Israel Comes at a Heavy Cost

Until the Simchas Torah massacres of October 7, 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was the Israeli leader that witnessed the heaviest Israeli losses during the surprise Yom Kippur War. Without its soldiers ready for battle the first three weeks of the war saw Israel in a precarious position. After just the first two days of the war, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan reportedly wanted to announce to the Israeli people that the fall of “the Third Temple,” a poetic reference to the new Israeli state, was upon them. Eventually 2,691 IDF soldiers died in those first three weeks. Israel eventually overcame its losses, bounced back, and won the war, but the cost traumatized the nation for decades. Prime Minister Meir remarked, “It is true that we have won all our wars, but we have paid for them.”

The Jewish people dreamed of returning to Eretz Yisrael for two thousand years. In the Jewish people’s dreams, prayers, and stories they told their children, the return would be miraculous. The Jewish people would be flown back to Eretz Yisrael on eagle’s wings. The Jewish people imagined the world would celebrate the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. They pictured a Messianic era where enemies would become friends and there would be no more war.

Alas, the Jewish people’s return to Israel was not as picturesque as imagined. To date, the Jewish community is divided over whether the Jewish people’s return was miraculous or premature arrogance. The return came on less than sturdy ships instead of eagle’s wings. The world voted to grant the Jewish nation their homeland, but only part of it, and the world’s support quickly turned to opposition. Enemies of the Jewish people remained enemies, peace was still a dream, and a hundred years later peace is still a distant hope.

The Jewish return to Israel came at a high cost. Many Jews came fleeing persecution from other nations in far away lands. Their Aliyah to Eretz Yisrael meant leaving all they had behind and starting anew, often times in abject poverty. Even today, when Aliyah is significantly easier than a hundred years ago, moving to Israel has its challenges. Making Aliyah requires leaving family, community, and culture.
Settling the land required draining the malaria infested swamps and laying infrastructure on a land neglected by its inhabitants for thousands of years. Disease spread quickly and people died due to illness. Arabs attacked the Jewish community and killed hundreds of Jews. When the Arabs weren’t attacking, the British mandate power persecuted the early Zionists with jail and executions. Settling in the land was anything but a dream.

Since their return, the Jewish people have lost thousands of its fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters, to war and terrorism. It has spent billions of its resources simply defending itself from enemies bent on its destruction. The Jewish state has lost time, effort, and will to stopping its enemies from annihilating them.

This generation of Zionists were convinced we had already paid the heaviest price and they wouldn’t suffer the pain and costs the previous generations paid to create this state. Then the Simchas Torah massacre of October 7, 2023 killed 1,200 Israelis, injured thousands, and over 200 Israelis were taken hostage. It quickly became apparent that this generation would suffer the same pain as those that came before them.

A year after the attacks Natan Sachs, director of the Center for Middle East Policy and a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, said, “Today, especially, is an extremely solemn day—certainly in Israel—and a day of real profound mourning. Not to diminish in any way anyone else’s suffering, but of course in Israel, the events from a year ago are still very much being processed. People have referred to Israelis, Palestinians, and now Lebanese as being in some post-traumatic state. The truth is they’re not post-traumatic. They’re very much still in the midst of a trauma, and that’s very much true of Israelis as well, who are still living and reliving the events a year ago. Israelis sometimes refer to today as day 367 of October, in part because some of the hostages are still in captivity, and in part because the war continues. Israeli society, writ large, still feels a very profound sense of vulnerability in a way that would surprise its neighbors that view it as very strong and powerful.”

Israelis quickly became widows and orphans. In a nation so small, where every citizen is only separated by a few degrees, the trauma spread quickly and mercilessly. Israelis – whether friends or strangers – couldn’t sleep in the fear and concern over the hostages. The peace and stability Israelis had become accustomed to was shattered and Israelis suffered together.

There is a lesson included in the Talmud that helps the Jewish people understand the heavy cost they must pay to settle the land of Israel. Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai taught “God gave the Jewish people three gifts and all of them were given only through suffering. The gifts are: Torah, the Land of Israel and the World to Come.” Eretz Yisrael can only be acquired through suffering because, as the old adage teaches, “no pain, no gain.” The Jewish people wouldn’t truly appreciate the land of Israel if it came freely with no suffering. Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai’s teaching is as true today as it was when he taught it during the Roman occupation of the land of Israel.

There has been a heavy cost to settling the land of Israel and the establishment of the Jewish state. The price we’ve paid has been in death, blood, and national trauma. Those who get to enjoy all the land and state has to offer have an obligation to recognize the price previous generations paid to ensure the life this generation gets to lead in the land.