Flowers, here and gone

My husband and I saw our first crocus of the year on the way to Mincha-Maariv this past Shabbat. I was both happy and sad, thinking that eight young men, gunned down in the flower of youth for the crime of being Religious Zionist Israelis, would never see a flower again.

Over at Ezzie's, Mindy has asked us to recite "Acheinu," a prayer found in the weekday Shacharit (morning service) at the point at which the Torah scroll is being "dressed" to be returned to the Aron Kodesh/Holy Ark:

Acheinu, kol beit Yisrael, ha-n'tunim b'tzarah u-v'shivyah, ha-omdim bein ba-yam u-vein ba-yabashah, ha-Makom y'racheim aleihem ha-yotzieim mi-tzarah li-r'vachah, u-meiafeilah l'orah, u-mi-shibud li-g'ulah, hashta baagala u-vi-z'man kariv, v'nomar, amen.

"Our brethren, of the entire House of Israel, who find themselves in jeopardy or entrapped, whether on sea or land, may the Almighty have compassion upon them and bring them forth from trouble to relief, from gloom to light, and from tyranny to redemption, urgently and very soon, and let us say, amen."

(The translation is mostly by the Orthodox Union and a little by me.)

Others have suggested that we recite psalms. And, of course, giving charity and/or doing good deeds in memory of the deceased is always a good way to memorialize them.

May the families of these young men be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem:

Doron Mehereta, 26, Ashdod
Ro'i Rote, 18, Elkanah
Yonadav Haim Hirschfeld, 19, Kokhav HaShachar
Yochai Lipshitz, 18, Jerusalem
Yonatan Yitzchak Eldar, 16, Shiloh
Niryah Cohen, 15, Jerusalem
Segev Pniel Avichayil, 15, Neve Daniel
Avraham David Moses, 16, of Efrat

Mother in Israel asks us to say Tehillim/Psalms and/or other prayers for the wounded, and/or to keep them in our thoughts:

Naftali ben Gila
Shimon Yechiel ben Tirza
Nadav ben Hadassa
Reuven ben Naomi
Elchanan Yosef ben Zehava