He felt he was flying this mission not as an individual, but as a representative of all of Klal Yisrael and he wanted to do it right: His hope was to keep Shabbos and kosher in space
Armed with the objects of kedushah and pure hopes, Ramon went up — and his soul remained there. Just 48 years old, he lost his life when the space shuttle met its fiery end on that Saturday winter morning of February 1, 2003: The Columbia had a re-entry failure and its crew was killed sixteen minutes before its scheduled landing.
A week after the crash, the next Friday morning at exactly 9:16 a.m., there was a massive memorial event for all the NASA people on the runway at the Kennedy Space Center. Rabbi Konikov was asked to speak. “People were so sad, really broken, soul-searching and rethinking their whole worldview, wondering if it was all worth it,” Rabbi Konikov flashes back. “What could I say in five minutes that would inspire them, that would be a tribute to Ilan, and also give guidance to the people in the space industry in general?”
“Ilan Ramon turned to me with a question,” the rabbi recalls. “He asked, ‘How does one mark the Sabbath in space with every 90 minutes another sunset, every ten and a half hours is a Sabbath, every 20 days Rosh Hashanah?’ Jerusalem, we have a problem. So I had my homework to do. But Ilan taught us a powerful message: No matter how fast we’re going, no matter how important our work, we need to pause and think about why we’re here on Earth.”
Two months later, 37 pages (one for each mile of descent through the atmosphere) of Ilan Ramon’s personal diary were discovered in a muddy field outside the providentially named town of Palestine, Texas. The diary somehow survived the extreme heat of the explosion, acute atmospheric cold, and the harsh elements of a winter swamp. It took about a year to restore, and another four years for Israeli police scientists to decipher 30 of the pages where the ink hadn’t been totally washed away. Two of those pages went on display in 2008 — one page was of personal notes, and the second was Ilan Ramon’s handwritten Kiddush, found wet but totally readable, which he famously recited on the three Friday nights he spent in space. It was this that remained, testament to the cry of his soul and the yearning it expressed at the very end of its sojourn here on earth.
Create a free account to keep reading.
