This blog has also seen posts about the unforgivably irresponsible and even outright betrayal and sabotage by the highest-ranking military officers and their sidekick politicians.
Yet there's another issue here that few wish to acknowledge, let alone discuss.
I actually don't want to acknowledge it either, but feel compelled to do so.
And that's the ticking time-bomb regarding our psychological and medical resources.
(Fortunately, our spiritual resources are eternally replenishable, courtesy of the Creator.)
The Elephants in the Room: Elephant #1 – Soldiers with PTSD
If you look just starting from the establishment of the modern State in 1948, the toll of wars, terror attacks, the experience of being prisoners of war, and constantly have to fight for the Torah's rights is enormous.
In fact, if you speak to people who've lost a loved one since the Great Horror from Gaza, you often hear about 2 or 3 generations of bereavement, i.e.: "My son was killed fighting the Gazans, but before that, my brother was killed in a terror attack, and my father's brother was killed fighting in Lebanon..."
A couple of years ago, former soldiers suffering from unrelenting PTSD finally came into the public eye.
One of my adult sons showed me a 5-minute video of young man, a former combat soldier, testifying before the Knesset about his torment.
Tears flooded my face within 2 minutes of watching.
His obvious and intense pain and desperation hit me in the heart.
You could tell he wasn't shouting and emoting to get attention; it simply poured out from a deep well of pain.
He spoke of his self-sacrifice and devotion to the cause of protecting Am Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael.
He spoke of the friends he saw slain next to him in battle — and the gruesome images of these same friends scarring his memories.
With intensifying agony and frustration, he listed his symptoms, his sleepless nights, his terror and pain, his inability to function and move on in life.
He listed the treatments and medications he'd tried — but they either didn't help or they helped only minimally or temporarily.
He wants to marry and have children, but demanded to know how can he even think of doing so under these circumstances?
He also expressed his anger and feelings of betrayal at the government and military for not caring enough about the severe trauma of combat soldiers and of not providing enough free help for the duration of time so many of them require.
He also emphasized that he was far from the only one suffering like this. It's just that for so many of his fellow sufferers, the ongoing agony of their PTSD felt too private to expose publicly. They remain anonymous, so he decided to speak both for himself and on their behalf.
Needless to say, this situation has both intensified and expanded since the Great Horror from Gaza.
Elephant #2 – The Amputees & Causes
While Israeli wars have always brought its tragic share of amputees, we've seen a lot more now.
These are strong, healthy, handsome, idealistic Jewish young men in their early twenties...hobbling around on one leg.
At great self-sacrifice, they came to fight these battles because they honestly believe the existence of the Medinah and Jewish lives are at stake.
The media (which is no friend of of unborn babies missing a limb in utereo) suddenly holds up the amputees as great heroes to be admired.
And they are!
The media features these handsome, strong, determined young men undergoing physical therapy and provides sound bites of these same young men expressing their unwavering optimism for fulfilling, normal lives with a prosthetic leg.
I'll just say that rehabilitating amputees emotionally and physically demands enormous practical, financial, and emotional resources over a long period of time.
The Jews of Eretz Yisrael are happy to give these heroic amputees anything they need for however long they need — but this is a tiny country with a small Jewish population and the number of amputees (along with other injuries, both severe and light) is exploding.
In other words, there are limited resources, no matter how expanded are the hearts of the people.
Such severe disabilities also affect the entire family of the amputee as they too need to make practical and psychological adjustments to the situation, including making themselves into a consistent source of support for their legless family member.
And while even severely disabled people can and have found great shidduchim, missing a limb naturally makes it harder to find a job and a spouse, plus it increases difficulties in raising a family.
A lot of people like to dismiss this with emunah-filled phrases or pointing out all the fantastic resources and rights available for the handicapped.
It's true that Hashem can grant a legless man a wonderful parnasa, a wonderful wife, a lovely wheelchair-accessible home, and lots of siyata d'Shmaya raising children.
It's all entirely possible and we know many frum people throughout the spectrum of disabilities who achieve success in all these areas.
We also know that Hashem can provide all the financial, psychological, and physical resources amputees need.
But derech hateva, resources are limited and the increasing number of amputees ultimately strains on the medical system, society, the amputee's family, and the amputee himself.
As we know from those former combat soldiers suffering PTSD, the appropriate resources aren't as available as promoted.
Why aren't people discussing this much?
First of all, no one wants to hurt the feelings of these heroic amputees. (Me neither.)
No one wants to discourage them or offend them or their families.
But my point in detailing the issues isn't too offend or discourage.
WHY are they amputees?
Was it impossible to prevent these injuries?
NO.
Many lost a limb in the effort to retake kibbutzim during the Great Horror from Gaza.
Many lost a limb in the battles since in Gaza itself.
We know now it was completely and straightforwardly possible to PREVENT the invasion:
the-chilling-truth-about-what-happened-the-night-before-october-7th.html
We also know there is little to no need for soldiers on the ground in Gaza.
These idealistic, committed, brave young men are being treated like hefker by their superiors.
The reason the media acts all starry-eyed over them is because by promoting them as the crème de la crème (when these media Leftists don't actually admire the disabled nor do they encourage their own children to serve in combat, nor would they allow themselves to carry a limbless fetus to term), they encourage other young men to continue providing fodder for a ground war.
It's part of their manipulation and propaganda.
And personally, I believe my Jewish brothers have a right to keep both their legs.
I'm against any military response that increases the risk of them losing a limb — and all the more so, any military response that endangers their lives.
Elephant #3 – The Toll on ZAKA & Other First Responders
Due to the policies of our military and political elites since the founding of the Medinah, Jewish first responders in Eretz Yisrael have seen an enormous amount of gore and disturbing scenes.
To be so intimately involved in this gore for moments, hours — and, since the Great Horror from Gaza, even days and weeks — eventually takes a toll on even the psyche, no matter how idealistic, religious, and emotionally prepared that person is.
And remember, with regard to all that ZAKA deals with: These are their fellow Jews.
These are their brothers and sisters.
These strictly Orthodox Jews volunteer for the gruesome and onerous tasks of ZAKA because they believe in the victims' right to kosher burial, as per Jewish Law.
(As an aside, there also exist Druze, Circassian, Christian, and Muslim members of ZAKA to serve the needs of those communities.)
And because ZAKA volunteers often appear on the scene as first responders, they have also saved lives, as they're also trained to do.
And like any other Jew, I love expressing my pride in ZAKA and Hatzolah, organizations with no equal anywhere else in the world.
But please try and understand the enormous weight they carry in constantly seeing the traumatic slaughter of their fellow Jews.
Because, as explained in a previous post, these strictly Orthodox Jewish volunteers are the ones forced to clean up the horrific "messes" caused by the policies of anti-Torah Leftists.
Even before the Great Horror from Gaza, I already heard of signs that some members of ZAKA were cracking under the strain. (It's a very small country, so you can end up hearing stuff, depending on who you know.)
This should not detract from the lofty role they serve, but it's only natural that dealing with so much gore and pain will take a toll at some point.
And regarding the much vaunted option of therapy...I mean, come on.
What kind of therapy is there for people who consistently over the long-term deal with the worst images and situations a human being can witness?
They have therapy available for them.
ZAKA also provides methods and preparation in their training, as do Hatzolah, Red Star of David, and Hatzolah.
But despite all the heroism and dedication of the paramedics and drivers of Hatzolah and Red Star of David, along with the ZAKA volunteers, some froze up or broke down part way through the Great Horror from Gaza. (And I don't blame them one bit. They're amazing to have lasted as long as they did and under such terrifying conditions.)
Racheli Otmazgin, the wife of ZAKA commander, Chaim Otmazgin, already spoke in 2 interviews on Hidabroot about the psychological toll on her heroic husband.
The father of six, Otmazgin is an IDF reserves captain, plus a rabbi from a yeshivah background. He also helped developed the "ZAKA scooter," a device that assists ZAKA divers in moving as a group under water.
If I remember correctly, he has been in ZAKA for over 20 years.
Throughout that time, his wife claimed he always managed to switch between his ZAKA tasks and his life at home.
He sees his work with ZAKA as a religious calling, an all-important contribution to Am Yisrael. And though ZAKA meant to deal with the dead, Otmazgin and other ZAKA workers often save lives in the course of their work.
Otmazgin had seen the worst: victims of terror attacks, accidents, disasters, and much more.
In other words, he was always held his composure, both at work and home, never letting the heroic yet disturbing work of ZAKA affect his behavior at home.
Until now.
His wife said that despite all the awful sights he'd seen until the Great Horror from Gaza, the horror and gore of the sights he saw from the Gazan-led slaughter surpassed all that he'd seen until now.
And though he is still an excellent father, husband, and Jew, it has affected him. Finally. After all these years.
And what kind of therapy can remedy this? How much therapy?
Let's be realistic.
In another interview with someone who worked in trauma-inducing job, there's a problem of finding a therapist with the emotional fortitude to spend HOURS listening to a ZAKA member speak of the most disturbing experiences and images.
Most therapists — most people — simply cannot do it.
If I remember correctly, ZAKA members tend to turn to each for support for that reason.
Elephant #4 – ALL the Victims of "Friendly Fire"
Soldiers killed by "friendly fire."
In one of the most recent incidents, an Israeli tank shot to missiles into a building, killing several fellow soldiers.
I don't blame them at all because they were working in a tank, exhausted emotionally and physically, and dealing with the constant stress of the threat of possibly being killed any moment.
They honestly thought they were aiming at terrorists.
And they would've given anything to have avoided killing their own people.
The father of one of the soldiers killed in that incident went public saying how he doesn't blame the tankists at all and he only thinks the best of them.
That was really admirable and impressive, and probably healing for the tankists involved.
But how do you think the tankists felt when they realized they killed their fellow Jewish soldiers, boys in kippahs and tzitzit, one of whom came all the way from Argentina to fight on behalf of Am Yisrael?
Again, I don't blame them at all.
But from their perspective, is it really realistic to recover from that?
The young men in that tank (and whoever else was involved in given the orders or arranging the positions) are going to have to carry this with them for the rest of their lives.
We've already seen that soldiers suffering from PTSD — not from things they've done, but from what they saw done to them or their friends — are not necessarily recovering (despite therapy and meds) or they aren't receiving enough of the support they desperately need.
So what about these guys?
In a sense, they're also innocent victims.
How are they supposed to recover from this and just put it behind them?
The Chain of Hostage Crises
While the current hostage situation — the abduction of mostly civilians to Gaza — is foremost in the media and everyone's minds right now, it is merely the last and largest in a chain of similar traumatic events.
Whether Jewish soldiers taken as prisoners of war to suffer torture in Egyptian or Syrian or Iraqi captivity or the school children in Ma'alot or Jewish citizens in Lebanon or the soldier Gilad Shalit, or the tragic end of the wonderful frum soldier Nachshon Wachsman, Jews in Israel struggle with the immediate and long-term effects of these traumatic incidents.
We know some of these soldiers were basically abandoned by the political and military elites, a terrible trauma for their families left without closure or comfort in their worry for their captive brother or son, and often without even confirmation of whether their loved one was dead or alive — a situation which continued for years, even decades.
The soldiers who survived their ordeal as POWs returned as heroes who then had to manage as best they could for the rest of their lives.
And while these were very good men, the brutal treatment left their psychological scars, as their children and wives will attest to.
Those who died in their ordeal left behind grieving and traumatized families.
We rarely hear anymore about the tragedy in Ma'alot in 1974, when the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) took 115 Jews hostage (mostly children) in a school building in Ma'alot.
All in all, 31 Jews were murdered that day.
Their survivors and their families, plus the families of the murdered victims, remained traumatized by the event. Those of the children at that time later spoke of the terrible fear and terrifying abandonment they experienced when their teachers left them to save themselves. (Not all the teachers did this, I think, but some did and while I don't necessarily blame them, it deeply scarred the children left behind in the clutches of the terrorists.)
Dr. Edy Cohen, a professor and expert on Middle Eastern affairs, is a Jewish native of Lebanon (now living in Eretz Yisrael) who speaks out about how to deal with the current situation.
He also uploads videos in Arabic speaking to the Arab world, particularly the citizens of southern Lebanon.
(If you know Hebrew, you can watch a 12-minute interview with him and Oded Harush here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XqcUDKD-4w&list=PLTZug04_T3wP0q3oCTU8FmRvXAEgzQMq_&index=17)
In 1985, Hezbullah terrorists kidnapped several Jews — among them, the father of 12-year-old Edy Cohen.
One night, after hosting guests, Edy's father went to escort the guests to their car. Minutes later, the guests returned to the Cohen home, telling them how armed men came and took Mr. Cohen.
The terrorists did this with several Jews and held these innocent Jews for 9 months.
Until that point, Edy's father had been a loyal citizen of Lebanon, who believed in dual existence, and did not want to move to Eretz Yisrael (while Edy's mother very much wanted to move).
Edy's father took no side in Middle Eastern politics. He just wanted to live in peace with everyone and believed in this possibility.
However, the terrorist did not care about the older Mr. Cohen's harmonious and loyal beliefs.
They held him and other hostages while demanding the release of hundreds of imprisoned terrorists.
At that time, Yitzchak Shamir was Prime Minister of Israel. He declared his refusal to negotiate with terrorists, so Mr. Cohen was the first hostage murdered and thrown out for the Red Cross to pick up and return to the Cohen family.
The Cohen family managed to come to Eretz Yisrael in 1991.
So this has been an ongoing problem, which unfortunately and unfairly, gets shoved into the darkness of "past history" when the spotlight turns to whatever crisis is happening in the present.
Elephant #5 – PTSD Affects More than Just One Victim – and It can Affect Future Generations
You have parents, spouses, siblings, and children surrounding these traumatized soldiers and emergency workers.
When you're dealing with someone who's in a PTSD or presently traumatic situation (and you're all trying to prevent PTSD), it doesn't mean that's the only thing going on in your life.
For example, families need to deal with the traumatized family member while ALSO dealing with preparing another child for the first day of school. Or giving birth. Or a married child giving birth (who usually needs lots of support and hosting). Or getting divorced.
Employed family members still struggle with problems in their workplace or their marriage or their finances — just like everyone else.
In other words, the traumatized family member doesn't occur in a vacuum.
Life and all its demands continue happening around them.
I'm a tiny bit in this situation myself, dealing with my son in the army. I've mentioned his experiences several times in this blog.
He doesn't show any signs of PTSD and he has a really lovely, upbeat personality by nature.
But at the same time, we're trying to head it off (by treating him completely normally, yet with discreet sensitivity to what he might be going through in his mind — which is quite a balancing act, believe me — and also figuring out how and when to bring up an issue and address it in the best way for HIM).
For example, at the time he was going to 4 funerals of good friends (killed in Gaza) in 3 days, we were also dealing with the great simcha of a newborn grandchild, and ended up hosting the newborn's older brother (age 13 months) for several days while his father (our son) stayed to tend to his wife and newborn.
At one point, our grandson suffered a high fever. Our son (his father) came home at that point, but it also meant an entire night up for me and my son, plus numerous phone calls to the night doctor, to care for the toddler, with us going to sleep at 5 in the morning.
(Our youngest and 9-year-old son woke up from the commotion and came into the room to help because he loves his little nephew like a baby brother.)
That's fairly run-of-the-mill stuff with a happy ending, but I'm just saying that you end up with these sharp spikes and drops happening simultaneously, and stretching your emotional and physical resources to the limit.
For us, these extremes have been temporary, but they keep happening.
Don't forget that in the not-too-distant past, there was a massive missile attack from Iran, which I saw, heard, and felt, as described here: the-multi-pronged-attack-on-eretz-yisrael-after-shabbat-what-we-experienced-what-its-showing-us.html.
And everything going on in the North, plus the long-term displacement of the residents of the North.
But the point is that for the families dealing with the long-term effects of a family member with PTSD and/or amputation, it's an ongoing situation amid all the other vicissitudes of life.
There is No Milchemet Mitzvah under the Leadership of Erev Rav
Ever since the (actually, before) the founding of the Medinah, anti-Torah secular Marxists sought to convince all other Jews to fight in the army run by the anti-Torah Marxists, claiming this was the only way to create a refuge for Jews and prevent discrimination, pogroms, and genocide.
It actually only created a refuge for the anti-Torah secular Marxists, who — like their Communist forefathers — have also become decadent elites, safely gated from the rest of society within their connections and luxury homes.
Remember: Jews have always lived in Eretz Yisrael and always sought to come live here whenever they possibly could.
The only refuge comes from Hashem's protection, as we see by the miserable failures of the military and security and intelligence to protect Jews in Eretz Yisrael. (October 7th is only the latest in a chain of failures deriving from both apathy and incompetence.)
Yet now, with the existence of the Medinah and the refusal of the powers-that-be to deal with the Muslim communities and the surrounding Muslim countries in a way most conducive to peace according to ARAB culture (NOT Western culture), we find ourselves in an unending chain of terror attacks and wars.
And the same powers-that-be who cause or exacerbate the situations are the same ones who call on everyone to enlist and fight "BECAUSE OUR VERY EXISTENCE IS AT STAKE!!!"
They do this when there clearly exist other alternatives to sending Jewish men into enemy territory on foot.
This is NOT a Milchemet Mitzvah.
You cannot find any source — not the Rambam either — that says you must fight under the leadership of Erev Rav, which seeks to destroy Am Yisrael and the Torah.
Why do these particular rabbis claim it is?
I'm not sure. I'd theorize that they simply backed themselves into a corner from which they don't know how to extract themselves.
So much of their spirituality is based on military service, I think it's hard for them to separate themselves from it, even as they see how anti-Torah the military leadership is (like how the religious soldiers are blocked from advancing past certain ranks and even demoted for being "too" religious).
Geula B'Rachamim vs. The Manipulations of the Erev Rav
And they, in conjunction with their accomplices in the media, continue to act like this is all unavoidable and the price we pay for having our own country and being really cool, independent people in "the only Jewish country in the world."
The thing is, our greatest Torah Sages tried continuously to counter these awful decisions, including doing damage control, as described here: a-review-of-guardian-of-jerusalem-the-life-times-of-rabbi-yosef-chaim-sonnenfeld-why-it-challenged-everything-i-thought-i-knew-about-the-modern-history-of-eretz-yisrael.html.
Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld and his delegation of rabbis to Trans-Jordan achieved great success with King Hussein and his son, Prince Abdullah in 1924. The king and future king promised peace, offered to open his kingdom to Jewish settlement, and gave the rabbis a generous donation for the poor Jews of Yerushalayim.
This paved the way to Geula b'rachamim, as described in centuries of Torah scholarship, that if Jews did their best to act according to Torah values, the nations (in opposition to their tendency of Esav soneh l'Yaakov) would davka welcome Jews to settle in Eretz Yisrael in a gradual process of mercy-based Redemption.
That's why many leading Torah Sages viewed the Balfour Declaration as a glimmer of Geula, while at the same time expressing the foreboding that the secular anti-Torah Marxists would ruin everything — which they did. (Please see here: whats-the-problem-with-hasbara-the-balfour-declaration.html.)
Unfortunately, the relatively newly arrived secular anti-Torah Marxists in Eretz Yisrael at that time torpedoed all the success achieved by these rabbis.
These anti-Torah Marxists grew in power as leaders of the Haganah, and later took over as Prime Ministers and other influential officials in the Knesset and military.
While the religious community and the rabbinical always pushed back against the Marxist and anti-Torah elements, these elements always remained with the upper hand, even as only now we see their power decreasing as many Jews wake up to the facts, both spiritually and politically.
And like dying fish, flapping frantically in the sun on a dry pier, these same elements intensify their efforts against all logic and integrity.
They keep insisting there has been and is no other way to deal with all the issues facing Am Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael.
And part of the way they keep everyone going under their thumb is to speechify how great and strong we all are, how we are all so fabulous and strong despite all the slaughter and traumas.
These officials and their media sidekick engage in constant cheerleading (aimed at the part of the population they actually value the least) along with putting on a pedestal anyone who serves in the army (regardless of how meaningless and imaginary that service is — see here: sharing-what-burden-exactly-the-unspoken-elephant-in-the-room.html) and dehumanizing anyone who doesn't ("parasites!"), regardless of that citizen's tremendous contributions to Israeli society in all other areas — while at the same time ensuring their own children either don't serve or only serve in the cushiest non-combat roles in the best conditions (which exist in the air force, for anyone who wants to receive the best conditions and food with the least amount of effort — excluding, of course, the all-important pilots, engineers, and all those who actually contribute to national security).
(Very occasionally, you'll find the child of one of these denizens who serves in an actual combat role, but that's often despite the best efforts of his rich secular Leftist parents to prevent him from doing so. Or maybe they never liked that particular child and don't really care.)
Part of their cheerleading includes canonizing as heroes anyone killed or disabled in combat (then forgetting all about them later, leaving their families to deal with all the fallout on their own).
I also really resent sending religious or traditional young men (including chatanim, husbands, and fathers of young children) to die in order to save an elderly hater of any values connected to Torah Judaism (including Torah Jews themselves) who spent her retirement in disruptive protests in Tel Aviv, fighting Torah and advocating for privileges for Gazan Arabs who wish to slaughter all Jews — as has happened during the Great Horror from Gaza and throughout this present war.
These elderly haters fought their entire lives against everything these religious and traditional soldiers stand for, yet they need to suffer amputation or die for the same people who always sought to destroy them?
Well, yeah (appallingly), and that's held up as "heroism" by the mainstream media and the highest ranking officials in the military and government.
Unfortunately, well-meaning people who feel we have no other choice but to follow the dictates of these officials continue to rah-rah about providing enough therapy and meds to deal with the status quo, rather than realizing the status quo was both created and maintained by very bad people who don't care about the destruction they wreak (other than whether it affects them personally).
There is something very sick about people who keep encouraging Jews to kill or maim themselves in combat, when simple changes in policies or how to properly conduct a war would prevent most or all of these casualties, amputations, and PTSD.
And an increasing number of us refuse to believe their lies any longer.
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