High Morale During War
How my religious neighbors and I keep functioning during this stressful time
Two weeks ago I wrote about the realities of living in Israel during the war. A reader wrote, “You described how it is; but how do you stand the tension?” Among my friends in northern Israel, this is a spiritual question.
Although the war with Hamas in Gaza appears to be winding down, the northern border, where Hizbollah sits, is heating up. Emotional exhaustion is growing. Most of us are showing some symptoms such as anxiety, apathy, depression, feelings of hopelessness, feeling powerless, irritability, lack of motivation, nervousness, and tearfulness.[i] One key factor causing emotional exhaustion is that we have no control over circumstances, and we do not know from moment to moment whether circumstances will change. Everyone is concerned 24/7 about receiving a life-changing visit from military personnel (remember the introduction to the movie Saving Private Ryan), a devastating phone call, or a missile attack.
How do we cope at all? It is because we know we are not truly powerless.
My friends and I are people of faith and we support each other. Many previously secular Israelis are also finding their strength in our faith. To understand, it helps to know a bit about Jewish prayer, Jewish history, and what it means to be raised as a Jew.
Our prayers
One critical fact that must be understood at the beginning: we believe that God controls everything—except one thing. He gave humans free will, and although in His omnipotence He knows what will be done, He does not stop people from exercising their free will, even when they choose evil. However, through our prayers and actions we can influence His reaction to their evil.[ii]
The Jewish daily prayers are formal, and we pray with a prayerbook. The prayers were codified many generations ago and are almost identical in Jewish communities around the world. (The prayer books and other texts used by Reform, Conservative, and other non-traditional congregations may contain major differences; I speak here of traditional Judaism.)
Three Types of Prayers
The majority of Jewish prayers are not petitionary. Some are expressions of our awe for God and describe His power and glory. Others are expressions of gratitude for all that we have.
Our Shema, probably the best-known part of our liturgy, is technically not even a prayer: it is three paragraphs from the Torah that describe God’s power and covenant with us, reminding us of our obligation to keep the laws and what may happen if we do not.[iii]
Prayers of Awe
Prayers pointing out the power of the Creator help us in two ways. They encourage us to be aware of God’s incredible power. Additionally, they help us to see and acknowledge the physical world around us.
I live in the mountains and am fortunate to have a wonderful view, which because of my prayers reminds me of God’s power and majesty. But even when I lived in a busy city, I noticed small things more than most others I knew there. (The children’s story I will post on Friday March 1, The Marsh on a Misty Morning, grew from this sense of awe.)
The daily prayers of awe remind me not to feel abandoned in times of difficulty. God is strong and carries us. This relieves a lot of the stress of living through a war.
Prayers of Gratitude
Being aware of God’s power and being thankful are two different things. Gratitude does not follow naturally from awe. A thunderstorm overhead is a good example of God’s power, but does not usually endow those startled by the sudden boom and flash with a sense of gratitude.
God created everything, and we must acknowledge our gratitude for it. The prayers of gratitude remind us of the broad scope of things for which we should be grateful, and thus of specific things in our life we may have taken for granted.
This is a dry country; we see rain as a gift from God. We bless the rain; without it our crops cannot flourish. Besides the war, the weather made this winter especially difficult. The rains usually come slowly in mid-autumn and end gently in mid-spring. Between late fall and early spring we have the majority of our wet weather, with rainy and sunny times alternating. However, this year we had almost no rain until the end of January. Then we had almost a solid month of cold, rainy days.
Being grateful for waht we have, instead of focusing on ourselves, our issues, or the war, helps us avoid anxiety or despair.
Petitionary Prayers
Our petitionary prayer, known as the weekday Amidah or Shemona Esrei, is said in the plural.[iv] While we also can say private, individual prayers, our formal prayer focus is on “Am Yisrael,” the people of Israel. Focusing on others instead of ourselves helps us see the big picture. Our lives are harder than they were before the war, but easier than those of many of our bretheren.
The Amidah includes a prayer for health. During ordinary times, many people include prayers for family and friends who have serious mental, spiritual, or physical health challenges. At this time, when roughly 130 of our brothers and sisters are hostages in Gaza, many of us read all their names at this point in our daily prayers. Other people have chosen the name of one hostage and specifically pray for that person at this point and throughout the day.
As I described in my previous article, most people are doing some kind of volunteer work to help others during this time. This drive to support each other comes largely from the plural of our prayers.
Looking for the Positive
Every Jewish child with an education in our tradition knows the stories of Rabbi Nachum GamZu and Rabbi Akiva, and how things that looked bad for them turned out to be good.[v] We understand from childhood that things that look bad and feel bad will, in the end, turn out to be for good. Sometimes that good comes long after a very, very bad “bad,” but it will come eventually. Sometimes not in our lifetime.
One example is Daniel Pearl, a journalist who in 2002 was kidnapped and publicly executed by Muslim extremists in Pakistan. A Jew by birth, he was not religious; in fact, his wife was a practicing Buddhist. But his last words were, “My mother is Jewish. My father is Jewish. I am a Jew.” What good can come from a “senseless” death like his? A foundation was founded in his memory to promote cross-cultural understanding. Perhaps more important, the way at his very last moments he acknowledged his connection to the Jewish people caused many others to reevaluate their own lax connection and realize that “you can run but you can’t hide.” He has touched more people for good in his tragic death than he could have done in a long, peaceful life.
We in Israel do not see ourselves only in terms of our individual realities; we know we are part of a much larger whole. Whether our personal experience feels good or bad, it is a step in the larger history of our people. A broken ladder rung or a missing stair-step is a problem. We believe Jewish history would be incomplete without the steps of the life of each one of us.
Making Lemonade from Lemons
Last week we finally had a week without rain—both sunny and cloudy days, chilly but dry. The rain washed the dust off the trees, making green leaves glisten and lemons, heavy on the trees this time of year, gleam like bits of sunshine. Looking at the lemons and thinking about the question posed by my reader, I realized that Israelis are good at making lemonade.
We look for the good things and focus on them. Weddings are happening even though one or both parties may be on active duty now. Babies are being born, although sometimes to war widows. Volunteers are supplementing government aid, providing necessities for our war widows and refugees. They are also hosting entertainments and parties for them. The war news digest that I receive three times a day always ends with a snippet of good news, often with a picture. We all delight in happy news, whether or not it involves friends or acquaintances.
This week the government announced that residents may return to certain communities near the Gaza border because the army has removed the threat; hopefully they will find their homes and possessions intact. We all rejoice that some of our refugees can go home again.
The Coming of the Messiah
The time we are living in and this war have striking similarities to prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. One passage from the Talmud says that just before the beginning of the messianic age: Impudence will increase; prices will rise; the government will ignore the law and no one will stop it; educational and legal halls will be filled with promiscuity; important Jewish regions will be destroyed; people who once lived near the border will roam looking for help but will find no mercy; the wisdom of scribes will putrify (wisdom will be perverted); people who fear sin will be held in disgust, and the truth will be absent. The youth will shame the elders, elders will stand before minors. Children will rise up against their parents, and a person’s enemies will be the members of his household…[vi] Other sources add other things, several of which also sound all too familiar: epidemics of terrible diseases, cursing and blaspheming; international confrontations.[vii]
But there are also positive signs that the Mashiach is coming: we have a good measure of prosperity; an increase in the amount of Torah study; scientific and technological advances used for good; and we hear of many miracles, including these:
Several individuals and families were saved on October 7 because, contrary to their normal practice, they were keeping the Sabbath and the holiday that fell on that day according to the tradition.
One soldier, in a crowded temporary shelter on October 7, caught and threw back seven grenades that terrorists were lobbing into the shelter before one exploded. He was seriously injured, but survived. His actions saved many of the others crowded into that shelter.
One of the hostages who was freed last month said that throughout her ordeal she kept feeling bursts of hopefulness and became positive she would be saved. After her release she learned that people had been praying for her, and she understood that those prayers sent the flashes of positivity. This previously secular woman now understands the power of God.
So, how do we remain upbeat?
“Ikvot Meshicha,” the title of one of the sources referenced above, means literally the footsteps of the Messiah. We can see the footsteps; they mean the Messiah is very, very close. By increasing our Torah study and mitzvot (such as helping each other, both physically and by donating to causes that help) and by being aware of miracles we can each do our part to help bring this era.
We pray with more focus than before so that we truly absorb their messages: that God created everything and is in control of it. We can depend on God, and we should be grateful for what we have and not focus on what is missing, since if God wanted us to have it, we would.
We know that whatever happens comes from God, even things that do not feel good when they are happening.
In Conclusion
Jews have been through tough times before. Our ancestors were exiled to Babylon and Rome; hundreds of thousands of Jews in Ukraine were killed by the Cossacks during the Chmielnicki pogroms of the 17th century.[viii] My maternal grandfather’s family fled Spain due to the Inquisition in 1492, when Jews had to convert to Catholicism or leave.[ix] My paternal grandparents’ families fled the Russian Empire because of government-sponsored pogroms.[x] My best friend’s mother died in 1954 of breast cancer that had been implanted during her stay in a concentration camp as an “experiment” by the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele.[xi]
Yet we keep going. Our faith, our sense of peoplehood, our carefully nurtured sense of gratitude, and our understanding of our role in the march of Jewish history keep us from falling into despair.
Yes, we worry. Yes, we sometimes have nightmares or simply can’t sleep. But we still have full, rich lives for which we are grateful every day. We wish the world were not so much against us, and that they would learn more from us about gratitude, God’s power, and the laws for an orderly society.[xii] But all is in God’s hands.
So we smile, say, “So be it,” and look for the next psalm to say, pot of soup to donate, or smile to give to a neighbor.
[i] Sparks, D., Emotional exhaustion during times of unrest, Mayo Clinic News Network, Sept. 24, 2020, https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/emotional-exhaustion-during-times-of-unrest/, accessed Feb. 27, 2024.
[ii] Judaism does not believe in the devil. We believe there is One supr3me eternal power, one God with one name, and He is good. Evil comes from within each person—we all have an evil inclination. Good people struggle against it, but some people embrace it and act accordingly.
[iii] https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/705353/jewish/The-Shema.htm
[iv] In many other traditions people pray for their families—the individuals they love. We pray for our family—all the People of Israel.
[v] Mindel, Nissan, Nachum Ish Gamzu and Rabbi Akiba, originally published by Kehot Publication Society, reprinted in Chabad.org, https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/112045/jewish/Nachum-Ish-Gamzu-and-Rabbi-Akiba.htm , accessed Feb. 26, 2024.
[vi] Sotah 49B, translation from Sefaria.org.il, https://www.sefaria.org.il/Sotah.49b.3?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en, accessed Feb. 26, 2024.
[vii] Schochet, J. I., Ikvot Meshicha: The Time Immediately Before Mashiach, from the Sichos in English Collection, reprinted in Chabad.org., https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/100900/jewish/The-Time-Before-Mashiach.htm, accessed Feb. 26, 2024.
[viii] Jewish Treats, Chmielnicki Pogroms, National Jewish Outreach Program (NJOP), May 25, 2010. https://njop.org/chmielnicki-pogroms/, accessed Feb. 26, 2024.
[ix] Modern Jewish History: The Spanish Expulsion (1492), Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-spanish-expulsion-1492, accessed Feb. 26, 2024.
[x] Klier, J. Pogroms. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, 2010, October 11. from https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Pogroms , accessed Feb. 26, 2024.
[xi] Josef Mengele. Holocaust Encyclopedia, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/josef-mengele, accessed Feb. 26, 2024.
[xii] The 7 Noahide Laws: University Morality, Chabad.org., https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/62221/jewish/The-7-Noahide-Laws-Universal-Morality.htm, accessed Feb. 27, 2024.
This article is very special, thank you Hanna.