No other place
On June 12, 2014, I flew to Israel for the summer, heading to my yeshiva in Gush Etzion upon my arrival. On Friday morning, June 13, 2014, rumors began to trickle in, confirmed only shortly before Shabbat: five minutes down the road from the yeshiva, the three boys — Eyal Ifrach, Gilad Shaer and Naftali Frankel — had been kidnapped. Not until 18 days later — 18 tense days of fervent prayer, hope and desperation—were their bodies discovered, murdered. That ignited Operation Protective Edge, the last Israeli ground incursion into Gaza prior to October, 2023.
Precisely 11 years later to the day, on Friday morning, June 13, 2025, I woke up to news on the totally opposite side of the emotional and military spectrum: Israel’s evisceration of Iran’s military and nuclear leadership, decimation of Iran’s air defenses and successful initial attacks on Iran’s nuclear production sites.
Back in 2014, upon my return to America at the end of that summer, I penned a column whose recurrent theme was “living with Am Yisrael.” In essence, I expressed how, despite the terribly tragic and difficult summer that passed, the many “living with Am Yisrael” moments I experienced concretized for me that there was no other place I would rather be than Israel. Although making aliyah was already in my plans, I was driven to start a countdown: There would be no more than 1,000 days until I filed aliyah paperwork. And so it was: I blessedly made aliyah in the summer of 2017.
Prayer, good. What about gratitude?
Since Oct. 7, there is no place I would rather be than Israel, a feeling that only intensified on that wondrous morning of Friday, June 13, 2025. Much ink has been spilled about the Israel-Diaspora relationship over the past two years, and many reflections run through my mind. I will note here only those I have not seen expressed elsewhere.
In the first few days of the war against Iran, the many synagogue and community bulletins I saw from Diaspora organizations expressed worry and fear for what Israel was going through, with such phrases as “the cloud hanging over Israel” and “dark times for Israel.” By contrast, by Friday afternoon, less than one day into the war, Israelis themselves were on such a high that Prime Minister Netanyahu needed to make a public pronouncement “not to be too euphoric” and to take the air raid sirens seriously.
The direct hits taken once the Iranian missiles eventually came took the euphoria down a couple of notches, but overall, the attitude of Israelis was upbeat. You see, an Iranian attack on Israel was never an if/maybe/hopefully not for us Israelis; rather, it was the deepest part of our subconscious which knew that that day would eventually come, and we dreaded what it would look like.
That dread was born of expectations that there would be thousands killed and whole neighborhoods destroyed — in a best case scenario. So for Israel to have done what it did, with no retaliation for over 12 hours — and even with the fatalities and damage from the eventual retaliation over 12 days — provided an existential relief.
Another difference I’ve noticed is in prayer. In the Diaspora, major prayer gatherings were organized with intense Psalms (Tehillim) recitals; I did not notice a corresponding movement in Israel. Technically, this could be explained by restrictions on gatherings. However, even at synagogues where regular services took place major Tehillim recitals were absent, so I believe there is something deeper going on. I believe that people’s very existence here in Israel is itself a prayer.
Especially for new immigrants (olim), but for every Israeli really, our very decision to continue living here constitutes a prayer to G-d for safety, for peace, for redemption. As for Tehillim, our most fervent Tehillim are recited in bomb shelters in the actual moment of crisis, with the knowledge that missiles are overhead. These prayer gatherings are also an expression of emunah, of faith, that G-d is the driver of history and the source of salvation.
Again, the very choice to live in Israel — on the playing field of history itself, with missiles aimed at it from every direction — is as deep an expression of faith as there can be.
What is true of the prayer and faith of every Israeli is exponentially true for IDF soldiers who put their lives on the line.
There is a flipside to praying for salvation. That is gratitude and praise when the salvation is delivered. Here, too, I notice a difference. Beyond the initial euphoria, religious synagogues and communities across Israel were grappling with the proper religious expression of gratitude once the significant damage to Iran’s nuclear threat became clear. To recite the blessing ha-tov ve-ha-meitiv (Blessed is He who is good and does good)? To recite a full Hallel on rosh chodesh last week? Not to recite a full Hallel, but to have an especially festive Hallel? Or, to recite Hallel the next Shabbat morning after davening, when many more people come?
Whatever particular option a community chose, the very grappling with the question reflected a deep connection to G-d and a recognition of His salvation.
For reasons I can’t quite figure out (perhaps I missed it), Diaspora religious communities did not really engage with this question, at least certainly not with the passion with which they engaged in prayer for Israel’s salvation at the beginning of the war.
Beyond PTSD
A different reflection. Like the parallel timing of Friday, June 13, others must have made this point before me; yet, I haven’t seen it discussed. And that is the utterly decapitating, undiagnosable condition of total exhaustion suffered by residents of Sderot and other Gaza envelope communities over a decade of near-daily rocket fire between 2005 and 2014. Much has been made, rightfully so, about the insanely high levels of PTSD suffered by resident of Sderot, with nearly 50% of the city’s youth diagnosed with PTSD by 2014.
My experience during the Iran war gave me new insight into their suffering.
I was in Jerusalem, where no Iranian missiles fell nearby. Though of course we took every siren 100% seriously, the level of fear and anxiety and the potential trauma are greatly mitigated by the knowledge that Iran is not aiming at us too frequently. Nonetheless, I found it incredibly difficult to function during the war, for one primary reason: sleep deprivation. Amber alerts and sirens woke us every night for a week straight, sometimes multiple times a night.
The consequences of this are not simply the lost sleep while in the bomb shelter. After all, I’ve gone through finals week in university with probably less hours of sleep on average and still managed to perform on my exams. Allow me to delineate some of the differences between sleep deprivation in regular life and sleep deprivation under missile fire.
• It’s not just less sleep, but interrupted sleep, which is less restorative. This factor is one anyone who has had a newborn can identify with. The following ones, less so.
• The difficulty of going back to sleep after a siren. For someone who hasn’t experienced it, it is difficult to describe the electricity that pulses through one’s body when an Iranian ballistic missile sends us to the shelter. That fight-or-flight mechanism that kicks in and is so important to keeping us safe, makes it that much more difficult to hit the sack again. This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that we are required to check our phones and the blue light they emit — to say nothing of the potential rabbit hole of news updates and Whatsapps — to see when it’s safe to leave the shelter.
• The difficulty of falling asleep in the first place. It is distinctly challenging for the body to shut down when the specter of a middle-of-the-night siren, of completely unknown timing, hangs in the air.
• A related matter: when should we go to sleep? At 11:30 p.m., when we want to? Or ought we wait up another hour or two because Iran showed a penchant for firing missiles around 12:30-1 a.m.?
• The time drain. In regular life, if someone is burning the midnight oil, at least it usually means they are checking off some items from their to-do list. Here, the exhaustion is compounded by the fact that the to-do list only grows.
• The inability to plan on making up the sleep. Someone getting inferior sleep in regular life intends and hopes to catch up on the sleep missed. In war, no such hope exists. It doesn’t even matter if my wife graciously offers to watch all four of our kids or vice versa. If there’s a siren, I gotta get up again.
All of this, I experienced for barely more than one week.
And all of this, it dawned on me after the ceasefire, residents of Sderot experienced for years on end!
When it comes to PTSD, not everyone who experiences trauma goes on to develop PTSD, and various interventions exist that can help minimize the chance trauma victims will develop PTSD. But even for those without PTSD, I don’t know of any interventions that can make up for siren-induced, prolonged sleep deprivation.
How did the children in Sderot hold it together?
Did chronically sleep deprived parents and teachers have the requisite patience and energy reserves to raise those children healthily?
Those innocent residents endured depths of suffering well beyond the PTSD label that gets easily slapped on. It’s not for nothing, after all, that sleep deprivation is considered one of the worst forms of torture in interrogations.
Corruption of Torah values
A different reflection.
The Iran war, once again, brought with it a period of blessed unity in Israel. Even since the war’s conclusion, politicians from across the spectrum have maintained relatively respectful dialogue. There is a broader consensus of what Israel’s national interests are on issues that previously were bitterly divisive; or, at least, there is a greater understanding of the opposing side’s concerns.
Amidst this show of unity, and after Israel’s most daring military victory in decades, an unlikely source of disunity has emerged: extremist hilltop youth who attacked IDF soldiers and IDF posts in the Binyamin region in the West Bank. As someone who is moving to Mitzpe Yeriho, a town in the Binyamin region, it is important for me to declare the obvious: this is not right. Not morally. Not Jewishly. Not even strategically.
The moral and strategic failures of such actions — and likewise, of vigilante justice — are critical, but for now, I’m going to focus on the Torah-education failure.
It is vital to clarify in advance that these youth are not representative of 95%+ of Judea and Samaria residents, and not even of all hilltop youth. Nonetheless, it is equally vital to ensure that such actions remain on the fringe and spread no further.
The current flareup started on a Friday night. It is disputed who started what. Religious figures in the settlement movement have been quick to point out that the teens didn’t initiate the violence. As a Torah-observant supporter of settlement in Judea and Samaria, I wonder why these religious figures aren’t addressing the deeper educational issue: Why are these kippah-clad, tzitzit-wearing teens driving a car — not as part of any security patrol, mind you — and using their phones on Shabbat in the first place?
As I understand it, a parcel of land had just been declared a closed military zone and the teens were there on Shabbat night, it seems, in an attempt to keep certain land in civilian Jewish hands. The Torah allows for overriding Shabbat observance for one reason only: pikuach nefesh, potential danger to life. To violate Shabbat in the face of no physical threat (these youth were driving prior to any interaction with IDF soldiers) is not Torah observance.1
It is a self-serving corruption of Torah values.
It is that very self-serving corruption of Torah values which directly leads to the active destruction of IDF posts by hilltop youth two nights later, on Sunday night.
Thankfully, Religious Zionist leaders of all stripes unequivocally condemned Sunday night’s abhorrent actions. However, by whitewashing Friday night’s corruption of Torah, which provided a self-righteous cover for Sunday night’s actions, I believe these leaders are missing the point.
The road to redemption can be a long one and as we travel along this momentous part of the journey, I am taking to heart three lessons from the past few weeks.
One, to express overwhelming gratitude to G-d for his miraculous salvation, even if the salvation is as yet incomplete.
Second, to empathize with those suffering, to make the mental effort to understand the levels of suffering below the surface and, ideally, to find a way to help those who suffered.
Third, to invest in unity actively, to guard against disunity and to clarify Torah values when they are being corrupted, especially in one’s own backyard.
1 There is a position in Jewish law that settling the land of Israel overrides rabbinic prohibitions on Shabbat (see Gittin 8a). However, this is not relevant in this case since a) they violated Torah prohibitions and b) the land was to remain under Jewish military control regardless.
© IJN 2025
