Rabbi Yotav Eliach on Oct 7

The War Began for me and my wife it was October 7th it was shamini and Israel was T and our phone rang at 4:00 in the morning USA Eastern Standard Time and that never happens in our house so the minute that happened we realize something not good is happening our son was already on the uh answering machine his name is itai uh and he um was in a reserve Special Reserve unit in the border patrol and he just gone on and said something horrible has happened down south he said it's not a terrorist uh uh event it's much more severe and serious all I could tell you is we're going down there I don't know when I'll be able to get back to you but um wish us luck and D for us uh we're not sure what's waiting for us I I was literally uh shocked it's very hard to shock me at this point in my life cuz heard a lot of things been involved in a lot of things but not prepared for this and I have a few feeds that I could find out what's going on and I'm beginning to find out that there is a massive uh Terror operation going on in the South the entire how bad it is obviously I don't know yet but I know that they've hit across the entire front and uh again at the beginning I didn't know how this organ oriz the Army was Etc but I got a sense that this is a an event that we've never gone through before and that um civilians are being killed at at remarkable rates uh we don't have proper defense set up or engaging them I realize by the 24th hour afterwards that what we are witnessing is something that we all swore would never happen when Israel would be reestablished we're witnessing a mini showah and uh with the differences that we're not asking anybody else to do the fighting for us but we're we're going to have to stop this and we're going to have to not just stop it we're going to have to make them pay a price that no one will ever dream or think about doing this again and the truth is um the first few months after that I don't think I slept well any night um uh my son's unit I found out later he didn't want to tell us all the details they were fighting in oaza he was in many of those ISU he was in stot in the gun battles in theot and October 7th is different than any event that the state of Israel has ever been involved in or ever ever witnessed Hamas was exceptionally well organized they did all their homework and they pulled off a massive pgam they actually knew not just where civilians lived they knew in each house the layout this is where Mom and Dad sleep this is the daughter this is the daughter's name her name is Lev she's got this bedroom the boy's name is drawer he's in the room in the corner they have a dog the dog's name is shakar they knew everything their intel was they knew exactly in every house these were the workers that we brought in over the years and everybody and the ironic thing is that these kibud Sim were about as propiece as you can be in asra society and they came in there was mass murder there was dismemberment there was torture there was using medieval tactics they were using power tools they were torturing kids in front of their parents they tortured parents in front of their kids they burnt people alive the dismemberment was rampant the beheading was rampant but the death toll in that first day was something no one ever expected you're talking about 1,200 civilians and about 300 soldiers were butchered as well I never thought in my life that once we reestablish Israel this what happened to us as this is all happening the Army didn't react the way it should react the Army was asleep the Army was not where it was supposed to be the mere fact if you saw the videos that a um a tractor is sitting there working and crashing through the fence for 10 minutes now the irony is I know that area I did spotting for the Army in the northern part of the Gaza in 2019 it's not possible for this to happen without us noticing my son's unit was a an anomaly most of the response were guys who grabbed guns then there's the commonsense brothers who literally heard about this they drove from the drum Harron it was two brothers and a and a and a son-in-law they literally they're in the reserves they live in a place where they have licenses for military weapons they're in kot they literally pack that car up with everything they had privately drove an hour and 20 minutes like lunatics from drumar Ron all the way to AA and did their own rescue operation the common sense the older brother was killed they personally saved but 100 plus people and there were other people like them who came from all there was an Ethiopian soldier who just happened to be in the area he ran8 miles carrying his gear to go fight people came from police did a lot of fighting police from sto police from theot police who was stationed there literally did some of the initial fighting there was no Army there was no battalions brigades once the government and the Army got their footing which was within the first 48 to 72 hours first thing the Air Force was able to respond relatively quickly but in terms of being being able to put together a an answer on the ground a a serious answer they had to mobilize the reserves not just some of the reserves but all of the reserves and there this is called saon and it was the first time since the OM kipa War pretty much almost anybody that was in the reserves that had been active literally within the last 10 years was called to come into to fight we're fighting everywhere when we say there's a seven front more let me explain what that means we're fighting in Gaza fighting in Lebanon we're fighting in Jude and Samaria okay we're fighting Iran we're fighting Syria and we're fighting the tanim right the htis and then on top of that we're also fighting Iraqi militias as well the typical combat Soldier does about 30 days of reserves a year in this war because the F this is the longest war in the history of the state of Israel and the fronts are Dynamic and the fighting is keeps happening we're either fighting here here here Judea Samaria Gaza Lebanon or Jordan River Valley or where wherever but we're fighting so units have been called up three times four times there are tens of thousands of soldiers that have served 300 days 400 Days let's like zoom out for a second what does that mean first of all whatever job I had that's not taking place if I'm a rebi I haven't been teaching if I'm a doctor I'm not in the hospital if I'm running a pizza store I'm not running a pizza store whatever it is I normally do I'm not doing that yes the Army pays you x amount per day and it's a massive amount of the budget very few soldiers are bringing in home the amount that they normally would need to just to run their lives now look at the other part of what's happening in all of this all these families stopped being families think about yourselves you went on a 10-day trip okay that would that would be a little bit hard for your wife now imagine you take a 60-day trip you take a 90 day trip you got five kids at home you got six kids at home who's doing homework with them who's putting them to bed who's getting them ready to go to Yeshiva or to public school the next day who's telling them bedtime stories okay the wives are literally they've fallen off their feet they're single moms now add to this they're not just a single mom the kids know what's happening where is Dad he's In Harm's Way how do they know you know because every other day there's a funeral and this one's friend's father died was killed and this one's friend's father had his foot blown off so on top of all of this the mothers and the sons and the daughters it's not just Dad is not around we hope dad would come back in one piece and that's a psychological trauma kids 13 year olds 12 year olds are sleeping in bed with Mom there are lots and lots of guys in this war who've had limbs blown off you come near a window you come near a door you come near boom you're too close or they put something near one of our vehicles and before you know it you lost your hands or you lost your feet that's a traumatic injury you're going to be in a hospital for 6 Months 8 months 9 months 10 months a year Israeli families move from where they are to be next to their husband or next to Dad what does that mean so I have double trauma my father and I an ampute now I have to live in a new neighborhood I was I I moved to a new school kids are making fun of me in school because every time the the teacher asked me a question I don't know what day it is so suddenly this kid needs therapy not because she was fighting not because a rock had landed in her living room but because her dad was wounded and her whole life is upside down there are guys who try to restart their business when they have that 40-day law okay and they take out another loan to try to make it and before you know it they're called back again these are all Patriots they're all and they look at their wives and say I know I just got 50,000 Sho to try to open up the pizza store again or to open up that you know that little Guest House you and I wanted to do you know the Battalion Commander called me up we're going back into Gaza in 3 weeks I'm going you know I'm protecting you the family the state the country my friends we're talking about tens of thousands of families around Israel that are affected by this but what we want to do here is we want to go beyond and deal with some serious traumatic problems whether it's a physical problem a psychological problem an economic problem whatever it is we're going to hopefully change the lives of 100 families it could be that every family needs 100,000 shackel it could be could be which is let's say uh $25 $30,000 or it could be another family that needs 200,000 shekel which could be $45,000 but we're know we're making a big difference for the for this family we're we're going to solve this for you in this war which in Hebrews called barel which is swords of iron and maybe the name will change the level of patriotism and mut nees people use the the word mut nees this is true mut nees when you put yourself on the line everybody believes in this in this idea it's a Biblical it's a Biblical mitvah for everybody we're saving Medina Israel this is a war of existence Med Israel is not just Israel it's the Jewish Nation I got videos already yesterday ofes in Lebanon and in aam it's unbelievable there's this clear sense of a Jewish army fighting for the Jewish State and for the Jewish Nation their sacrifice is unending they're actually guys who've been really wounded badly who go back against doctor's advice they go back to the units to fight and I'm asking you I know most American Jews who care about Israel since October 7th have done above and beyond what you thought you would have to do this year and stuck up I know it I'm asking to go beyond that I feel it's the least we can do where these people are putting everything on the line they are aware of the anti-semitic events that take place around the globe doesn't make a difference if it's Amsterdam or Columbia University or Crown Heights or count California they know and that also gives them motivation at the end of the day there's not much that we're able to do in the United States other than politically and trying to organize and that the government stand up on our behalf and find an the semitism ETC but in Israel we hit back the enemy they literally have our backs I'm asking you to give M these people are giving D they have their job and we have our job their job is and they're doing it it's the least that we can do