Our Thoughts
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Rarely has that felt more true than last Shabbat, when our community was graced by the unexpected presence of a young man whose story, though we did not know his name, spoke more eloquently than words ever could.
He kept himself quietly to himself. We knew little about him, except that he had been gravely wounded in the war in Gaza, losing both legs and both hands. Yet when the time came for a call-up to the Torah, he rose from his seat and made his way towards the Sefer Torah on his prosthetic legs.
It was an extraordinary sight.
He stood there smiling. In that moment, he seemed to grow taller before our eyes. Physically, he had suffered unimaginable loss; spiritually, he appeared almost unbreakable. After standing for some time during the service, the strain became too much and he needed to sit. Yet even then, despite the obvious discomfort, he continued to participate in the davening, smiling and joining in with the community.
None of us knew his name. But we knew his story.
He had become, in that brief and unforgettable moment, a symbol of the extraordinary resilience of the people of Israel: wounded, tested and challenged, but refusing to surrender hope.
As I watched him, I found myself thinking of one of the most enigmatic episodes in the Torah: the night when Jacob wrestled with the mysterious figure at the river Yabbok.
Jacob is attacked without warning. He finds himself locked in a struggle that lasts throughout the night. At one point, his adversary strikes him and dislocates his thigh. Jacob is injured, yet he refuses to let go.
Then comes the remarkable moment when the adversary says, in effect, “Let me go, for dawn has broken.” And Jacob responds: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
The question is almost startling. Why would Jacob ask to be blessed by the very being who has wounded him?
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks offered a profound interpretation of this moment.
Jacob could not understand why he had been made to endure this struggle. He could not see its purpose. He could not yet know what would emerge from it. But perhaps there was one thing he could recognise: if this struggle was part of his journey, then somehow, ultimately, there had to be meaning within it. There had to be a blessing that could emerge from the pain.
Jacob did not ask for the struggle to have never happened. He asked that, having happened, it should not be meaningless.
That is a profoundly Jewish response to suffering.
Faith does not always mean understanding why something has happened. Sometimes faith means refusing to believe that what has happened is without meaning. It means taking the broken pieces of a life and asking: What blessing can I still create from them? What strength can I discover? What can I become?
Jacob emerges from that night wounded. He walks away with a limp. He is not restored to the person he was before the struggle. Yet he is also transformed. His wound becomes part of his identity, and his new name — Israel — becomes the name of a people who would themselves know, throughout history, what it means to struggle and yet endure.
The young man who visited our community last Shabbat is now embarked, like so many wounded soldiers and civilians in Israel, on a long and arduous journey of recovery and rehabilitation. There will undoubtedly be difficult days ahead. There will be pain, frustration and moments when the road seems impossibly long.
But perhaps his visit to us was not simply an inspiring moment to witness. Perhaps it was also a message for each of us.
Every member of a community carries unseen struggles. Some of us are dealing with illness, loss, disappointment, loneliness, family challenges or worries about the future. We cannot always choose the struggles that come our way, any more than Jacob chose his. But we can choose how we respond to them. We can choose, like Jacob, not to let go; to remain connected to our faith, to one another and to the hope that even from a difficult chapter something meaningful and blessed can emerge. And perhaps that is what this remarkable young man taught us last Shabbat: not that we will never face setbacks and feel wounded , but that even when we are, we can still stand tall.
Am Yisrael Chai