I woke up groggy from a deep sleep to my wife shaking me. Then I heard the sirens. It was 2 a.m. We put on our robes and trundled off to the communal bomb shelter, nodded to our neighbors, waited the ten minutes, then went back to bed. Just another night. The fact that this is normal is crazy! The fact that I couldn’t go back to sleep was also normal as I was still getting over jet lag following our trip from America back to our home in Herzliya. I needed the sleep as the day after I was making my second visit to Kibbutz Nir Oz, a once beautiful garden spot on the edge of Gaza where monsters in human form ripped apart the fabric of Creation and poured Evil down upon this peaceful community and all of Israel, and began a war that has spread worldwide against Israel and the Jewish People.
Nir Oz was where the Bibas family lived, those precious red-haired children slain with their mother, where they lost a quarter of their members and where there are still ten members, some of whom are still alive, being held hostage in Gaza. My visit there was very heavy. It had clearly been a very special place, and the flowering trees and bushes still give testimony to what must have been a very beautiful community; yet death stalks your footsteps as you pass by one burnt house after another, see the blood-stained walls and beds, the burned children’s toys. You can feel the screams still echoing as you walk through what had been a family’s home. A normal family, a Jewish family, just like you and me.
I was with the mayor of the Eshkol region, which encompasses most of the envelope communities around Gaza. Along with us was a representative in charge of the rebuilding and two of the members. One of the members, Amotz, told of how his family survived. One story after another, impossible to comprehend, of hundreds of terrorists roaming the village. Of how his family narrowly escaped from one building to another, hid in their safe rooms which proved none to safe. I can’t tell you the exact details as I was numb by that point, but what I do remember were his eyes tearing up, his passion for telling the stories. It was as if he had to get it out, as if the events were so searing they compelled him.
This gentle man, who works in agriculture, just wants to live his life, along with his family, in peace. He is like the rest of his community, just plain folks. Yet they’ve been stripped down to their very essence. All extraneous elements peeled away by the brutality, the grief and the trauma. What remains is a core. It’s a Jewish core, an Israeli core. When I asked Amotz if he would return, he said that if he didn’t return, all the deaths would be meaningless.
Then the day came when my wife and I went for our final meeting with the Ministry of the Interior. We were making Aliyah. It started the day after the October 7th attack. We both came to it simultaneously. We looked at each other and said, “It’s time to make Aliyah, a word that literally means going up, the term denoting becoming an Israeli citizen. It meant for us and Jews throughout the ages, coming home. We were finally ready, all of our documents in hand. We had our meeting but alas one of our documents wasn’t perfect, so back to the attorneys one more time. And then, finally, on that fateful Thursday we were accepted into the fold, gathered into our family, our nation, our country, as Israelis! We were beyond ecstatic as it had been a very long journey, since 1965 for me when I went to Israel by “accident” chasing an Israeli girl. Didn’t get the girl but I fell in love with the country. It was even longer for my wife who spent a year at Kfar HaNoar HaDati, a religious boarding school for girls, when she was fourteen. My wife was a refugee from Rumania, then Hungary and finally the United States. It wasn’t until she came to Israel that she finally found her home.
After the initial joy I was somewhat let down. No fireworks, no thunder and lighting on this momentous occasion. Yet, not to worry. That evening Israel finally, after sustaining decades of terror attacks funded by Iran, attacked the head of the snake. I got my fireworks, thunder and lightning. It won’t be until the history is written that we know all the extraordinary details of courage, bravery and ingenuity that Israel is famous for. Of course, they took out Iran’s top military and scientific leadership the first day, with drones, some smuggled into Iran, some apparently built there. (Wild! Can’t wait to see the movie.)
Of course, Iran responded with salvos of missiles, killing too many and wounding hundreds. The sight of the tremendous destruction of just one missile puts the fear of G-d into you knowing that they’re aiming at you! We’ve since spent a lot of quality time in our ma’amad, our bomb shelter getting to know our neighbors, hearing the booms as missiles explode, hopefully mid-air, and then a very powerful blast that shook the walls when one exploded not far away.
Finally, it ended, at least the Iran part, though we still have soldiers and hostages in Gaza. We can’t really heal until we get those hostages back.
I made a third trip to Nir Oz, this time to be joined by an extraordinary young woman, Morah Tziri, who has a podcast, “Inkredible Kids,” with a devoted following of 30,000 plus children and their parents. Her goal was to make a video for Tisha B’Av, the day both Temples were destroyed, the day we mourn the many, many tragedies that have befallen our people. Yet amidst the sadness something special happened. She brought many of her children to Nir Oz and they painted a poster saying “We Will Rebuild Again” and planted a tree in honor of the fallen and a hope for the future. That proclamation that we Jews have made after every tragedy, after every life snuffed out, after every time the world believes that they have finally overcome us, is to rise from the ashes and rebuild.
We were now ready to return to Cincinnati, yet the morning of our flight I received a text with the horrible news that we had lost five soldiers and many more wounded. Five precious lives from Battalion Netzach Yehuda, the Haredi battalion that I’ve been privileged to serve as Founding Chairman of the Board. Banei heim, they are my sons! I watched as a mother knelt by the kever, the grave of her son, so tenderly smoothed the sand, caressing her son one last time. I listened to the young brothers and father saying Kaddish. I listened as a distraught sister, cried out Moishy, Moishy, Moishy, Moishy! The Gemara in Yud Hess Avodah Zara (“Idol Worship”), tells the story of Rav Chananya Ben Tradyon. How when he taught Torah publicly, the Romans captured him, wrapped him in a Sefer Torah and set him on fire. His Talmidim, his students asked him, “Rebbi, Rebbi, what do you see?” He responded, “I see the clafim, the parchment burning, the ausiots, the letters are flying off into Shomayim, to heaven!” As these young men were sent to their Father in Heaven, I saw those letters once again ascending. May we daven for peace for all the House of Israel.
One must ask, why? Why do they force us to send our sons to defend against such monsters, that burn families, behead little girls, rape and mutilate with glee and post it proudly for all to see? Why?!
I’m reminded that we Jews have a mission inherent in our name, Israel, Yis ra Ael, he who fought with G-d and prevailed. Our forbear, Yaacov Avinu, our father Jacob, struggled with an angel. This angel represents the worldview of Eisav, Yaacov’s brother. They wrestle for all time as Eisav represents those forces who deny G-d’s moral order, the Torah. Yet Yaacov’s goal is not to slay the angel, even though he represents such evil. He refuses to let him go until he blesses him. It is our mission to turn spears into plowshares…Our mission is bring goodness onto this earth until the forces of evil finally realize that only through Torah can the world live in peace and goodness, only through subscribing to G-d’s moral code can we flourish and fulfill man’s destiny.
We Jews are the carriers of G-d’s moral order as set forth in His “Bible” that has become holy not only for the Jews but as the moral underpinning of the western world. Yet that moral order which not only proclaims the sanctity of life and man’s inherent right to life, also set’s forth boundaries. You can’t have freedom without responsibility, there are limits to our actions, beyond which there is license, chaos and the destruction of all that is good. It is this moral order which the forces of evil fight us relentlessly. It is their assertion that man is in charge, man makes the rules, and men can break the rules. Their credo is that though we can’t create life we have the power to destroy it, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
I can tell you that the redemption of Israel and the Jewish People lives at Nir Oz, and by extension our purpose and gift to the world. Walking through its pathways is like walking through a garden of death, yet in the middle of the garden the Tree of Life lives. They call it “resilience,” the Torah speaks of it and entreats us when presented with the blessing and the curse to choose life. Its time to rebuild lives and community. In this effort Nir Oz is a symbol of what must happen for us to heal our wounds and to bring us together as one family. It’s a privilege to help and be part of it.
My friends, if reading these words something stirs within, some hidden spark of Jewish soul placed there within. If searching this world and wide you’ve found no peace, if causes have dimmed and you feel naked before the family of nations that have cast you out. If family, hearth and kin do beckon, and you yearn to find your place in the sun. Come home! We’ve been waiting for you all these years. Come home and take your place. Stand arm and arm, shoulder to shoulder and become part of making history as part of the Jewish people.
