From Agam Berger, joy
Watching video after video of the hostages released over the last few weeks brings forth feelings of happiness for the individuals released and their enormously grateful loved ones, along with feelings of unease and despair at the apparent surrender to terrorist demands.
Watching the barbaric hordes, salivating and celebrating like wild beasts around Arbel Yahud and Gadi Moses as they were released, fills us with anger, despair and uncertainty. Was the price worth it? As the value of a human life is incalculable, this question has no answer.
The release of Agam Berger, one of several women military observers at Nahal Oz on the Gaza border (whose warnings were ignored by higher-ups), provided a spark of hope. A gifted violinist, she was a baalat teshuva who, it’s been reported, during her captivity kept Shabbat as best as possible, did not eat meat to maintain kashrut, and even fasted on Tisha B’av.
As result of her daughter’s commitment to Shabbat, her mother, Meirav, asked that Agam not be released on Shabbat, to avoid any further chillul Shabbat. This incredible act of determination and self-sacrifice (which was successful, with Agam being released on a weekday), won plaudits across the political and religious spectrum, from Charedi rabbis to Chiloni (non-religious) politicians.
What can be more unifying for the Jewish people than an identification of the fundamental commonality of the peaceful, holy Shabbat, the day of rest for all of us, a day that is G-d‘s gift to the Jewish people. This emphasis on Torah observance, specifically Shabbat observance, by a single young Jewish woman resonates with our own feelings and expectations of national redemption.
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Many have sensed that the events since Oct. 7 have been “Biblical” in scope. We are at the threshold of the geula, redemption. We ache for it, we feel it, we can taste it. Never has the cry “We want Moshiach now!” been more insistent.
So when we see the actions of a young Jewish woman, a soldier and an artist, who acts not as a victim but as a proud believing Jew, you are unabashedly proud as well.
When you read her declaration to the world upon her return from captivity, “bederech emuna bacharti, u’bederech emuna shavti (in the path of Faith I have chosen, and in the path of Faith I have returned),” how can you not be filled with tears of joy and hope?
This confirms the ancient prophecy of sefer Malachi (3:24) that we read every Shabbat Hagadol before Pesach: “V’heishiv lev avot al banim, v’lev banim al avotam (He shall restore the heart of fathers to children and the heart of children to their fathers).”
It is written in Malachi that Hashem “will come suddenly and strike the whole land with desolation and therefore He will send the ‘angel of the covenant’ to bring people to repentance and to be ready before Hashem when He comes to judge the Earth and the kingdom will be His.”
Rashi says that Elijah “will say to the children, through love and desire, go and speak to your fathers to hold fast to the ways of Hashem. And so will the hearts of the children be turned toward their fathers.”
Agam is the harbinger of the “angel of the covenant” to turn our hearts to repentance.
Hashem, we are ready before You.
We want Moshiach now.
Shabbat shalom.
Dr. Alan A. Mazurek is a retired neurologist, living in Great Neck, Jerusalem and Florida. He is a former chairman of the ZOA. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
This week’s column is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Mazaurek’s mother Leah Reiza bat Nachman, on the occasion of her first yahrtzeit, to whom he owes everything for his existence as a Torah observant Jew.
