My kids have been obsessed with the movie Lilo and Stitch. One of their favorite things to do is repeat the classic line, “Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten,” in Stitch’s squeaky alien voice. If you know, you know. If not, you’re not missing that much.
In our own lives, as Jews, Christians, Bible-believers alike, we know what this expression means all too well. It isn’t about a cute Disney movie or something you’d see on an inspirational fridge magnet. It is about the deepest kind of responsibility. It means we do not move on while someone we love is still missing. It means that being a people of faith is also being a people who remember.
That is why the story of Hadar Goldin’s return after eleven long years has pierced the heart of Israel. Hadar was a 23-year-old IDF soldier killed during a ceasefire in the 2014 War against Hamas called Tzuk Eitan. His body was taken by Hamas and held as a bargaining chip for more than a decade. His parents, Leah and Simcha Goldin, never stopped fighting to bring him home. This week, their prayers were finally answered.
It is not only a story about one soldier. It is a story about who we are.
Where in the Bible do we learn this idea that we never leave anyone behind, not even in death? We learn it from the story of Yosef’s atzamot, Joseph’s bones. When the Israelites finally left Egypt, the Torah pauses the sweeping drama of the Exodus to tell us something quite remarkable.
It is an extraordinary image. Everyone is packing their belongings, gathering provisions for the desert. Time is of essence. And Moses, Moses was busy searching for a coffin. The leader of Israel, the man who would split the sea and speak with God, stopped everything to keep a promise to the dead.
Why? Because faith does not mean rushing ahead. Faith means carrying what matters with you. It means remembering your story, your people, and your promises. Joseph had made his brothers swear that when God redeemed them, they would take him home. He believed that redemption without remembrance is hollow.
The Sages teach that Moses searched through Egypt until he found Joseph’s coffin sunk deep in the Nile. Imagine the scene: the water glistening, the people waiting, and Moses is bending down into the river to lift out the bones of his ancestor. That was Israel’s first act of freedom. Before the songs and the miracles came this simple gesture: bringing someone home.
Joseph’s bones is also a story of moral clarity. In Egypt, Joseph rose to power as a foreigner in a foreign land. He navigated politics, famine, and corruption while staying faithful to the God of his fathers. His life was proof that holiness could survive even in the palace of Pharaoh. And so, when Moses carried Joseph’s bones through the desert, he carried that lesson too: that decency must endure through every generation, in every circumstance.
The return of Hadar Goldin after eleven years is a modern echo of that truth. The easy thing would have been to give up hope, to say that time had done its work. But Israel refused. His parents refused. They lived with an unbroken certainty that their son was not forgotten. And when his body was finally returned, it was not a moment of victory. It was a moment of covenant fulfilled.
The moral difference between Israel and its enemies has never been about strength. It has always been about sanctity. One side hides behind the innocent and desecrates the dead. The other risks everything to bring its dead home. One teaches children to glorify death. The other teaches them to honor life. The contrast is as old as the desert itself.
Moses carried Joseph’s bones as the Israelites were stepping into freedom. But freedom without memory is chaos. Liberty without holiness collapses into cruelty. That first act of a free nation, lifting a coffin from the Nile, set the pattern for all time: we remember, even when the world forgets. We carry, even when it is heavy. We bring home our own.
The Torah tells us pakod yifkod Elohim etchem—“God will surely remember you.” We, too, are commanded to remember. To keep faith with those who came before us, and those who gave everything for the sake of life.
Hadar Goldin is home. And once again, Israel has shown the world what holiness looks like, not in triumph, but in steadfast covenant that refuses to forget.
