Saying goodbye to Yuval Na'eman: Son Tadi: You left too soon; The wife Deborah read a song of adoration

From the funeral ceremony for Yuval Naaman, Tel Aviv University, 27/4/2006 

  
 
The photo of Yuval Neman from the "Physical Plus" website

The words of the son are very faithful

father. I'm not going to list all your many titles and positions because that's not what's important. There are many important people and senior positions. We know that today it is possible to reach the position of a minister without the need for special skills, but what is special about you is that the things you did would not have been done in the same way by someone else or would not have been done at all. If it weren't for you, many things in the world would simply be different, in the world and in Israel, and this is a challenge and leaving a mark that is hard to compete with.
In your biography it appears "He founded the, and he founded the and he founded the and all these you usually founded from nothing, from nothing. You were born on May 14, which was to be the founding date of the State of Israel. You went the week of the eve of Independence Day. I think there is no clearer sign than what characterized you - love for the State of Israel. They will say that it is a week before Independence Day. Yes, there is no doubt that there is a mistake here and you went too soon. In our opinion, several years is too early, since until Sunday at noon you were lively and active and we did not think that such a thing would happen. You participated in all of Israel's wars and in particular often told us about the difficult battles you fought in the War of Liberation and led in the Givati ​​Brigade. Every year you took us to the division conference. During the Six Day War, you explained to Moshe Dayan the strategic importance of the Hermon without knowing at the time how much your granddaughters would understand surfing there.
Kindness and helping others were among your outstanding qualities. Everyone who was close to you knows this very well. As a modest person you did not know how to flatter yourself so that beyond that things are not known to the public. In addition to countless cases of personal help to people, I would like to mention two cases of help to the entire public. One is establishing contact with Jewish communities in Islamic countries and North Africa. This activity has been kept quiet and I know very little but I know you risked your life for it. For the second I was a partner and a personal witness and it was the help to the Jews of the Soviet Union with the help of the scientific connections. One of the most exciting things in my life was when we hosted a Jewish scientist whom the Soviet Union once allowed to participate in a scientific conference not in Israel but at least in the USA. The scientist had several days to be in New York for the only time in his life before returning behind the Iron Curtain. We walked all over New York with him and I saw how he thirstily drank in every moment and every sight in the new world. We walked around the artists' quarter and there were things that amazed him in the freedom of expression and then in his dog where he had to choose gifts to bring to his family that would illustrate the wonders of the capitalist world for them but on the other hand would not upset the suitcase openers in the Soviet Union or get him in trouble. He said goodbye to us in tears at the end of the visit, not knowing if he would ever be allowed to go out again.
You told me then that you were ready to return all of Sinai if the Soviet Union was ready to release a million Jews. Happily, this is a dream that has finally come true.
And by the way, this devotion also characterized you for us, your family members. And you took care of us and took care of every detail with responsibility and dedication and constantly. You were a loving and loved and wonderful husband, brother, father and grandfather that we all loved. You loved chocolates and won an ice cream eating contest. You took us on trips, you celebrated our birthdays with a picnic in the Ben Shemen forest or in the Jerusalem mountains before the people of Israel even knew what a barbecue was. You told us stories about the Knights of the Round Table, you translated French songs for us and you told the stories of Asterix and Felix to your granddaughters, and here is another blow that fell on us. We lost a walking encyclopedia. We would consult you not only in physics and mathematics. You were a group person in every sense of the word and beyond. Before an exam in history we would call you and get exact dates of each historical event instead of personal information. Your knowledge of history and geography was amazing, and encompasses the entire world and that includes the Tanakh as well. In a number of cases where I needed help regarding biblical stories that are powerful or less well known, I went and asked many people including traditionalists and knowledgeable in the Torah and few of them knew the answers. Finally I would ask you and I got a more detailed and accurate answer than all of them combined. The Seder night every year was a wonderful and unforgettable family experience, a family Eurovision festival with all its nuances and songs, and wonderful harmony, often conducted by your brother-in-law and best friend, Gideon Ben Israel. We all waited every year for your regular song. I hope you could still hear it when I played it for you in the hospital to comfort you in your last moments. I'm at least happy that this year we were able to spend time together with Gideon in a more modest but pleasant atmosphere as always.
Those who knew you closely and did not rely only on descriptions in the media know that your political philosophy consists solely of kindness and sincere concern for the State of Israel. Your thoughts from morning to evening were for the peace of the country, concern for the peace of its residents and protection from those who try to destroy it and unfortunately there are some. You were characterized by love of others and help and you did good to everyone, except for those who plow evil against the State of Israel. Any other political label affixed to you and ignoring the threats to the country is out of place and a sin against you and your work.
You referred to yourself as an atheist. Not everyone will agree with me, but I personally, as someone who knows you, believe that you were actually much more religious than you thought. Such a strong love for the State of Israel, the Land of Israel and the Jewish world, love for mankind and others, altruism. How else can all this be explained.
And the physics you loved so much also had surprises in store for you. After we thought we had progressed and we understood so much, the Hubble telescope was launched into space. The images from the telescope do not match the predictions and again nothing works out. Black holes do exist, but they do not explode and die as the calculations calculated, and new and young stars are discovered next to them. And recently the entanglement phenomenon where in scientific experiments a spirit changes the properties of matter, once again the laws of physics need to be reopened. I saw you were quite upset about it, but I told you mine sounded quite encouraging.
There is no doubt that we only know a small fraction of what is happening in the universe. I hope that your death is not the end either and you are watching from another world, from another place or somewhere in space that you loved so much and wanted so much to travel to. But we are left with a great big empty space.
The words of the wife, Deborah Neman

I hope you will still sit with me in the hot sun and agree with me about a poem that I want to read to you without saying that it is the adoration of a loving woman, and not in big and lofty words like bards, they are not words we would use at breakfast. I will read to you the poem that in my eyes is the essence of the man who was a faithful Jubal.

I always think of those who were really great

The song begins with the words:

"I always think of those who were really great
who remembered from the womb the history of the soul and the corridors of light
There the hours are countless suns and they serve."

and ends like this:

"The names of those who in their lives fought for life
And engraved in their hearts the core of fire, they were born from the sun, they were for some time on the journey to the sun
And left the warm air sealed with their greatness."

Stefan Fesander "I always think of those who were really great". Translation of Aryeh L. Motzkin From "Haaretz"