This week I met an incredible hero: Yarin. Our Belev Echad community hosted 11 wounded IDF soldiers for a 10-day restorative trip. Each one has an incredible story; this is Yarin’s.
Yarin served in the Givati brigade. On November 18, 2023, after fighting in Gaza for a few weeks, his unit was tasked with entering the Jabalia refugee camp.
They went in around 8pm, and the mission continued until around 4am. They had just gone to sleep when they were awakened by a loud boom at 5am. Chaos erupted. The armored vehicle they were in had been hit by an RPG missile. They had to get out of the vehicle which was quickly filling with smoke, only to be fired on yet again—with another missile as well as gunfire. They were under heavy terrorist attack.
At this point, Yarin was completely unable to see or hear anything, and he was terrified. When his vision returned, he noticed his entire body was covered in blood. He had been shot 4 times.
Certain that these were his final moments in this world, Yarin lay down and recited the famous prayer “Shema Yisrael … ”
A medic arrived and began treating his wounds. He looked back, realizing a fellow soldier’s quick actions had saved them.
As he was being evacuated by helicopter, he saw his best friend, Shlomo, lying on the ground, killed.
Yarin went through months of surgeries and rehabilitation, and he still has a bullet lodged inside of him which doctors will hopefully be able to remove. We wish him a speedy recovery and hope this 10-day restorative trip will give him strength for his upcoming surgeries when he gets back to Israel.
Listening to Yarin’s story, I was blown away. With all the chaos around him—literally in a war zone, on an active battlefield with heavily armed ruthless terrorists—what did he do when he thought his life was about to end? He lay down and connected with G-d, saying Shema—the prayer Jews have said for millennia.
What would you do in your final moments? What would you think about? Throughout history, our people have turned to the Shema. This is what makes our nation so strong!
We can all learn from Yarin, too, and follow his example in our day-to-day lives. We’re often surrounded by chaos. Not an active battle scene, but chaos nonetheless. We’re inundated with a constant stream of noise and news. But we can take a moment every day to stop and recite the Shema, preferably while wearing tefillin. A momentary reprieve.
Do it for Yarin. Do it for our soldiers. Do it for the hostages. Do it for yourself. You’ll see, it will pay dividends.