I arrived in Israel on Friday morning, and it has been a whirlwind of a week.
At a moment when so much anger is being directed toward Israel and the Jewish people, I found myself feeling something very different.
I felt our strength. Not just the strength of an army or a country, but something deeper: the strength of Jews who refuse to abandon one another. I saw it almost immediately.
On Friday, Aish students welcomed a remarkable new student named Binyamin (Ben) Hassin. Ben had spent 11 years imprisoned in Iraq, at one point facing a death sentence, separated from his family and the Jewish people.
Yet Jews around the world refused to forget him. Extraordinary individuals fought for years for his freedom.
Finally, Ben walked free. He came to Israel, went to the Kotel, and came to Aish to learn Torah.
There is a beautiful video of our students dancing with Ben at the Kotel, singing the words of Tehillim:
“Tov l’hodos laHashem…”
That same chapter contains a verse that stayed with me all week:
“L’hagid baboker chasdecha, v’emunascha baleilos” to speak of God’s kindness in the morning and His faithfulness in the night.
During the day, when there is light, we can see God’s kindness. We can recognize the blessings in our lives and see His hand.
Nighttime is different.
When it is dark, we cannot see. We do not understand what is happening or how the story will end.
That is when we need faith.
When we cannot see God’s kindness, we have faith that He is still there.
For 11 years, Ben lived through an extraordinarily long night.
And then morning came.
I met Ben on Yom Kippur when he joined us at Aish. He told me that one of the things that sustained him were the Jews who came to visit him. They reminded him that beyond those prison walls, his people had not forgotten him.
After 11 years, when freedom finally came, he chose to come to Jerusalem and study Torah.
Standing with Ben, I felt that I was looking at that verse come to life.
There are times when we can see God’s kindness. And there are times when all we can do is have faith that the morning will come.
That Yom Kippur, I said something I feel more deeply than ever:
Aish cannot simply be a yeshiva. We must strive to be Klal Yisrael’s yeshiva. The yeshiva of the Jewish people.
I had felt that same sense of Klal Yisrael the night before, as approximately 150,000 Jews filled the Old City for Selichot.
Religious. Secular. Young Israelis. Former hostages. Hostage families.
Last year, we stood at the Kotel praying for the hostages.
This year, former hostages stood there praying with us.
I thought that would be the emotional high point of my week.
I was wrong.
A few days later, Rachel and I traveled to Tel Aviv for a celebration with our dear friends Daniel and Bari Erber, who have made it their practice to dedicate Sifrei Torah in memory of precious souls we have lost.
On the way, I read an op ed in The Wall Street Journal by Omer Shem Tov, who had been held hostage in Gaza for 505 days.
Omer described an extraordinary contradiction he witnessed in captivity. His captor told him that his own mother had received an Israeli warning to evacuate before a strike.
Think about that.
Omer was being held hostage by this woman’s son while the IDF was taking steps to save her life.
I remember thinking, this is one of the most powerful op eds I have ever read.
Then I arrived at the Torah celebration, walked inside, and stopped.
There was Omer Shem Tov.
I went over and told him, “I literally just read your article on the way here.”
He looked at me and said:
“This is my truth, and I had to tell it.”
A short while later, Omer and I were dancing together with a Sefer Torah.
A Jew who had spent 505 days in captivity was dancing with the Torah in the streets of Tel Aviv. Another very long night, and now, thank God, morning.
The Torah we were completing was in memory of Yonatan Samerano, murdered after fleeing the Nova festival. His body was taken into Gaza and held for 625 days by a man Israel identified as a UNRWA employee.
The contrast was impossible to miss.
During a week when the United Nations was once again condemning Israel, we were completing a Sefer Torah for a 21-year-old Jew whose body had been taken into Gaza by an employee of a UN agency.
They could take his body. They could not extinguish his soul.
As soon as that Torah was completed, another was begun. The next would be in memory of Yona Betzalel Brief. You can read more about his story here.
While we waited, I sat with Yona’s father, David, and asked him about his son. Yona, the youngest of six children, was a combat medic in Duvdevan. He had already been wounded before October 7 and could have remained on medical leave. Instead, he fought his way back to his unit.
On October 7, when two members of his team were ambushed at Kfar Aza, Yona ran toward them to help. He was shot 13 times. He survived and fought for his life for 417 days before finally succumbing to his wounds.
As David spoke about his son, night fell. He told me that it was also his mother’s yahrzeit.
I looked at him and said, “David, your mother and your son are dancing together in Shamayim tonight. We are dancing down here, and they are dancing with us up there.”
We hugged. Then came one more beautiful connection. It turns out that David’s cousin is Rabbi Daniel Schloss who has devoted decades of his life to the Jewish people at Aish HaTorah. When I reached out, Rabbi Schloss told me that he had served as the sandek at Yona’s bris, holding him on his lap as a baby. Now, all these years later, we were beginning a Sefer Torah in Yona’s memory.
Then the music began. We danced through the streets of Tel Aviv. Former hostages danced. Hostage families danced. Bereaved families danced.
People who had experienced unimaginable pain were dancing with a Sefer Torah.
Then I looked over and saw Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the former Chief Rabbi of Israel, who had come to join the celebration and give his blessing.
I was deeply moved.
Here was a man who survived the Holocaust as a small child, who emerged from the darkness of the concentration camps and eventually became Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel.
And now he was standing there with Omer Shem Tov, with former hostages, with bereaved families, with Jews dancing in the streets of Tel Aviv with a Sefer Torah.
I remember looking at them and thinking: this is the Jewish story.
Rabbi Lau survived the Holocaust and became Chief Rabbi of Israel.
Omer survived 505 days in Gaza and was dancing with a Torah.
Ben survived 11 years in an Iraqi prison and came to Jerusalem to learn Torah.
Our enemies keep believing that Jewish suffering will be the end of our story.
It never is.
Then Rachel showed me a message from Ambassador Yechiel Leiter. His son Neria had just been critically wounded in a terrorist attack.
Ambassador Leiter has already buried a son who fell fighting in Gaza. Now another son was fighting for his life.
His message ended with six words:
“They choose death. We choose life.”
Suddenly the entire week came together.
Ben.
Rabbi Lau.
Omer.
Yonatan.
Yona.
Neria.
Different generations. Different stories. One Jewish story.
We choose life. We choose love. Perhaps that is the part of the Jewish story that so much of the world simply does not understand.
They can count us. They can measure the size of Israel. They can measure armies, territory, money, and weapons.
They cannot measure the bond between one Jew and another.
They do not understand why Jews around the world would spend years fighting for a man imprisoned in Iraq whom they had never met.
They do not understand why an entire nation refused to forget even one hostage.
They do not understand why, after everything these families have endured, we are dancing together with a Sefer Torah in the streets of Tel Aviv.
They see our arguments and assume we are divided. They see our small numbers and assume we are weak.
They do not understand that our love for one another is part of our strength.
We belong to each other. That is the Jewish story, and that must be Aish’s story.
Our values are Wisdom, Love and Responsibility.
For more than 50 years, Aish has brought Jews together. Jews from every background. Jews who know a lot and Jews who are just beginning. Jews who agree with one another and Jews who most certainly do not.
Our job now is to do that with even greater urgency. To teach Torah. To connect Jews. To bring Jews together. To remind us that whatever our differences, we are one people. To make sure that every Jew knows: You belong. You matter. You are part of us.
That is what I mean when I say that Aish must be Klal Yisrael’s yeshiva.
As we approach the third anniversary of October 7, we have learned again what so much of the world fails to understand: You can hurt us. You cannot separate us. You can bring darkness. You cannot extinguish our faith. You can choose hatred. We will choose love. You can choose death. We will choose life.
Please take a moment to daven for Ambassador Leiter’s son, Neria Dov ben Chana, who is fighting for his life.
May Hashem send him a complete refuah. May He protect our soldiers and all of Am Yisrael. May He comfort every bereaved family and give strength to all those rebuilding their lives.
There will be nights when we cannot see God’s kindness. In those moments, we have faith. Morning will come.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Wishing you and your families a beautiful, joyous, and inspirational Chag Sameach.
