“RABBI’S MUSINGS (& AMUSINGS)”
Erev Shabbos Kodesh parshas Devorim – Shabbos Chazon
3 Menachem Av 5786/ July 17, 2026
Avos perek 3
MISSION POSSIBLE
Every wedding is a special and joyous occasion. In fact, Rabbi Yaakov Kamentesky (Emes l’Yaakov) notes that every Jewish wedding is a national celebration. He proves it from the fact that if a mourner comes to shul, the mourner himself doesn’t recite tachanun, but the rest of the congregation does. However, when a chosson during the week after his wedding davens in shul, the entire congregation omits tachanun. Apparently, everyone in the shul has a share in the chosson’s celebration. The Jewish people thrive upon the building of Jewish homes.
There are some weddings however, that are particularly joyous and strike a chord within the collective Jewish heart. One such wedding took place a few days ago between Sasha Troufanov and Sapir Cohen.
Sasha and Sapir were taken to Gaza as hostages on October 7. Sapir was held by Hamas terrorists for 55 days before being released in November 2023, during the first hostage release deal. Sasha was in captivity for 498 days until he was released in February 2025.
After Sasha was released, Sapir told reporters at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer: “He prayed I’d find another man, thinking he’d never return. But I waited.” Their wedding is a symbol of devotion, resilience, and the Hand of G-d.
Sapir related that when the terrorists broke into their home on October 7, she promised G-d that if she survived, she would begin to observe Shabbos.
Sasha’s father was killed on October 7, and his mother, Yelena, together with her own mother, was also captured and taken into Gaza. She too began to observe Shabbos.
In an interview, Yelena explained, “I study Torah every day. I keep Shabbat. I kashered my home. I’m living my life as a Jewish woman now… This is what Hashem wants from me, to live as a Jew.”
In interviews after his release, Sasha said: “When I was abducted, my Jewish identity meant nothing to me. The first time I ever put on tefillin was after I was freed from captivity. I did not know there was a God. It is incredible. I was abducted because I was Jewish, yet I did not even know what that meant. Today, I do.”
The day after Sasha returned from Gaza, Rabbi Berel Lazar, Chief Rabbi of Russia, helped Sasha put on tefillin for the first time.
Sapir related that what kept her going in the misery of Gaza was a sense of mission. She told herself that if she was a hostage in Gaza, G-d clearly had a reason why she needed to be there, so she embraced it. She made it her mission to use humor to help the other hostages cope. That sense of mission helped her get through that harrowing ordeal.
In parshas Matos, Moshe dispatched 12,000 soldiers to wage war against Midian. They returned and reported: “Not one man from us is missing” (31:49). The simple meaning is that not a single soldier was killed. But the Gemara (Yevamos 61a) says that it has a more significant meaning – not one man had sinned.
In a recent Guard Your Eyes Parsha message, it quoted the following idea: Just a short time earlier, the Midianites had lured masses of the Jewish people to sin in the very same place. 24,000 men died as a result. Now 12,000 soldiers marched straight into Midian, and not one stumbled. What changed?
They suggested that the answer may lie in the difference between a man who is idle and a man who is on a mission. The previous encounter ended in tragedy because they were somewhat stagnant. The pasuk says Vayeshev Yisrael b’Shittim, the Jewish people settled in Shittim. Settled. Idle. The Midianite women found them in that vacuum, and were able to ensnare them in sin.
The 12,000 soldiers who went to war in Parshas Matos however, went with a specific mission. They knew where they were going and what they were there to accomplish. They also knew the entire nation was banking on their success. Having that sense of purpose made all the difference. The Yetzer Hara still showed up, as it always does. But now it was competing with people who were committed to achieving an integral objective.
It is an incredibly powerful and relevant message for us every day of our lives. We often feel overwhelmed and bombarded by the advancements and luring of the evil inclination within ourselves. If we remind ourselves that we have an ongoing mission, it can help us retain our focus and commitment to proceed.
During the many wonderful summers that Rabbi Mordechai Finkelman spent at Camp Dora Golding, he would remind the staff about this important idea before trip days. It’s a challenge to guard our eyes, particularly during the summer, specifically at a place of leisure. But if we reminded ourselves that we have a mission and are there to fulfil our tasks as staff members, Hashem would help us stay the course.
In a recent weekly message, Rabbi Pinny Dunner, Rabbi of Beverly Hilly Synagogue in California, recounted a recent visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In his words: “There are no adequate words for Auschwitz. There are facts, there are numbers, there are photographs, there are the rooms full of shoes, glasses, suitcases, pots and pans, and the shocking sight of the hair of thousands of victims. But words fail in the face of a place that was engineered for the industrial annihilation of a people.
“As we stood there, surrounded by that vast factory of death, one member of our group – the child of Polish Holocaust survivors – took my hand. In a voice that shook with emotion, he asked, “Rabbi, how do you explain the murder of six million Jews? How does it make any sense?”
“I looked around me at the vastness of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and I had no meaningful answer. Because there is no neat answer. There is no theological formula that makes the evil, the screams, the children, the mothers, the fathers, the starvation, the selections, the gas chambers, or the ashes, make any sense.
“So I told him the only thing I could honestly say. Auschwitz and the death of millions of Jews in that senseless slaughter does not offer any answers. But what it does offer me is a sense of responsibility. It inspires me to do more to build Jewish identity and to strengthen Jewish life. It motivates me to teach Torah more passionately and to bring Jews closer to who they are, and to ensure that the devastation we saw at Auschwitz is not an end, but a beginning. That is the deeper Jewish response to destruction.
“He did not answer me; he simply pressed my hand a little tighter, and we stood in silence together.
A few weeks ago, the Monsey community was stunned by the tragic passing of Charlotte Herzberg, an 8-year-old girl, who was hit by a car. At the recent Shloshim event, her father, R’ Yudi Herzberg, shared the following: “I believe something bigger is happening here than our tragedy. Sometimes Hashem chooses messengers because they need a punishment. Sometimes he chooses people because they have earned the opportunity to attain atonement. But sometimes the mission is so crucial that Hashem sends His best emissary, because He needs the message heard so badly.”
The word R’ Yudi used that struck me most poignantly was “mission”. He and his incredible family are galvanizing their personal, unspeakable tragedy into a mission to spread peace and light in Charlette’s memory (ShalomforCharlotte.com)
On Tisha b’Av we recount so much pain, sorrow and anguish. It’s impossible to wrap our heads around the magnitude of suffering we have endured as a nation. What’s our attitude towards it all? What is our response to the painful cry of Yirmiyahu HaNavi, “Eicha – how could it be?”
In exile we don’t have an answer to any of our justified questions. But our response has always been to strengthen our sense of mission and purpose. It is incumbent upon us to carry the torch forward, just as it was carried forward and handed to us.
Rabbi Dunner continues: “When we remember a destruction properly, it is no longer only destruction. Of course, it remains painful and unbearable. But when we live it, speak it, cry over it, and build from it, destruction is transformed into obligation, memory becomes rebuilding, and absence becomes presence.
“A memory that only weeps in loss is incomplete; but memory that builds something new in place of that loss is memory redeemed.”
The Jewish sense of mission is what keeps us true in the face of internal and external challenges. It’s how we have maintained our commitment to Torah values and living a Torah life.
In addition, we use our pain as a catalyst to further our mission. We use our suffering as an impetus to maintain our legacy. That devotion and steadfast commitment is itself part of the comfort we feel as Tisha b’Av progresses. The more they try to destroy us the greater sense of our mission.
May the collective broken heart of our people continue to achieve solace through our sense of mission, and may we merit the ultimate comfort soon!
Shabbat Shalom & Good Shabbos,
R’ Dani and Chani Staum
STRIVINGHIGHER.COM