Eli Levi, The Battle for Moshav Yoshivya - Part 2

00:17 Speaker 1 First of all, good evening. Eli Levy, the shliach in Yoshevya. We actually go back a while now, because you’ve already spoken and told your story, and it’s become known around the world. It’s a very dramatic, interesting, gripping story—there’s no question, even looking at it as objectively as possible.

00:38 Speaker 2 Well, thank you for the opportunity to be here again. It’s moving and powerful to speak like this to souls, to shluchim around the world. So maybe I’ll pick up the story where we left off. Firefighters arrived in Yoshevya, coming up from below, and it was remarkable to see them come with such self-sacrifice, through intense fighting, to put out the fire caused by the missile that landed very close to us. It landed five meters from my family. As I said before, my little girl was thrown, there was shattered glass, and there was a lot of chaos and confusion. Then we went into our house. Everyone came in except our youngest daughter, Ahava. We have a daughter named Ahava Rachel, and she wasn’t in the house. She was two years old at the time. My wife asked me, “Where is she? Why isn’t Ahava here in the safe room with all the children?” Everyone was there, including the people from Nova who had fled to our moshav—about six of them had come to us. And she asked me where—

01:54 Speaker 1 Let me ask you something, please, Eli. First, let’s remind the audience that we’re in the middle of a day of fighting. There are eight of you armed with pistols, fifty bullets each, terrorists all around in unimaginable numbers, and a missile lands next to your house, destroys everything, and starts a fire. Total chaos. Out of all that chaos, these brave firefighters appear, and now you’re looking for your daughter. But in the previous account you mentioned that two people from Nova who were there decided they wanted to leave anyway. They took their car and drove off. Do you know what happened to them in the end?

02:44 Speaker 2 They survived. We were in touch with them on Facebook some time later. One of them was a DJ at Nova. He managed to leave in time. There were two parties, the one before Nova and Nova itself, and he DJed from midnight until one or two in the morning. He still managed to leave the party for home at a quarter to six, and that couple survived. They survived through kindness and mercy. We didn’t really keep in touch with them, because they apparently went abroad for a while afterward, and I think they generally withdrew from contact. But they’re alive. They survived and managed to get out of—

03:22 Speaker 1 That’s what I wanted to know, because that part of the story has been stuck in my head.

03:26 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. They got out alive. All the people from Nova who came to us really did get out alive, through kindness and mercy. They were with us all Shabbos. They showered; some slept a little and rested, even though we seemed to be living through our final moments. But a shliach, even in his final moments, uses his abilities and carries out his shlichus—quite literally. The Rebbe was there with us the whole time. We mustn’t forget that we’re shluchim even in the hardest moments. Then my wife asked me where Ahava was. Coming back to the story, I told her I didn’t know. She said, “Wait, but she was thrown against the window.” I said, “Yes, and nobody picked her up.” Nobody had taken her from there, because I had gone out to fight the terrorists I thought were at the entrance to the house. And then I really saw what had happened. We looked for her, and my wife, you could say, completely lost it. The lioness in her came out. She ran toward the burning house, went inside, started breaking glass, and searched, shouting, “Ahava! Ahava!” She looked for our little girl, but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the house. We were afraid the house would explode because of the gas cylinder. As I said earlier, there was a forty-eight-kilo gas cylinder by the entrance, and if a cylinder like that explodes, it can flatten a house. We were afraid it would explode with my wife and our daughter inside. But Ahava wasn’t there. Then one of our friends said, “Listen, she’s at [unclear] Dadon’s[?].” He’s a member of the local security team. Someone had managed to get her away. She had some minor injuries. Someone wrapped her in a sheet, ran with her toward a house, and went into the first house he reached. When we went in, we saw

05:15 Speaker 2 her in the sheet, with just her head peeking out, trembling with fear. My wife sort of fainted. We had to bring her around because she was a little—

05:28 Speaker 3 Sort of.

05:29 Speaker 2 Yes. She was overwhelmed when she suddenly realized Ahava really was alive. Ahava had been thrown against the window, and nobody had known where she was. So that was that part of it. Then I went back outside as a member of the local security team. I got people into houses again, we put out the fire, and the firefighters left. Then we realized Yoshevya was surrounded by terrorists. As I said earlier, there were about three hundred terrorists on the road. Sixteen terrorists were on their way to Yoshevya with maps, intending to take out the security coordinator and Roni, one of our people and also a member of the local security team. The terrorists knew who both of them were. They were on their way to us around four-thirty or five, though we didn’t know about that yet. At about four-thirty, I went into the house, got my children and everyone else into the safe room, barricaded its door with a plank, and told my children, “Go to sleep. It looks like something big is going to happen here.” By then I understood that terrorists were entering Be’eri and Kfar Aza and burning people inside their safe rooms. I understood this wasn’t going to end well, so at least my children could be asleep. If we were going to die al kiddush Hashem, they wouldn’t have to see it. They could just close their eyes. I took my pistol, put it behind my head, and lay down on my daughter’s bed. Then suddenly my body just collapsed. I couldn’t do anything. I’m a member of the local security team, and messages kept coming in: “Eli, there’s an incident at the entrance to the moshav. There are lots of terrorists. We can see them on the cameras. We need your help. There are only eight of us, with pistols.” And in that moment, I could barely

07:17 Speaker 2 move my legs. Something psychological had suddenly knocked me down. I felt I had no strength left to move. At ten past five, I got a call from abroad. I looked at the number and didn’t recognize it. I thought maybe it was someone trying to scam me, or someone trying to take us out—some Gazan calling me. I wondered whether to answer. Then I thought, “Listen, these may be your last moments anyway. Answer the phone and see who it is.” So I answered. It was my brother-in-law, who lives in Kibbutz Nirim. Nirim is opposite Khan Yunis, toward the southern-central part of the Gaza Strip, for those who know the area. He said, “Listen, Eli, I’m in Cyprus right now.” He’s the deputy security coordinator of Kibbutz Nirim, and he had gone on a trip to Cyprus. He said, “I’ve gone on Telegram, and I can see twelve terrorists inside my house, broadcasting live from their GoPro cameras. They’ve set up a command post in my house. I’m watching them from Cyprus. They’re burning my wife’s car. They’re taking out my tefillin and opening them up on the table, stealing things and breaking things, and going through my army boots. But the really terrible part is that I have two friends in the safe room. Eli, I need you to drive over and rescue them.” I told him, “Listen, that’s very sweet of you, brother. If you have an even funnier version, send it to me privately, you know. Brother, it’s ten past five. There are thousands of terrorists on the roads and, sadly, hundreds—possibly thousands—dead. We’re in an extremely serious situation. They’ve taken over the division headquarters, Sufa, Nahal Oz, the whole route, Black Arrow. We have no chance of getting out of this. I can’t drive over. I’m defending Yoshevya.”

09:06 Speaker 2 He sent prayers and said to me, “Listen, you’re a Chabad chossid, and you have your own strengths. Say a prayer. Pray for these two people, a couple in my safe room. The terrorists are struggling with them over the door handle. They sent me a message saying someone is trying to set fire to them.”

09:30 Speaker 4 Wow, wow, wow.

09:30 Speaker 2 “Listen, I can open the Rebbe’s Igros Kodesh, I can pray, I can do whatever I can. I hope we stay alive so there’ll still be someone to see them.” Then we started joking around on the phone, and he said to me, “Listen, Eli, you’re religious, and I think we’ve lost track of that. You know, it’s Shabbos. Come on, brother, let’s end this.” He describes himself as an atheist, as not religious, and suddenly he remembered and said to me, “Listen, you’re a Chabadnik, you’re the shliach in Yoshevya. Brother, get focused. Get your head in the game for a moment.” So we ended the call, and that was it. And then I realized—listen. Oh, sorry, before we ended the call he told me, “Give my regards to Hodiya,” my wife, who’s his sister. “Give her my regards. Tell the kids I love you, and I’d really, really be happy to see you again.” He’s very much a commander type. He speaks matter-of-factly, you know, says what needs to be said. “May we merit to see you again, with Hashem’s help.” So I told him, “With Hashem’s help, dear Aviad, I’d be very happy to see you again.” That was it. L’chaim, l’chaim. We ended the call, and at five-thirty I got a call from the local security coordinator. “Eli, there’s an incident at the entrance to the moshav. I need you with us. I hear gunfire; it’s probably terrorists infiltrating Yoshevya. I need you to come with another team.” The whole emergency response squad, basically. That was it—the fighting started at five in the evening. As far as we knew, he needed all of us. So Yechiel, Netanel and I drove over. I picked up a few guys from the emergency response squad in my car. I was one of the patrolmen. We got to the entrance to the moshav, and Yechiel said to me, “Listen, Eli, I’m getting out. Netanel and I are getting out of the car with our guns drawn. Wait here for us. Pray that nothing happens to us.” So I told them,

11:09 Speaker 2 “Listen, what’s this nonsense? If I’m already here with you, let’s all get out.” He said, “No, I need someone to stay here. If there are wounded people or something happens, I need someone who can evacuate them. I need you to stay in the car. I’m going out.” We really did hear gunfire from the entrance to the moshav. A car had come from Netivot toward Yehiam, and they had fired at it the whole way. The driver reached us wounded. Some of the guys took another car from the emergency response squad and drove very quickly toward Soroka. They met the first ambulance they saw on the way, got him evacuated, and saved his life. So the gunfire we heard was from terrorists who had crossed our road, shot at him, and kept going toward Sha’ar HaNegev. As I said earlier, it’s important for me to mention that 250 people were killed along my road, Route 34. There was fighting at Sha’ar HaNegev, just a few minutes from me, for something like seven hours, involving the Yamam and some of the most formidable teams in the IDF. Sixty Jews were killed at that junction—may Hashem avenge their blood. When I say this, understand that these are distances of just minutes. Minutes from my home. And you think, wow. You hear rat-a-tat-tat, gunfire and shooting—and let’s not forget the rocket alerts. More than six or seven thousand rockets were fired that day. We can’t forget that either. It was like fighting with fire from above and below, an existential threat to our lives. So that was the incident at the entrance to the moshav. We later learned that there were actually sixteen terrorists on their way to us. Twelve of them were taken down by some of our squad together with a Yamam team led by Arnon Zamora.

13:01 Speaker 2 Those who have heard of him know that he was also killed during the rescue of the hostages—may Hashem avenge his blood. He was responsible for our road, Route 34, and he simply saved us. They had maps, as I said earlier, showing the local security coordinator and some of the emergency response squad, and they were on their way to take us out. I want to tell you that I sat with the local security coordinator just before this, this very evening, two hours ago. We talked about October 7, and I learned more things I hadn’t known. But he told me, “If there’s a way to describe Yoshevya, it isn’t a story of heroism. It’s a story of a miracle.” There were stories of miracles throughout the area, but we define our story as one hundred percent a miracle. There was Divine providence here that you just can’t comprehend. The army conducted investigations, and to this day we’re still investigating and talking and having meetings with the regional council and the security establishment in our area. No one understands why they didn’t enter our moshav, how they failed to get in. It’s simply astonishing, because people were killed all along the road and in all the other moshavim. So why didn’t they enter Yoshevya? On the spiritual side, there’s a lot of Torah here and a lot of activities with children. If we’re talking about this place, there are many farbrengens and a great deal of Ahavas Yisroel. That’s something important to me, something I want to talk about, because we felt that it really was what protected us on October 7. And since then, too, there’s been so much talk here about Ahavas Yisroel, so much unity among the residents. Even if there’s a disagreement, people talk things through. I, too, as a Chabadnik who came here as a shliach, was welcomed with open arms,

14:43 Speaker 2 despite all the difficulties and obstacles at the beginning. But as for the place itself, most of my work is with a core group from the Breslov community. Some of them are young guys who came from different places in Israel and around the world, and we’re very good friends. We go out together to visit soldiers, with their camouflage gear and my mitzvah tank, and do activities together—a kind of hour of miracles, Breslov and Chabad together. We go and bring joy to people together. It’s a kind of unity, like Golani and Egoz working together. We may be two units, but as the Jewish people, we don’t separate ourselves from each other. We don’t put labels on one another—“you’re this” and “you’re that.” We work together as one unit, and it’s amazing. We talk all the time about how we’ll bring the Geulah together. Each person has his own flag and his own unit, but on the way to the Geulah, we have to do it hand in hand. That’s a very strong theme here in Yoshevya. So that was our October 7. At nine in the evening, the first IDF force arrived, and we split into groups of four cars each. I’d already received my emergency call-up order and put on my uniform. I told them I’d accompany the convoys at the front, and we’d head out. Then we got into the cars. I want to emphasize that when the rocket hit, a fragment struck the rear bumper of my car and knocked it loose. So I had to drive with the broken bumper dragging along the road. We drove out of Yoshevya in our cars.

16:24 Speaker 5 Where did you drive to, Eli?

16:25 Speaker 2 We left the community without knowing where we were going. I decided not to turn right toward Sderot, because I knew most of the fighting was in that direction. As far as I knew, there were still battles going on along the roads. I put my six children in the car and told them to keep their heads down. Because of the fighting, the power was out, so there were no lights along the roads. It was dark, absolutely pitch-black. I told them to keep their heads down because there were so many bodies on the roads. You’re driving among bodies and seeing wrecked cars. I turned toward Netivot and just hit the gas. It was as though I closed my eyes and drove, telling myself, whatever happens, happens. I could hear gunfire cracking all around us, but you just keep driving, because you’re not staying there. I didn’t want us to be burned inside a safe room. I took an insane risk and drove. We were several cars traveling together, and we reached the first roadblock, at what’s called Tzomet Hamazleg, toward Nachal Oz. A group of soldiers stopped me there. They looked tense. It was like a movie, with jeeps and ambulances all over the junction. They said, “Listen, where do you think you’re going?” I told them, “First, I have emergency call-up orders. Second, I’m not staying here. I live here, I want to protect my family, and we’re getting out.” They said, “Listen, you can’t pass.” I told him, “Listen, my friend, you have two choices: either I drive through you or you move.” I had lost it by then. I was running on sheer adrenaline and drawing on my authority as a commander. He saw my rank, too, and understood I wasn’t playing around. So he said, “Listen, I’ll move,

18:08 Speaker 2 but I’m telling you, you’re taking an insane risk. You’re putting yourselves in danger. Terrorists are everywhere along these roads; they could ambush you. As you can see, there are bodies everywhere. People have been killed here, and there’s intense fighting. The fighting isn’t over. Eli, good luck, my friend.”

18:27 Speaker 5 A question: Were you near Kibbutz Saad at the time?

18:30 Speaker 2 No, no. Just to give you an idea of the distance, Kibbutz Saad or Nachal Oz was about a five-minute drive away.

18:40 Speaker 5 Right.

18:41 Speaker 2 From where I was, at that junction, they’d set up a checkpoint to try to stop terrorists coming from every direction. It’s a major junction connecting the roads to Netivot, Saad, and Ofakim. I kept driving past terrible sights, then turned left toward Beit Kama. If you know the area, you pass Beit Hagadi and head toward Beit Kama. I must have been doing 200 kilometers an hour, driving like a madman. Then the calls started coming in—from friends, my father, all sorts of people: “Are you alive? Are you okay? Are you alive?” People only started to grasp what was happening after Shabbos ended. Let me go back for a moment. On Shabbos, I called my father, because he’s a fighter too, and so is my brother. Everyone in our family is a fighter. They were all in Esh Kodesh, in the Shomron, for Shabbos, and I called them to come save us. “Bring long guns, I’m begging you.” My brother told me, “Listen, we have to stay here to defend this place. We’re afraid they could break through from the Shomron too, that Israeli Arabs or Arabs from Yehudah and Shomron could attack us. We’re sorry, but we can’t help you.” So my father, my brothers, and my brothers-in-law were all defending the place where they were. It was hard to hear that no one could actually come help and be with you. We drove like madmen and reached Highway 6 northbound. At Beit Kama, I turned onto Highway 6 north. All of Am Yisroel was there. Hundreds of thousands of cars, everyone practically climbing over one another. Accidents, cars rear-ending each other. It was absolutely insane. I’d never seen anything like it, and I hope I never do again. Ambulances

20:37 Speaker 2 and everyone were driving against traffic and on the shoulders. With all that going on, there were still Red Alert sirens on the highway, and all you could think was, “Please don’t let a rocket land here on Highway 6,” because we were stuck in a massive traffic jam. Traffic was backed up from Beit Kama to Tzorek. Think about how far that is—some thirty kilometers, I’d say, of standstill traffic. The road was completely choked. I drove along the shoulder. I was terrified by then; all I wanted was to get out of there. We drove to Jerusalem. Along the way, we passed the army bases. Hundreds of thousands of people—it was simply Am Yisroel chai. I remember driving and crying. I said, “Wow, I can’t even understand what I went through this Shabbos,” but then suddenly you see it: everyone getting out of their cars and running toward the bases to pick up a bulletproof vest or a weapon, then heading to the Gaza border area to fight. These people are lions. You can’t explain Am Yisroel. What a people we have. You want to see a Jew in the street and just kiss him, no matter who he is. Maybe it’s only after you go through something like this that you really learn to appreciate why the Rebbe stood on his feet for so many hours and said, “I’m a diamond merchant. I don’t get tired, because I’m a diamond merchant.” You take that in and feel it, because every Jew really is holy of holies. I saw them all mobilizing and heading out, and I arrived in Jerusalem. Someone gave us an apartment there, and we stayed for a week. I found myself lying down and finally looking at my phone. Throughout Shabbos I had tried to keep Shabbos, even though I’d kept my phone on—sending as few unnecessary messages as possible, doing only the bare minimum.

22:14 Speaker 2 Then, after Shabbos, I opened it and it hit me all at once. I spent a week in bed, unable to move. I was frozen in place. My commander called: “Eli, I need you to identify the fallen. I need you to come.” In my role, I’m also the commander of soldiers I trained to handle the fallen. I was directing them remotely, but I could barely function. I was on the phone with my soldiers all day. Some were at Shura, some were recovering bodies in Nachal Oz, and some were in Be’eri. I directed them from a distance, and they told me what they were seeing. I asked them not to handle children’s bodies, because I knew they weren’t equipped for that. They told me they had seen children, and it had broken them. As their commander, I gave them a direct order not to touch the children at all. So they handled the victims from Nova and everything else—terrible things, which we’ll leave out. Anyway, we were in Jerusalem for a week. By then I had to start reserve duty. Whether I felt up to it or not, no one there was going to take pity on me. They needed me. Then an inner voice said, “Come on, Eli. You’re also the Rebbe’s shliach in yeshiva[?]. You’re the Rebbe’s shliach in the army. This is the time to go out. They need you.” The soldiers needed tzitzis, clothes, tefillin, cigarettes, pizzas. No one was asking whether this was a good time for me. Eli, your own feelings have to wait. It doesn’t matter. Just go out and turn the world upside down. You have the Infinite One, blessed be He, within you. You have the ability. There’s no time to fall apart now. And I

23:57 Speaker 2 I was called up for reserve duty. I was in the north, at Amiad Junction. There I was already dealing with what I needed to deal with. My family was evacuated to Tzfas for four months. We had lived in Tzfas for six years, so it was like family to us. People knew us; everyone embraced us, brought games, and brought us food and money all day long. Wow, what a people Am Yisroel is. We were given a beautiful vacation cabin, which gave us a little stability, a chance to relax a bit. I remember sitting outside there and saying, “Wow, Hashem, how good You are. Rebbe, how good you are. You understand us so well. You’re right there with us through all the pain and heartbreak.” They really spoiled us and gave us everything. That was our story throughout the evacuation. But I think the peak, the most powerful thing that happened to us, was during that week of Sukkos, leading up to Simchas Torah. We have our trailer with the sukkah we build every year, and all the equipment we use with the soldiers. Most of our work is with students and soldiers. All week of Sukkos I was sick, with a fever of 39 degrees, really sick and laid up in bed. Then on Thursday or Friday, I decided I had to go out to the soldiers. An inner voice told me, “Eli, go buy cigarettes, buy things.” I emphasize the cigarettes because when you bring a soldier a pack of cigarettes, you’ve made his day, even though they have all those unhealthy substances in them. So we got pizzas, a few other things, some sour candies, and my two sons, two of their friends and I drove out to the soldiers with lulavim, some sweets and chocolates. Off we went to Nachal Oz, K2, Black Arrow—all the outposts right along the fence.

25:49 Speaker 2 We arrived at Black Arrow, and I met a soldier at the gate. I said, “How’s it going, my heroic brother?” “Boruch Hashem. How are you, Rabbi?” I told him, “Boruch Hashem.” He asked, “What brought you here?” I said, “Simchas Torah is almost here, the last day. I wanted to bring you a lulav to shake.” He said, “What is that thing?” I said, “This is a lulav. We shake it. It’s a mitzvah Hakadosh Boruch Hu commanded us to do on Sukkos. Want to just hold it, brother? I’ll show you and explain what to do with it.” He said, “I’d like that. It looks like a cute little plant.” I said, “Here, brother.” Then I explained about the esrog and the rest. I asked him, “What does it remind you of, brother?” He was holding it in his hand. I asked again, “What does it remind you of?” He said, “It looks like a sword.” I said, “Wow, brother, that’s exactly right. ‘My children have prevailed over Me, My children have prevailed over Me.’ That’s exactly the point—it’s like a sword.” He said, “I want to tell you something more: With this sword, we’ll defeat our enemies.” That’s what he told me. I said, “Wow, brother, you’ve got such depth. A moment ago you didn’t even know what it was, and suddenly you know it’s a sword and that we’ll defeat our enemies with it. Listen, brother, 770 points. You passed the test.” Then he told me, “Take some candies for your kids, give them a treat.” I have a video I took of him coming out, holding the lulav and shaking it, all excited. Then I finished with that soldier. We took pictures by the tanks, and there were guys from Be’eri there

27:17 Speaker 2 and more soldiers. I have videos and photos of thirty soldiers. As I was heading home, those soldiers told me, “Rabbi, come to us on Sunday too. Come cheer us up.” I told them, “Listen, guys, I have a lot of guests at home. On Chanukah I’ll be with you, G-d willing.” They said, “All right, Rabbi. Whenever you can come, come cheer us up. It was so good to have you here!” In the middle of the fighting on the seventh of October, amid that whole nightmare and chaos, I was thinking about the soldiers. I wondered what had happened to Dvir, what had happened to Dor, and to each of the others. I had pictures of thirty-five soldiers. They were with me; they were in my heart. I’d been with them, I’d seen them. Where were those soldiers? I kept looking for news, thinking about them and davening for them. On Motzaei Shabbos, as we were on our way to Jerusalem, I started calling various battalion commanders and people I knew in the area. “Listen, Eli, my dear brother, I can’t give you information. Try to calm down. The soldiers have just been in combat—how can I tell you anything right now?”

28:15 Speaker 2 A month went by, then a month and a half, then two months. I met the Golani brigade rabbi in Tzfas. I asked him, “Rabbi, if I show you pictures of the soldiers at Nachal Oz, at Black Arrow, could you tell me whether they’re alive?” He said, “Look, some of them come to me for beard exemptions, so I might recognize them.” I showed him a picture, and he said, “Maybe...” But I didn’t really get a clear picture of the soldiers’ situation—who was alive, who was wounded, and so on. A year and eight months went by. I was receiving water therapy. Today I’m classified as someone seriously affected by a hostile act, boruch Hashem, with everything that entails. But may His name be praised. The strength that comes from shlichus lifts us up and gives us strength. Just before I went into a water-therapy session—it’s called Watsu—I got a notification about the soldiers killed at Nachal Oz, out of the blue. Suddenly, “Heroes of Nachal Oz” opened on my phone. I looked at the picture and opened it. I saw the 13th Battalion. I started zooming in on the picture, soldier by soldier, [unclear]. I looked, and suddenly I saw Dvir Zakai. Remember Dvir Zakai with the sword? “With this sword, we’ll defeat our enemies.” I said, “Wow.” It’s important for me to tell you that all that year, every soldier I’d photographed was in my heart, in my Modeh Ani in the morning, in my davening. When would I get to hold a thank-you celebration with their parents? When would I get to thank the soldiers and say, “I had the privilege of being with you and bringing you the lulav. You came out alive, and Hashem protected you”? And suddenly you see the opposite. Suddenly you see soldiers you’d managed to reach and bring the lulav to, and a few hours later

30:04 Speaker 2 they were killed in the fighting at Nachal Oz, along with their entire team. I went into the therapy session thinking, “Wow, how many soldiers did I lose there?” I needed to breathe, and I was really saying Tehillim over it. When I came out, I said, “Wait. Either I break down over this now, or I remember that I’m the shliach here and I have to be strong. I’m the Rebbe’s shliach. Eli, you have a job to do. Maybe there’ll be time to break down too, but not right now.” I took the picture of Dvir Zakai, went to a print shop and had it printed large on canvas. It’s a picture that, if I can somehow upload it, you really have to see it. You see Dvir sitting on a chair, with my two sons holding lulavim on either side and their two friends beside them. Dvir is looking toward the camera. It’s an incredibly powerful picture, and I had it printed on canvas. I sent a message to Golani’s casualty officer. I asked her, “Could I get the phone number of Dvir Zakai’s mother?” She said, “What’s your connection? Who are you? Where did you come from?” I told her, “Listen, I’m a shliach in the Gaza border region. I was there during the fighting on the seventh of October, and I met this young man. I want to meet his parents.” She got me his parents’ number, but only after confirming that he really had been killed. She had to see his picture and check that he had been killed; she couldn’t just give out information. She wrote to me, “A hero of Israel, killed al kiddush Hashem.” Wow. Then it hit me hard, because even when you see the picture, you still need that final confirmation—someone actually telling you, “Listen, this really isn’t some kind of...

31:43 Speaker 2 A picture. So I took the picture and sent his mother a message: “Hello, my name is Eli Levy. I’m the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach’s shliach in the Gaza border area. I want to give you a gift from your son. I’d be happy to meet you.” She wrote back: “Hello. My son was killed a year and eight months ago. He can’t give you a gift.” I told her I understood, but I’d still be glad to meet them, and she said that was fine. We arranged a meeting, and I drove from the Gaza border area to— to Tiberias. I put on my uniform and took my weapon. I came dressed as respectfully as I thought you should for something like this, for a visit to bereaved parents. I arrived at their tire shop in Tiberias and met the father. He’s tattooed from head to toe, covered in tattoos. Now I understood a little better why his son had asked me, “What’s a...?” It helped explain why he’d asked me what a lulav was. Maybe I was beginning to understand the situation. He asked, “Who are you?” I said, “I came to meet you. I sent your wife a message.” He said, “I’ll go get her. I’ll be back.” He brought her over, and she got out of the car, looked at me and said, “Hello. Who are you?” I told her, “Rebbetzin, I’m the one who sent you the message about a gift from your son.” She said, “Okay, and what do you want to give me?” She was stunned. Who was this religious guy showing up in uniform, with rank insignia and a weapon, wanting to give her a gift? Go on, tell me. So I said the stupidest thing you could possibly say to a bereaved mother. I said, “Listen, I don’t know if you knew your son.” Wow, what a blow! “I don’t know if you knew your son, but you had a son who

33:32 Speaker 2 was greater than a king. He was so special. All this past year, I felt as if he were a part of me, and I kept saying that I had to meet you and hold a thanksgiving gathering with you, to tell you: Wow, what a son you had! What a special son! The way he welcomed us, the Ahavas Yisroel he showed—it was such a joy to see him.” She said, “Wow,” and then I told my oldest son, Yosef Yitzchak, to get the picture from the car. We’d covered the picture with something so I could present it to them, and I kept it hidden. I brought it over, and when I turned it around, she looked at me and simply froze, staring at the picture. Then she began to cry. She really cried. It was heartbreaking to see. The father just hugged me. He wrapped his arms around me, and we stood there embracing for about ten minutes, holding the picture together while the mother cried beside us. She said to me, “Eli, listen. This is the last picture of him. Do you realize you managed to photograph my son in the last picture ever taken of him? You went to Nachal Oz, [unclear] [?], with mesirus nefesh, for hours without knowing what would happen, and you managed to photograph my son alive. This is his picture.” We hadn’t even had a chance to speak to him, and there’s security-camera footage from Nachal Oz showing their son being killed with his team and his company commander. But his father told me, “That’s a video of the opposite of life [?]. I was looking for a picture of my son alive. And when I see my son with a lulav, ascending heavenward in his final moments, I say: Eli, when you said we didn’t know him, perhaps we really didn’t know him.” That was what his father said. Then he

35:16 Speaker 2 put stickers of his son on my car, and it was very moving. His mother told me, “Eli, from today on, you’re Dvir’s brother.” That moved me so much. I thought, wow, we’re carrying out a shlichus in life. We do so many things in our lives without understanding them. You don’t know what you’ve really accomplished, what you’re doing. As the Rebbe Rashab said, “Great is faith—great is faith, which does not return empty-handed.” You do something in life, carry out some shlichus, and it seems so simple to you. I said good morning to someone, put tefillin on him, smiled at him, told him, “This is the happiest moment of my life.” Whatever happens, always be there. You don’t know what you’ve accomplished for a fellow Jew. I’d been sick all week, but I said I would go out with mesirus nefesh. And I’m certain it was the Rebbe’s voice within me saying, “Eli, go out to those soldiers.” It’s an extraordinary thing. With Hashem’s help, I’ll meet more of the soldiers. We’re already printing more pictures. I’m doing it slowly and gently, but we’ll meet all the parents of the soldiers who were killed there. That’s it—it’s an extraordinary thing to be able to do all this. And I want to tell you that for two years now, we’ve stayed in touch with the Nova survivors who came to us. Last year, on Simchas Torah, exactly one year after Simchas Torah 5784—in 5785—we held a celebration in Yoshevya and invited the Nova survivors who had been with us. We waited for them until four o’clock. We’d begun, davened Shacharis and Minchah and everything, and we waited with the Torah scroll until they arrived so we could do the hakafos with them. Then we began the hakafos, and just then they arrived: a group of young people from Tel Aviv, in tank tops, with tattoos, with all

36:59 Speaker 2 their things, men and women. They simply lay down on the floor in front of the Torah scroll and began to cry. They said to us—I... They hugged me and said, “Eli, I remember you running around with a shofar and a tallis, under pressure, in the middle of everything, with fire all around.” They did this, touching my hands and saying, “You’re alive, brother, you’re alive. Everyone here is alive, everyone’s alive. We see life here. There’s a Torah scroll here.” They all rushed to the Torah scroll and hugged it, and we began singing, “Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay.” We began the hakafos, and it felt like a revelation—an actual revelation of the Shechinah. To see it was incredible. What a wonderful thing it was to carry out this shlichus. As a shliach, every little thing you do matters, whether it’s with the Nova survivors or with the soldiers. We’ve stayed in touch with them ever since. They’ve surprised me several times, coming to my house and to my performances. Part of what I do in civilian life is play in a musical group. So they came to one of my performances, and they moved me so much. They suddenly hugged me from behind. I was in the middle of a performance, speaking to the audience, and they came up behind me. Suddenly I felt these guys hugging me. I turned around and said, “Wow, I can’t believe it’s you! This is amazing!” The Nova survivors—we’ve stayed in touch like that. Wow, Rebbe, thank you. Thank You, Hashem, for all the goodness and for the privilege of truly doing good in the world. And I say this because it’s important to me to say what comes next: For me, Eli Levy, choosing life isn’t something to take for granted. I think that what I went through in my own life, with so many complicated things and childhood experiences—I think that’s

38:47 Speaker 2 what made me who I am today. Sometimes we get stuck on what our parents did to us, on a difficult childhood, or on something my teacher said to me in first grade. Whatever it is, life has no shortage of challenges. And I think that what we’ve been through—this is something I always say at my performances—all the darkness you supposedly have in your life, the moment you throw it like a bowling ball toward another Jew, it turns into light. Because you come with experience. You come from a place where you can say, “Wow, I’m sending this your way, my dear brother. Here, I’m bringing you my light.” For me it may come from what felt like endless difficulty, but he’ll see it as light. That impact is wonderful. And being able to choose, to fight, not to shut myself away at home, to be a shliach and do all of this—that is one hundred percent thanks to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. When I told you in the previous episode about looking at the Rebbe’s picture, there was a moment when I looked at the Rebbe and said, “My one last wish is to come to you one more time.” If you remember, Rabbi, I spoke about that in the previous episode. To come to you one more time. And then I thought about the depth of a chossid’s bond with the Rebbe: even when it seems you’re seeing the end, and you’re saying, “I could die any second,” and die al kiddush Hashem, while I’m also on shlichus. And wow, perhaps that would be a privilege—or perhaps not. With six children, I don’t think I wanted them to be caught up in that too. So I told the Rebbe, “I want to come to you, to 770, one more time. After that, whatever happens, happens. But I want to set foot one more time in the place that gives me life, the place I came to when I became observant, where I received my life, my Jewish life,

40:24 Speaker 2 My birth as a chossid. So if I was born there, that’s where I want to return. That’s my home, the source of my vitality in life. And three months later, my son Yosef Yitzchak had his bar mitzvah, and I traveled with him. We went to the Rebbe, and the two of us walked into 770 and simply lay down on the floor at the entrance to 770 and started crying. Then I looked at the Rebbe’s chair and said to the Rebbe, “You kept your promise. Rebbe, you kept your promise. There’s no one like you in the world, my Rebbe. I love you so much.” Picture it: you walk into 770 and lie down on the floor, arms and legs outstretched, and nobody knows what’s happening to you. You’re just crying and saying, “Wow, I got my life back. I was given my life as a gift.” To go on bringing Hashem’s light into the world, to go on shining, to go on bringing the Rebbe’s light into the world—that’s not something to take for granted. It’s like, here I am, sitting here in a physical body. It really is like that, for me and my oldest son. And by the way, maybe I’ll use these moments to say that I’m praying for my children’s healing. Everyone listening, it’s very important to me that you say amen too, for all of them, because they’re struggling. Since the seventh of October, it’s affected them very strongly. Each at their own pace, each according to how it shows up for them—from the nights with the little ones to my oldest son in yeshiva ketanah, who is dealing with so many things: the voices of terrorists, fears. Each one has their own struggles. But they know they’re shluchim, and they know they’re strong, and they know the Rebbe is with them. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with them, and He won’t abandon them. We talk about it all the time and draw strength together as a family, as a Chabad House, as shluchim, because we didn’t go through

42:17 Speaker 2 this test for nothing. The Rebbe knew that we were probably capable of facing it, and I’m grateful for that too. I think it helped us grow as a family and strengthened our marriage. If there were challenges, it’s important to me to say that too, for people thinking of going out as shluchim, to a Chabad House, in Israel or elsewhere in the world. Shlichus brings complex, day-to-day challenges with so many details, and that was always part of our marriage: yes, you’re out there on shlichus with people you’re bringing closer, but at home, things are like this. Since the seventh, though, it’s as if something connected between our souls. It’s like we got married all over again. And thank G-d, it’s not something to take for granted that things are so much better for us today, for the family too. The family has grown closer, and so have our connections with the people we work with, my performances, and my shlichus as a whole. It’s something very special. It feels good.

43:15 Speaker 6 What I managed to say [unclear] such tremendous strength—it’s really, wow. But maybe in the future I’d like to tell more stories about shlichus: about people, about different characters, about things that happen. I’d be glad to.

43:37 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

43:39 Speaker 6 I’d like to hear stories like this one. I don’t know if it’ll happen, but it could be interesting: about different people on this shlichus, the obstacles you’ve faced with those soldiers, or with the people who got out of Nova, or with people who are suffering themselves, and your parents. And how did this whole shlichus begin? It’s written on the page.

44:05 Speaker 2 Sounds good.

44:07 Speaker 6 L’chaim, l’chaim.

44:08 Speaker 2 L’chaim, Rabbi.

44:09 Speaker 6 Continued, extraordinary success to our master, teacher, and Rebbe, King Moshiach, forever and ever.

44:14 Speaker 2 Thank you, Rabbi. Thank you very much.

44:16 Speaker 6 Wishing you strength, Eli. Lots of good news.

44:19 Speaker 2 Amen, to you too.

44:21 Speaker 6 Thank you very much.

44:21 Speaker 2 L’chaim.