For us Israelis, going into a new year, our minds cannot help but bring the old year with us. What have we learned? What have we lost, and what (is it possible?) have we actually gained?

As thousands of our husbands, fathers, sons and grandsons enter with their IDF units into the worst terrorist creation of all time: an entire city honeycombed with death-bringing tunnels filled with terrorists, explosives, and our precious hostages, we literally hold our breath to see if the absolutely necessary destruction of it, and those whose diseased minds conceived and built it, will have the means – God forbid! – to extract from us additional incalculable loses.

I have seen many social media posts questioning the necessity of this war (not to mention those who back the evil and support it, and want to see it destroy us). I say categorically, with my family risking their lives to win it, that there is no choice. This terrible evil must be vanquished, and the people responsible for it killed or exiled. That is what the Nazis taught us. Something else we learned from them, is that any Nazi that escaped punishment and continued to walk God’s good earth, used his or her life to perpetuate evil, and harm the innocent.

What have we learned? That Oslo, the Disengagement, and any other foolish compromise, surrender, treaty, or deal with Islamic terrorists and their supporters is a death wish for which we will pay dearly in blood down the road. We have learned that curing their cancers and giving their children heart transplants doesn’t breed gratitude. They live to become Yaya Sinwars (cured of brain cancer in an Israeli hospital), and Hamas terrorists. Idan Reichal , the singer, was a volunteer years ago helping Gazan children with heart problems. The child he was photographed with in an Israeli hospital who got life-saving heart treatment became a Hamas terrorist responsible for October 7.

We have also learned that all the stupid things we Israelis fought about were delusionally ridiculous considering that all of us are marked for death by our enemies next door, and that Europe, Canada, Australia, and other places, have already bought into the necessity of our destruction by supporting a non-existent Palestinian terror-state they are determined to plant in our midst to create more October 7, no matter what rules we decide for our Supreme Court.

I will not list the things we have lost. So many precious, beautiful innocent young people. So many women lost their husbands. So many mothers their sons and daughters. We have lost the sense of security. We have lost our innocence in believing that people out there are intelligent enough to understand that terrorist propaganda is just that, and to understand the truth of Israel’s righteousness, how we are going out of our way, risking the precious lives of our soldiers, to save the unworthy, evil people of Gaza with food and shelter.

But we have also gained many things. A firm understanding that it is as a nation undivided we stand, and divided we fall. It is in the surprise of realizing that the next generation of Israelis – our children and grandchildren –  for all their Instagram and TikTok posts, is the bravest, smartest, most patriotic with which our country has ever been blessed. And when this horrible war is over and our hostages return, that generation will use their remarkable talents to elevate our nation to even greater heights in scholarship, industry, and scientific advances that will benefit not only us but all mankind.

I will end with this quote from the week’s Torah portion, which as usual, is how God, the living God of Abraham, communicates with His people on a weekly basis: So says the prophet Isaiah (61:1-5)

“The Lord has anointed me to bring to oppressed ones tidings, has sent me to bandage broken hearts, to cry freedom to captives; and to break the prisoners’ bonds; to call forth a year of the Lord’s favor, a day for the vengeance of our God to comfort all mourners of Zion; to crown them in splendor where once there was ash where once there was mourning, oil of joy, a mantle of praise where there were dark spirits, calling them oaks of righteousness, the Lord’s planting, grown for His splendor. Ancient ruins will be rebuilt … deserted cities will be renewed … You will be called the Lord’s priests.”

I wish you all a good and blessed year of peace, health, and prosperity. May we know no more losses, and may He wipe the tears from all faces.

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