Sergeant Major Ben Kerido shares real time, first person updates from the front lines of Gaza during Operation Swords of Iron. This post is written by his wife, Sarai.
“Did I not command you, be strong and have courage, do not fear and do not be dismayed, for the L-rd your G-d is with you wherever you go.” Yehoshua (Joshua) 1:9
Throughout the past 2 weeks I, like all of us, have found myself struggling to grasp and process the terrible and devastating situation that we’re in. I go from processing the attacks on October 7, to processing my husband leaving, to processing my fear, to processing sadness, and the circle continues. And when I think about all of it, I am reminded of the morning that Ben deployed.
We were packing up all of his stuff at 2 a.m. and it hit me that he was going to be gone and that I was going to be a nervous wreck. Up to that point, we were in so much shock by what had happened, that I hadn’t had a chance to process the next steps that needed to be taken. I said to him “I don’t want you to go.” He hugged me and I cried and I thought to myself “this is so unfair.” And in that moment I wished that someone else could go instead. I wished that it was someone else’s husband packing up in the middle of the night to go into a war zone.
And then it hit me. There is no one else. This is OUR country. This is OUR land. These are OUR people. When Hashem gave Israel to the Jewish people, He didn’t say “okay, here you go. I’m going to give this land to you and someone else is going to go in and conquer it.” That’s not the way that it worked at all. When the Israelites entered the land of Israel thousands of years ago, Hashem said to them “Be strong! Be courageous. Trust Me. Keep Torah. I will be with you.”
He didn’t say “if it gets hard, let me know and I’ll send someone else in to do it for you.” No. This has always been our land to protect, defend, and conquer. There is Hashem and there is us. There is no one else. So after that realization, I began to think to myself, yes. This is unfair. And, yes. This is hard. But this is our duty as Jews to fight for and protect the land of Israel. Our home.
Our homeland that we longed to return to for over 2,000 years. After all those long years we fought for our right to return to our home and won. Today there is a new war to fight. So now, we need to do as Hashem told us all those years ago when we first entered Eretz Israel. We need to be strong and courageous. We need to trust in Hashem and keep the Torah. We need to trust each other. We need to protect and defend our home. Am Yisrael Chai. The people of Israel….live.
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