The Superhero Lessons We Never Outgrow

Growing up, my son Nati loved superheroes. He dressed up as Batman and Spiderman, built Batmobiles and the Daily Planet office out of Lego, and regaled us with extensive backstories about The Flash. Tom Holland played his favorite version of Spiderman, but Andrew Garfield was a close second. And he could explain exactly why.

Comic book stories make the world easier to understand. Superheroes are good. Villains are bad. Powers can go either way, depending on who is using them.

Last month, Nati celebrated his bar mitzvah. He’s long outgrown superhero toys. But as I reflected back on his childhood in preparation for his big day, I kept thinking about those comic book stories.

Especially as we’re about to mark the second anniversary of October 7th,  I find myself wishing we could find a comic book ending to these conflicts. The good guys throw a few punches leaving the bad guys slumped and powerless in a corner. We all have a good final laugh and big sigh of relief.  

I’m sure I’m not the only one with that wish. That is why a documentary we saw this summer at Beit Avi Chai, an arts center in Jerusalem, called Lo Giborim Anachnu (“We Are Not Heroes”), had such a powerful impact on me. Directed by Shaked Brand, the film doesn’t offer a comic book ending. But it does bring to life a lesson I felt compelled to share in my speech on Nati’s bar mitzvah day: the heartbreakingly real courage and extraordinary strength of ordinary people.

On October 7th, Brand was trekking around Mount Everest, as many recently released Israeli soldiers do, seeking distance and clarity after years of service. But when news of the Hamas attacks reached him, he felt too far away. He flew home, put his uniform back on, and soon found himself back on the Gaza border — and then in Khan Younis.

As a documentary filmmaker, Brand realized that his reserve duty could also be his next project. Israel’s army is made up primarily of regular citizens – but even much of the general Israeli population doesn’t really know what the day-to-day of combat soldier life looks like. So right before he entered Gaza, he called his parents and asked them to bring him his camera. 

As Brand told Ynet: “We met in the parking lot of the Nova party site the night before the entry [to Gaza]. They handed me the equipment, and the next morning we went in.” 

With the support of his fellow reservists, Brand created the first documentary filmed entirely by reservists themselves — told through their own voices, straight from the battlefield.

The film ranged from mundane to moving. We saw the soldiers shower using buckets of water. We saw them build tents to protect themselves from rain and mud. We saw them get creative to make the little food they had taste more like home. We saw them joke, laugh, and bond. We saw them wait and wait and wait. We saw them march in the mud and prepare for combat. We saw the toll the entire experience took on them as their dark hair turned grayer with each passing month. 

They talked a lot about their families, including Ari, a kippah-wearing American whose wife had just given birth to their first baby.  

Finally, we saw them face an ambush.

Most – but not all – of the soldiers survived. Their commander was gravely injured. Ari did not make it home to see his baby.

Despite the anguish, these men were driven by their determination to protect each other and defend the existence of Israel. It didn’t matter who wore a kippah and who didn’t. It didn’t matter if they came from Be’er Sheva or Modi’in or New Jersey. They all worked together, waited together, endured together. 

That’s why the title of the documentary, We Are Not Heroes, is so fitting. These soldiers don’t see themselves as exceptional. They see themselves as ordinary people doing what must be done — fueled by a deep sense of responsibility to the Jewish nation.

Interestingly, the Hebrew phrase lo giborim anachnu, echoes a line in a poem by 19-year-old Reuven Polity, who lost his life fighting in the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Israeli singer Idan Raichel popularized Polity’s poem by setting it to music in 2011 in a haunting song called “Ima, Abba, veKol HaSha’ar,” (Mother, Father, and Everything Else). 

Polity’s words describing the depressing landscape of war to his parents still resonate today:

Will you know, Mother, what sight we see?

Trees all around, high above but their trunk is scorched

Huge houses all around but destroyed

They are colorless

I walk upon ruins, Mother

But, like Brand, Polity rejects the idea that he and his fellow soldiers are heroes:

Heroes we are not because our labor is black

The sun will set, darkness will fall

And then we will fall asleep with our clothes on in our bed

Yes, Mom, it’s important, it’s hard and terrible

The key line in the piece is: I swear upon my life that it’s tough but I stay.

No matter what, Polity is determined to stay – not just on the battlefield, but true to his responsibility to protect the Jewish state.

It’s not only the soldiers in Polity’s poem, Brand’s film or others on the front lines who bear this responsibility. We all bear it. 

As we pray for an end to the fighting and the return of the hostages, we have to remember what has sustained us throughout this difficult chapter in our history: the modest heroism of ordinary people.

People found countless ways to serve our nation. My friend in Ra’anana created Feeding the IDF, an organization of home cooks who make meals for soldiers and transport them to army bases around the country. Others spend time picking produce on farms who lost workers to the war.  

In the US, our service is to be proud of our Jewish identities and support Israel. We can stand up for Israel from anywhere. Call or write a Congressman, learn a bit more Hebrew, attend an Israel-oriented event, watch Israeli TV, or listen to Idan Raichel.

We are all part of this awe-inspiring, unbreakable chain of responsibility that binds our nation together — whether you’re fighting in the war like Shaked Brand and his platoon, or you’re in Miami or Silver Spring or Teaneck looking for ways to connect. 

Like Nati, we all outgrow Superman or Batman comic book stories and toys. But we never outgrow the ability to bring superhero qualities – like bravery, resilience, creativity, and responsibility – to our everyday life. If thousands of Israeli soldiers can do it, so can we.