Omer Shem Tov, 20, was held by Hamas for 505 days in underground tunnels in Gaza, mostly in the dark. About 100 days in — he can’t be sure since he couldn’t keep track of time — the Israel Defense Forces fought above ground, where he was held, and left behind various items. The Hamas terrorists gave these items to Shem Tov. The terrorists thought they were worthless. Among them was a small card: Psalm 20.
Omer Shem Tov, raised secular, read it. One verse particularly struck him: “These with horses and these with chariots, but as for us, we call on the L-rd our G-d.” The verse affected him. He recited Psalm 20 every day.
That was down below.
He did not know that up above his mother never gave up on seeing her son again. She went into his room every day, and she prayed there — she recited one chapter of the book of Psalms every day.
Psalm 20.
The same chapter her son was reciting deep underground.
Down below. Up above.
The same chapter. The same hope. The same psalm.
Do our prayers “get through?”
What more powerful metaphor for how our prayers “below” reach our Creator “above” than the simultaneously recital of the same psalm, chapter 20, by son and mother? Not only a metaphor for Omer’s prayer reaching above, but for the One Above’s prayers for us reaching below. Prayers. Both ways. Hope. Both ways. Omer and his mother. Both ways.
© IJN 2026
