The victims of this horrible war are many, from the obvious dead and bereaved, to the haunting images of starved hostages released this week by the subhuman Hamas terrorists.
But beyond them lies an enormous pool of unseen victims we must urgently address, with effects in the present and for years to come.
The psychological toll on soldiers, their families, and the wider population is massive.
Very recent research by a group of highly respected American psychologists reveals physical DNA changes in third-generation Holocaust survivors. In other words, what Norbert Frei, a prominent German historian, called the “long shadow of Hitler,” referring to the lingering effects of the Holocaust, is not only psychological. These traumas are encoded into our biology, altering how we function in society and the world.
This means that the traumas of October 7 and the ongoing war, the hyper-vigilance, the endless stress, the dread of another rocket or the name of another fallen hero, will likely echo for at least two generations. There is no one in this country untouched.
One recent report showed a 3,000% – 30-fold – increase in requests from soldiers for psychological support. We have a sacred duty to provide that help urgently.
READERS MAY recall that a few weeks ago, I wrote about our heroic “David,” a reservist struggling with his faith after witnessing horrors in combat.
On Tisha B’Av morning, just after midnight, on the saddest day of the Jewish calendar, David sent me this WhatsApp:
“Just came back from Eicha [the reading of the Book of Lamentations] and felt so disconnected to it. So I sat in the back of shul [synagogue] and wrote down my own feelings and wrote my own mini Eicha.
Really difficult and heavy to think about the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash [The Temple in Jerusalem] with all the current suffering and pain around us. Sitting here in shul on a little wooden kindergarten chair just seems so silly and even stupid.
With our modern day holocaust less than two years ago and the open wounds and war still raging, it’s hard to sit on the floor and mourn for tragedies that feel so distant when today’s pain is so immediate.
Yoav and Shimon’s (names changed for confidentiality) first yahrzeit [anniversary of death] was just a few weeks ago, with Meir lying in intensive care and fighting for his life…. feels silly to be sitting here mourning something that feels so foreign and disconnected.
But in a way, this is our Tisha B’Av, we are still living in a broken world. Surrounded by the same hate that caused them to come and attack each time - the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash, pogroms, Holocaust and the 7th of October. Same sh*t but a different executor.
Thinking about what we saw on October 7…. That little girl I carried with her mom and baby brother…. What they did to her little innocent body, same things that the kinot [the lamentations we read on Tisha B’Av] talk about.
Tisha B'Av exists today
ONE OF the deepest truths of Tisha B’Av is that the destruction didn’t end with the Temple, it repeats itself whenever Jewish blood is spilled with hatred, whenever we’re forced to defend our right to exist. October 7th is part of the same chain that starts with the Churban [destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem].
The same question that has been in my head for over the past two years feels even stronger this evening. I definitely believe in God, otherwise how can I be so angry with him? However, where is God? What kind of loving father allows his children to suffer like that and allows them to suffer in such a violent and atrocious way?!
The one thing I have learned, and you have helped teach me, is that it’s OK and I am allowed to be angry and heartbroken. That’s what Tisha B’Av is for. I don’t need to push it away. I am allowed to yell and be angry at Him. It’s not disrespect, it’s the most Jewish thing there is.
In a weird way, I feel God in the tears and the ache but most of all in my stubborn refusal to stop believing that we will have a peaceful future, here in Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel] for me, my family, and my children’s future.
But this is also why we can’t and mustn’t stop.
We need to stand up and fight and push back. Gone are the days we will be shepherded into gas chambers and slaughtered. Today we have the ability and we will stand up for ourselves and fight to show the world that we will not be pushed around anymore.
People are horrified when they see the pictures of Gaza, the devastation, the ruins, the price of this war. But this should also remind the world of a simple truth: When Jews are threatened with annihilation, we will defend ourselves with everything we have.
We didn’t come home to this land to live in fear or to be hunted again.
AND AS hard as it is to say, we can’t stop halfway. We
owe it to ourselves, to our children, and to every generation before us to finish what we started, to make sure that those who openly call for our destruction are no longer capable of carrying it out.
So maybe that’s what I’m really sitting on this tiny gan [kindergarten] chair for tonight, not just to mourn the stones that burned, but to promise myself and my children that we won’t let it happen again.
If the chain of destruction is still alive, then so is our stubbornness to break it. If they keep trying to write new chapters in our Kinot, then we have no choice but to write the last line ourselves, “Never again.” Not as a slogan on a bumper sticker, but as a real promise, backed by Am Yisrael’s [the Nation of Israel’s] courage, unity, our incredible army, and our unbreakable spirit.
Tisha B’Av reminds me that our brokenness is real, but so is our refusal to stay broken. We bury our dead. We fight our wars. We hold our babies tighter. We rebuild our lives on the same soil where they tried to erase us, again and again.
So I’ll sit here, on this silly wooden chair, and I’ll think about the past, but I’ll also whisper to Hashem [God], You gave us this land back. You gave us the strength to stand up. Now stand with us, because we are standing. And we’re not going anywhere.
This should be the last year we add verses to Eicha. Next year, may we sit not on the floor, but on our porches in a peaceful and relaxed state…. unafraid, unbowed, and finally, finally at peace.”
This says it all. I read it out during the Kinot service and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.
David, the whole of Am Yisrael salutes you and your comrades.
The writer is a rabbi and physician, and lives in Ramat Poleg, Netanya. He is a co-founder of Techelet – Inspiring Judaism.