The Courage to Let Them Go: Every Parent’s Akeidah

There are mornings when I hesitate before reading the newspaper because I know what may be waiting for me on its pages. All too often another photograph stares back at me, the smiling face of a young soldier, barely eighteen or twenty years old, who only days earlier had been sitting around the family table, laughing with friends and dreaming of the future. In a single tragic moment, those dreams have come to an end, and another precious life has been added to the growing list of Israel’s fallen heroes.

Every time I read one of these stories, my heart breaks. I grieve not only for the loss of another young life but also for the future that has been taken from us. We cannot know what these remarkable young men and women might have accomplished had they been granted the years they deserved. Perhaps one would have become a physician who would have discovered a cure for a disease, a scientist whose research would have benefited humanity, a gifted educator who would have inspired generations of students, or simply a devoted husband or wife who would have built a beautiful Jewish home. Every soldier who falls leaves behind not only grieving loved ones but also a lifetime of unrealized dreams.

Yet it is the parents who occupy my thoughts long after I have put the newspaper aside. I try to imagine what it must be like to watch a son or daughter put on a uniform, shoulder a backpack, and leave home, knowing that every goodbye carries with it an uncertainty that few parents anywhere else in the world are asked to endure. Since October 7, thousands of Israeli families have lived with this silent anxiety. Every unexpected telephone call, every knock at the door, every news bulletin causes hearts to race as mothers and fathers whisper heartfelt prayers that their children will once again return home safely.

As I reflected upon their courage, I realized that these families are reliving one of the greatest tests recorded in the Torah. When Almighty G-d commanded Abraham, “Please take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and offer him to me as a sacrifice,” he was asking a father to place into G-d’s hands that which was most precious to him. Abraham faced that supreme test only once. Israeli parents face it again and again. Every induction ceremony, every farewell embrace at a bus stop or military base, and every deployment to the battlefield becomes another ascent to Mount Moriah. The difference is that Abraham ultimately descended the mountain with Isaac at his side, while too many parents in Israel have been forced to make that lonely journey home without the child they so lovingly raised.

Perhaps there is another lesson hidden within that narrative. The Torah tells us, “And the two of them walked together.” Abraham and Isaac shared the same path, though each carried a different burden. So, it is with the families of Israel. The soldier walks toward the battlefield with courage; the parent makes the same journey with prayer. One carries a rifle, the other a book of Tehillim. One stands at the front lines, the other keeps vigil at home. Yet both are engaged in the same sacred mission.

No nation longs for peace more than Israel. Our sons and daughters do not enter military service because they seek glory or conquest; they do so because they understand that someone must stand between our families and those who openly proclaim their desire to destroy us. They would much rather be sitting in university classrooms, learning Torah in a beit medrash, celebrating weddings, or building families of their own. Instead, they willingly place their dreams on hold so that millions of others can continue to live in safety.

What makes this burden even more painful is the inability of so much of the world to recognize our suffering. Israel is one of the smallest nations on earth. We have never aspired to build an empire or dominate other peoples. Our only desire has been to live peacefully in the homeland that has been bound to the Jewish people for thousands of years. Throughout our history, we have sought to heal rather than destroy, to build rather than conquer, and to preserve life rather than celebrate death. Jewish contributions to medicine, science, technology, ethics, agriculture, and humanitarian relief have benefited people of every nation and every faith. When earthquakes, floods, or other disasters strike across the globe, Israeli rescue teams are often among the very first to arrive.

Yet when Jewish mothers bury their sons and daughters, too much of the world responds not with compassion but with silence, indifference, or even condemnation. It is a painful reality that is difficult to understand. That loneliness is not new. It has accompanied us from the days of Pharaoh to the present. Every generation has produced those who sought to erase the Jewish people from history. Pharaoh enslaved us, Haman sought to annihilate us, the Romans destroyed our Temple, the Crusaders massacred our communities, the Nazis attempted to exterminate us, and today new enemies openly proclaim the very same objective. They may speak different languages and wear different uniforms, but their hatred is hauntingly familiar.

But history has also taught us another lesson. There was a time when Jews stood defenseless before those who sought their destruction. During the darkest chapter of our history, millions were marched to their deaths with no Jewish army to defend them and no sovereign homeland to which they could flee. The establishment of the State of Israel changed that forever. The words “Never Again” are not merely a slogan; they are a sacred obligation. They proclaim that while we pray fervently for peace, we also understand that peace can survive only when there are those willing to defend it.

Behind every soldier standing guard over our homeland is an entire nation united in purpose. There are mothers reciting Tehillim with tears in their eyes, fathers whispering prayers after the Amidah, grandparents waiting anxiously for a reassuring telephone call, and communities embracing families they may never have met.

The true heroes of Israel are not only the young men and women who stand on the battlefield, but also the mothers and fathers who summon the faith to let them go, entrusting their most precious gift to the care of Almighty G-d and to the eternal destiny of the Jewish people. Their courage is seldom celebrated, their tears are rarely seen, but without their quiet sacrifice there could be no Jewish future. They remind us that the strength of Israel has never rested solely in the hands of its soldiers but also in the faith of its families – the mothers and fathers whose love for their children is matched only by their unwavering commitment to the survival of our people.