The entire Jewish world is celebrating, seeing Arbel Yehoud, Gadi Mozes, Agam Berger, and five Thai hostages being released this week.
Together, we bit our nails and held our breath, horrified at the mobs surging around them. Together, we cried tears of relief as they made it back onto Israeli soil. And together we laughed and cried and hugged each other as they ran into their loved ones’ arms, reunited after 482 endless days.
Their joy is our joy. Their tears are our tears. Jews all over the world—even those who have never been to Israel—are one people with one heart. We hurt for one another in times of pain; we celebrate for one another in times of joy. Never in recent history have we been more connected than over the past year and a half.
Watching the footage out of Gaza today, the contrast couldn’t be any clearer. Along with the masked and heavily armed terrorists, mobs of blood-thirsty citizens swarmed the hand-off, driving home just how much danger the hostages were in every moment they spent in that hell hole.
We cannot imagine the hell they’ve been through, held underground, malnourished, abused by Hamas monsters in the most deplorable ways. Our hearts overflow at their release, but we know they have a long, long road ahead of them.
None of us can come close to understanding the tremendous fear and pain they’ve been through, but perhaps in some small way we can see a parallel in the soul’s trajectory through this world.
Every day, right before we say the Shema, we beseech, “Our merciful Father, please have mercy upon us, light up our eyes with your Torah.” What do we mean?
You see, before we are born into this world, our soul lives in heaven, enjoying divine bliss. A lifetime of pleasure in this world is nothing compared to even a single second of pleasure that our souls enjoy in heaven, we are told.
And then, one day, G-d comes to our soul and tells it it's time to descend into this world where it will inhabit a physical body. The soul cries and begs not to go, but G-d says, “You have no choice; that is what’s needed.”
The soul then spends the next 120 years trapped in a physical body. For the soul, it’s a dark and bitter exile. It years to return home, back to its Father in Heaven. Every day in this world is a day of captivity for the soul.
But the good news is, we can play a part in its release.
What the soul years for more than anything else is to cleave to G-d. So every time we do a mitzvah, we are contributing to its redemption. Every time we put on tefillin, give tzedakah, say a blessing, opt for a kosher meal, show kindness, pray, go to shul, or do any other mitzvah, we are helping redeem our hostage—the soul.
And so we pray daily: Almighty G-d, have mercy upon our souls! We have become so accustomed to this physical world we inhabit that we no longer realize how dark it is. Have mercy upon our souls and light up our eyes with your Torah.
As we watch the all-encompassing joy of the families of the hostages who are finally reunited, we can know that that is the joy we will all feel with the coming of Moshiach.