and civilians killed in war and murdered by terrorists from 1948 until 2002.

How many of you did I know? Which of you did I sit next to on Eged buses from Ra'anana to Rosh HaNikra, from Grofit to Gonen?

Ami Goren, of Geva, my childhood friend, died in 1967; Benny Katzin, best man at my wedding, perished in 1973. Tsvika Malkieli, my classmate--1967. Yuyu Nir of Geva - I must stop, lest I remove the cover from the endless fountain of tears that threatens to burst forth on the slightest allusion, a fragment of a song--"HaReut"; "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav"; "Mi SheHalakh".

And now the Internet has made you all more intimately part of me--Shalhevet Pass; Binyamin and Talia Kahane; ...I have your faces on my screensaver. I pray for the comfort of all the bereaved. I don't think about 21,182 deaths; I focus on one at a time, and on those who miss them.

G-d of Israel, help me to live in such a way that the meaning of these deaths, so dear to You (Psalm 116:15), will not be diminished.

Bless Your people, O Lord!