The Kindness That Binds
When rockets rained down from both north and south, more than 200,000 Israelis fled to the country’s center. In that flight, the soul of the nation was laid bare.
Doors swung wide. Strangers became hosts; hotels turned into temporary homes. Synagogues became classrooms. Youth groups, charities, and neighbours stepped forward together — when fear descended, compassion rose.
Since that dark October morning, when Israel was struck by a barbaric terror attack and then endured wave after wave of rockets, the nation has lived under unrelenting strain. Even now, though called a ceasefire, tension remains. The borders may appear calm, but this stillness is not peace — it is the uneasy quiet that can shatter without warning. Every lull hums with unease; the pause between sirens is the fragile breath before the next test.
And yet, even before that day, life in Israel was already lived between the everyday and the ever-uncertain — between celebration and shelter.
It was in that same spirit of resilience and tenderness that, in the spring of 2021, a small synagogue in Kibbutz Sa’ad, near the Gaza border, gathered to celebrate a Bar Mitzvah. Family and friends filled the room, listening as the young boy read from the Sefer Torah, his voice clear and proud.
Then, in a heartbeat, everything changed. The siren wailed — that unmistakable rising pitch that freezes the breath. Within seconds came the whistling sound overhead, the heavy thud of missiles cutting through the sky. There was no time to reach the shelter; everyone dropped to the floor.
Men and women shielded children beneath tables and benches, whispering prayers, as the blasts echoed beyond the walls. The Bar Mitzvah boy lay trembling on the ground, pressing himself against the bimah’s wooden stand.
That moment captures the harsh reality for those living near Israel’s borders — where joy and fear share the same breath. Children there grow up learning the reflexes of survival — only fifteen seconds to reach safety.
And still, families remain. Amid the uncertainty, a quiet resolve holds the nation together — neighbours taking in the displaced, communities standing shoulder to shoulder so that no one is left alone. This compassion, steady and unspoken, is Israel’s deepest strength: the refusal to let fear have the final word.
It is in such moments, when kindness becomes instinct, that we glimpse the spirit that continues to shape our people — the same spirit that flows through the story of Rivka at the well.
The Torah tells us that Avraham’s servant, weary from travel, stopped there to rest and prayed for success — that he might find the right bride for his master’s son. He asks not for beauty or status, but for chesed (חֶסֶד): that the woman who offers him water will also draw for his camels.
Then Rivka appears. She hurries to offer him water, saying she will draw for his camels as well, until they have finished drinking. Her giving is not measured or deliberate — it flows as naturally as the water she draws. And when Eliezer later seeks a resting place for himself and his animals, Rivka welcomes him with the same grace that had moved her hands at the well, assuring him there is both fodder and room at her home. Her chesed does not end with a single act — it stretches from the spring to her doorway, until every need is met.
The Zohar calls chesed the “right arm” of G-d — the outstretched hand through which blessing enters the world. In that moment, Rivka becomes the living image of that outstretched arm, turning compassion into motion.
The Arizal teaches that when kindness flows from the heart, it awakens a current of divine renewal — the creative waters (Mayin Dechurin) that sustain life itself. Rivka’s well thus becomes both physical and spiritual: through her giving, she draws from the endless source of Hashem’s love.
Later, when Eliezer reveals his mission, Rivka’s family turns to her and asks, “Will you go with this man?” Without hesitation she answers:
אֵלֵךְ — I will go
(Chayei Sara 24:58)
It is the first aliyah born of free will, guided by the heart’s own faith.
Where Avraham was told, “Go forth,” Rivka stepped forward by choice. One obeyed a command; the other embraced a calling. Her words were not consent, but conviction — courage to continue what Sara began, carrying forward her living legacy of love and chesed.
That same spirit endures in Israel today — not only in acts of kindness, but in the faith that sustains them, and in the resolve to keep our doors open to chesed that bridges what divides us. In the courage to rebuild, to celebrate life even when shadowed by loss, it is a strength not drawn from defences or walls, but from the quiet conviction that compassion itself is our greatest shield.
When Rivka entered Sara’s tent, the light returned — and Yitzchak loved her. In that renewed glow, they stood as the first chatan and kallah beneath the chuppah, in the land where love and promise became one.
And it all began with chesed — the kindness that binds.
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