Accept responsibility

We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the IDF and the troops who are united and risking their lives to protect all of us and our nation. The title of Tuvia Book’s article says it all: “The IDF must prevail” (February 14). At this critical juncture in the war, what can every Israeli citizen do, and accept responsibility for, to help ensure we will prevail on all fronts?

First and foremost – continue praying for the protection and success of our soldiers and the return of the rest of the hostages. It is our duty to recognize the sacrifice and danger the soldiers are facing every moment. At the same time, we must back our prime minister when he tells the world that we must continue to fight until Hamas is eliminated completely. We must drop our opinions and politics of the prime minister and pray for him and unite around him 100%. We are all fighting for our lives, and right now is not the time to throw accusations at our prime minister, but to demonstrate our unity to the world.

How can we increase our efforts to release the hostages, in addition to the demonstrations, necklaces, posters, and negotiations? Turn to prayer with an even more renewed compassion, awareness, and ability to connect with our hostages and God. In three places in the morning prayers, every single day, when we open our prayer book, we acknowledge that God, “releases the bound.” We find this at the beginning in the morning blessings, further on in songs of praise, Psalm 146, and in the second blessing of the Shemoneh Esrei. I found those words, “releases the bound” as my plea to God for the release of the hostages.

Regarding our soldiers: We should take every opportunity to thank them for their service and dedication to Am Yisrael, then say to them, “You are a hero,” and smile and bless them. They will appreciate it.

We have enemies who hate us, but opportunities to unite us. Let’s stay the course, all of us together.