Last week, over 1000 guests gathered to celebrate the wedding of Eliya Cohen and Ziv Aboud. Former Chief Rabbi Rav David Lau officiated. What made the wedding so special was that Cohen had spent over 500 days in Hamas captivity, while Aboud survived the massacre at the Nova festival by hiding beneath the bodies of those who were killed. Cohen had bought the engagement ring for Aboud before he was kidnapped, and was only able to give it to her after his release and recovery; he called their wedding an “amazing miracle,” thanked Hashem, and said Shema under the Chupah.
In this week’s reading, we read of Hashem’s promise of punishments when we fail Him. It says there, “Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation… and your hand will be powerless” [28:32].
The Imrei Shefer writes that when one thinks of the pain to parents who see their children taken as Eliya was, we must contemplate the pain to the Holy One, Blessed be He, to have his children fall in the hands of tormentors. It should inspire us to return to Him, to pray to him, and to think of His pain and how we want to bring it to an end. But “your hand will be powerless” might better be translated “and your hand is not to G-d” — from which the Imrei Shefer learns a criticism: that we do not lift up our hands to pray to Hashem and to return as we should. All of us should think of what Eliya, Ziv, and their families had to endure. We should be part of their pain, and from it we should want to be better, and to see a time where no one ever has to suffer like that — because Hashem Himself feels all their pain.
Cohen and Aboud demonstrated not just strength and resilience, but that spark of return, as many of the former hostages have done. May we lift our hands, return to Him, and speedily bring the pain He feels at our exile to an end.
