Confronting Self-Doubt Pushes Me Forward

“We reach the edge of an embankment,” 35-year-old Or tells of her perilous plight as an IDF Commander that terrifying October 7 morning.  “I peer my head up and see a sight I will never forget as long as I live. Five pickup trucks are coming at me, and packs of motorcyclists, and terrorists are hopping between dunes and trees, all in combat vests and uniforms advancing in our direction. I can’t even count them; there are hundreds. Hundreds! And in the distance behind them are long lines of people from Gaza who are marching toward us. And I say to myself, “Well, that’s it; this is where I’m going to die, right here on this spot. I’m going to die here.” 

Or’s story is one of the more compelling accounts in One Day in October. She never wanted to be a Commander. She’s always struggled with belief in herself. Not in an unhealthy way. In a humble one. Yes, she’d been encouraged to go from one level to the next. But then she left the army to venture off on her own. Only to be urged to return, to become one of the IDF’s first female Battalion Commanders.

What moves me most about Or is how she handles self-doubt. “Confronting self-doubt pushes me forward,” she says. She’s not given to the kind of self-pity tailspins that, if you’re like me, can be common. 

We meet another woman of considerable might, in this week’s portion of Torah. Rebecca credentials herself as a matriarch with her kindness this week and resourcefulness next week. When Laban and her family seek to delay her departure to marry Isaac, she responds, “I will now go forth” (eileich) (Gen. 24:58).

Today’s world can sometimes feel like that embankment that Or faced with a mere 12 soldiers to have to take on hundreds. Ominous threats are on the march, headed our way. Since Or lived to tell her story, you know she somehow survived. They fought like crazy, hitting a truck packed with explosives that took out lots of terrorists, who then started to scatter and retreat. 

Our battles now take a different form. But they require the courage of Or and of Rebecca. 

They next time you’re feeling despair or self-doubt. Confront it. Let it push you forward. Follow  in the footsteps of Rebecca, sensing a stirring deep within you, whispering “I will now go forth.”