Inspiration from Zion: This is a Love Story

This is a photo (I didn’t take) of my friend Tzvika Mor at his grandson’s brit.

Every brit is special. This one has added layers of meaning and a message for us all.

The brit (which means covenant in Hebrew) is the circumcision ceremony performed when a Jewish boy is eight days old. At this ceremony, the boy joins the covenant between God and the Nation of Israel; he’s given his name and introduced to the community.

The brit took place in Ma’arat HaMachpelah, the tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of our nation: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah. Holding a brit in this holy location is a way of acknowledging that the baby is part of a family that is almost 4000 years old and with a special connection to this land.

In addition to being the baby’s grandfather, Tzvika was also chosen to be his godfather. This role is seen to bring a special blessing both to the baby and to the godfather.

The baby was given the name Yagel. The name comes from the Hebrew word “gil” which is one of the words for happiness and is in the future tense.

Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, not just for the baby’s future, but for Tzvika and our entire Nation.

Tzvika’s son Eitan is being held hostage in Gaza. From different sources, we understand that Eitan is alive, but we don’t know much more than that.

This is the last image Eitan sent his family, on October 7th.

Eitan was working as a security guard at the Nova Festival. Instead of thinking about his own safety, Eitan stayed on site, helping others escape the attackers. For some two hours, he did this, while people were being slaughtered all around them. He and some other guards went looking for more survivors. They found a few dozen and helped them hide in bushes in a valley. Eitan and another security guard came out of hiding to see what was going on. They chased off Gazans who came with knives and axes. That’s when they found the corpse of a young woman who had been brutally violated. They could not bear the thought that on top of the horror she had experienced before death, the attackers would further abuse her body, taking it to Gaza, so they hid her body and returned to the group. That’s when the terrorists shot an RPG at them. The group scattered in all directions. The other security guard survived, making it possible to tell the Mor family what Eitan had done and bring the young woman to burial.

Since Eitan was taken hostage, Tzvika has been leading the fight for his liberation – not by surrender or through dangerous hostage release deals that endanger us all, but rather through strength, through victory.

Through his anguish and fear for Eitan, Tzvika always kept in mind greater responsibility for the rest of his family, the nation, and for the future of Israel. He has explained that ransoming hostages was something Jews did when they were in the Galut, weak and at the mercy of others. The way to retrieve hostages in a war is through strength. Ransom only encourages more hostage taking. Partial hostage deals put the enemy in the position of strength, allowing them to determine when to fight, when to stop, and how long it will take between rounds. Tzvika says this policy is keeping the hostages in their torture longer – including his son, Eitan. Allowing the enemy to regroup and booby trap fighting zones so they can ambush and kill our soldiers. It also endangers Israelis and Jews everywhere from future attacks by the released terrorists (who have already succeeded in killing Jews) and from future hostage taking.

Tzvika is a modest, kind, soft-spoken man. He also has a will of steel. He is the epitome of what he says: “Israel isn’t a place for weaklings. Israel demands giants.”

And he is.

In other words, in the photo from the brit, you see the picture of a man who teaches by example that we are much more than our individual story – and that the way to crystallize and maximize our personal story is by understanding that we are part of something greater than ourselves, and acting accordingly.

May Yagel’s name be a self-fulfilling prophecy:

Bringing Eitan home to his family.

Bringing the hostages, both the living and the dead, back to where they belong,

Enabling us to rejoice with the soldiers of Israel, coming home crowned in victory that returns our stolen honor and enables us all to live in safety.

After 2000 years, it is time to become a free nation, in Zion and Jerusalem.

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For prayer, Eitan’s name is: Eitan Avraham ben Efrat

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