There were rumors all day yesterday that “something big” had happened. People shared shadowy internet posts, and the tension built until someone in the government or the army finally said it had to stop. But then it turned out “something big” actually had happened. We destroyed a huge Hamas stronghold, killing at least fifty armed Hamas terrorists and destroying underground bunkers. We are well on our way to cutting Gaza in two by reaching the sea.

Only slowly did the army also announce our losses. First four soldiers names, and the next day another eleven. And every photo, every name is like a dagger to our hearts, these beautiful brave young men between 19-20 years old, forced to put themselves into harm’s way. “’We are fighting for our right and the right of future generations to live safely and thrive in our homeland,’ Lt. Gen. Halevi says.

It’s too much. Reading the battle news each hour, the loss of our soldiers, the numbing descriptions of some new atrocity committed on October 7 we haven’t yet read about. The sirens going off. The videos of truly sickening antisemitic rhetoric from around the world, and the daily threats coming from Iran, Yemen, Russia.

It’s too much. Reading the battle news each hour, the loss of our soldiers, the numbing descriptions of some new atrocity committed on October 7 we haven’t yet read about. The sirens going off. The videos of truly sickening antisemitic rhetoric from around the world, and the daily threats coming from Iran, Yemen, Russia.

But worst of all are the mouthpieces of Hamas that are still alive (we soon hope to change that) like Ghazi Hamad who brazenly told the Lebanese press that “everything we did is justified. We will repeat Oct. 7 attacks over and over again until Israel is annihilated.”

In light of that and the continuing rocket barrages, and the face that Gazans – from old men on crutches to little boys – were part of the murderous hordes that broke down our fences and murdered our people, killing fathers, raping mothers, and putting babies into ovens and turning it up to broil – no, I’m not making this up – the constant American pressure to do more and more for the Gazans is sickening. I wonder how many aid trucks the Allies sent to Dresden for the “poor Nazis”. What part of this doesn’t the free world yet understand?

Yet, we can’t help but read and listen. It’s impossible not to. Still, we get up, get dressed, go to exercise class where our lovely, smiling Leah adds Am Yisroel Chai to the aerobics tape. A class full of grandparents who are trying, for the sake of their families, to keep healthy, keep strong. Even smile. All of us have family involved in this war, and the fear inside us is deep. But we have no choice but to keep going, keep trying to find ways to help, to volunteer, to donate.

The bright spots are few, but still exist. Videos of the children of Sderot – so long under rocket fire – now housed in a nice hotel in Eilat courtesy of the government, going down slides into the swimming pool with big smiles and whoops of joy. A hotel on the Dead Sea housing 600 elderly evacuees from the South, many of whom don’t speak Hebrew, now being cared for by social workers and volunteers who set up a club for them.

I pray so hard every day. I wonder if everything that is happening now is to test our faith. If so, we are being sorely tested.

But the Jewish people love God. Our soldiers say the Shema Yisrael prayer collectively before going into battle. October 7 was also the holiday of Simchat Torah, when we began the cycle of Torah readings from the beginning, from Genesis. The medieval Biblical commentator Rashi asks: Why doesn’t the Torah start with the story of the Jewish people, why Creation? And this is what he answers: “For should the people of the world say to Israel: ‘You are robbers, because you took by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan’, Israel can reply to them: ‘All the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed is He. He created it and gave it to whom He pleased. When He willed He gave it to them, and when He willed He took it from them and gave it to us’.

We have to remember that. That is the right answer to our enemies.

Sometimes, in moments of despair, I say: Why don’t they just leave us alone already? How many times have they tried to kill me, and now they are trying to kill my grandchildren, the way they killed my husband’s grandparents and his half-brother and sister in the Holocaust. What have we Jews ever done to them to deserve any of this?

I don’t know the answer. But then I think about the term “Chosen People.” We aren’t like them. God has a different plan for us. As Defense Minister Galant told us today: “ Our soldiers are on the front line of the free world in a war against barbarism and evil. “ So true! And how I wish it wasn’t.

May we lose no more of our boys and girls. May our hostages be rescued by the IDF. May good triumph over evil and may we Jews live to see a world where the haters are shamed and destroyed and everyone sees the truth about the Jewish people.