Dozens of yeshivot and seminaries bring their students to Har Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem for Memorial Day, as an educational tool about the losses Israeli families face year in and year out. 

Arutz Sheva spoke with Rabbi Boaz Mori, head of the Ramat Beit Shemesh-based Lev HaTorah yeshiva, to discuss the pilgrimage. 

The trip is both “for hakarat hatov (gratitude – ed.), but also to understand that they, too, can make an impact on Israeli society,” he said. 

Rabbi Mori noted that 20 students from the institution are currently serving in the IDF’s foreign resident program, Machal, and that the institution has programs centered around IDF service. 

“After experiencing Yom HaZikaron, they feel they have to invest themselves more in Medinat Yisrael, in Am Yisrael here in our times.”