More on Avi...

While family and friends had assembled in Los Angeles to eulogize and bid farewell to Avi Schaefer over 150 of us gathered in Jerusalem's center to speak, remember and watch the online-streamed funeral. Most important was for those who knew and loved him just to come together. As I stood and watched young and old friends, family members, former hanichim, madrichim, Tzevet members and just general people who felt connected to Avi, I began to realize the impact of Avi's life and the reeling affect his loss will have.
I thought about the pivotal period of life that I met and got to know the Schaefer twins. It was the Spring of 2004 as two identical wiry boys with braces on their teeth and a quiet disposition graced us with their presence. "We're not really interested in the ancient history," Yoav explained to me in one of our earlier meetings. "More the modern stuff, y'know, history of the wars from '48 on..."
"Ok," I replied, "we'll see," I thought.
A year later we sat around bowls of houmous, and discussed why the Rabbis of the Talmud were less inclined to mention the travails of Bar Kochva's failed attempt at redeeming the Jewish people from Roman rule.
I loved hearing about Avi and Yoav's adventures and explorations throughout Europe and Morocco, watching them appear on Yair Lapid, and getting them to do numerous speaking gigs for the army when I was in Dover Tzahal. I always felt comfortable and proud sending a group to hear Avi's story and his perspective, and knew that he would always be able to articulate his feelings in a way that people would respond to positively.
On Monday night we stood and listened, and cried and hugged each other.
Avi was the 'New Jew' - an image out of an Alterman poem - the two heros returning home to the kibbutz after closing 21 or 28 days. I remember seeing them at synagogue during a visit with their father. Anxious to show me their scrapes and scars from crawling drills during tironut, they reluctantly admitted to me that, "hey y'know, we're a little bit older so we just try to help the kids out..." (being of course 19 amidst a conglomeration of 18-year-olds)
Watching Avi grow from a timid teenager to a strong confident 21 year old I realized that he was living the dream.
It is true that "Everyone dies, but not everyone truly lives."
Avi truly lived.