The Torah portion of Toldot opens with the biblical story of Isaac and his struggles to come to terms with his father’s death. Isaac’s story unfolds through confusion and a quest for identity following a profound loss and chronicles a journey from uncertainty to self-discovery.
On Saturday, November 18, Jen Airley was in a synagogue in Ramat Beit Shemesh, listening to the reading of Toldot.“It was Shabbat morning. I was in synagogue, and suddenly, after the Torah reading, I felt I had to leave,” she shared with The Jerusalem Post. “I had to go home and say Psalms. I almost ran home. I was just crying and saying Psalms.”
While Jen couldn’t quite explain what caused her to leave the communal prayers and go home to pray in solitude, she could feel something was happening. What she couldn’t know was that her son, Binyamin, was battling Hamas terrorists in Gaza at the time.
Binyamin Airley was imbued with a love for life and the Land of Israel. After making aliyah with his family in 2006 from the US, the Airleys settled in Ramat Beit Shemesh, but Binyamin was searching for more. He was the kind of boy who wanted to be outdoors, breathing in the holy air of Israel.
Binyamin’s parents described their son as a boy who “saw everybody as an equal. He didn’t see anybody as higher or lower than himself,” which sometimes could lead to difficulty listening to authority figures.
“Binyamin was the wildest of our kids,” his father, Rob, told the Post. “It was a challenge with him. By the time he was 16, he started to calm down. He began to make a lot of changes in his life. He believed in himself and set many goals for himself. He had this list of 55 things he accomplished, such as deciding to get rid of his smartphone.
From farm to battlefield
“At 16, he got attracted to being on a farm and ended up going for weekends and Shabbat. He ended up going more and more. He loved the life, living on a hill. He believed in this, and he ended up herding cows.”Along with taking care of the cows, he also found time to plant himself a vineyard.
The Torah portion of Toldot describes how Isaac had “possessions of flocks, and possessions of herds, and a great household” (Genesis 26:14.) It then describes how Isaac re-digs wells his father Abraham had previously dug to care for his herds.
“He appreciated the history of the land and the sanctity of the land,” Jen explained. “Beyond just the physical beauty, there was a deep connection. This is our homeland, our birthland, and our future. It wasn’t for him just about cultivating and planting a vineyard so that you can drink wine. It was so much deeper than that.”
After being drafted into the IDF and serving in the 101st Paratroopers Battalion “Cobra,” Binyamin found himself down South after October 7, helping to guard the southern settlements and clear up the tragic scenes on Kibbutz Nir Am after the deadly Hamas attacks.
He entered Gaza on November 1, and on the morning of November 18, as he and his fellow soldiers were sitting and eating breakfast, they were called to join in combat against Hamas terrorists. Several soldiers were wounded, and the terrorists were spotted running into a house nearby.
Jamal Abbas, a Druze company commander in Battalion 101, and his deputy, Shahar Friedman, entered the house. Before they could get in, they found Binyamin stopping them and demanding he be allowed to join them.“Binyamin had the Negev [light machine gun] at the time, and even though I don’t even know if he knew them, he said, ‘You can’t go on without me; I have the Negev.’ So the three of them went in together,” Rob explained.
As the three searched the house, they saw one of the terrorists lying dead on the floor. Unbeknownst to them, another terrorist was still hiding, and he jumped out and shot at them.
Binyamin, Jamal, and Shahar were all killed instantly. Binyamin was only 21 years old.
That Shabbat afternoon, the Airleys were resting at their home.
“My husband was sleeping on the couch,” Jen recalled. “He wakes up to a knock on the door and sees three soldiers, and he looks at them, and he asks, ‘Is he wounded?’ And they said no. Then Rob asks, ‘Is he kidnapped?’ And they said no. So, right away, Rob runs upstairs. I was sleeping in the bedroom, and he said, ‘You’ve got to come quickly.’ I asked if the kids were okay, and he said no.
“I saw the soldiers there, and what can one say? I looked at them and said, ‘Baruch Dayan Ha’emet.’ I asked them when it happened. They told me the battle occurred between 9:30 and 10.30 that morning, which was obviously when I felt those feelings [in synagogue].
“While it’s true that I was praying and crying, I do feel that God answered my prayers,” Jen said. “While it’s true that God still decided that he’s taking Binyamin to be next to Him, we hear of all these atrocities of things that happen to other soldiers – how they were suffering or didn’t have a body to be recovered, and the family had to wait to hold a funeral. Binyamin died instantly. And we knew exactly how he died. He died with a smile on his face. We don’t take that for granted.”
The war against Hamas and the loss of their son hhavechanged the course of the Airleys’ lives.
They bought a house in Safed and turned it into an Airbnb two years ago. They spent money purchasing and renovating the property over the past 18 months until the war broke out.
After Binyamin’s death in November, a different idea came to mind – opening the house to those needing it. The proposed Airbnb became Beit Binyamin.
“When Binyamin passed away, we thought, how will we memorialize him?” Rob told the Post. “That’s when we thought, well, maybe we could use our house in Safed and make a real, more comprehensive program, where we can have a tailor-made program for soldiers.”
For Jen, the idea came after witnessing nonreligious soldiers serving in Gaza donning tefillin and tzitzit for prayer.“[The soldiers] were experiencing this connection to God,” Jen remembers discussing with her husband. “I said maybe we should open up a yeshiva for nonreligious people so they can taste the beauty of Judaism. Then Rob said that if wweaim it for soldiers, it also has to be pampering. It can’t be that soldiers return from war, and they’re going to sit and learn. They need something soft and gentle.
“It’s such comfort that two years ago [when we purchased the house], God was already preparing everything for right now. It was going to be Beit Binyamin.”
This idea soon blossomed to include not only soldiers but all those affected in some way by the war, whether workers with United Hatzalah or ZAKA or displaced families from the North or South, to provide them with a place to retreat and recuperate from the traumas of the past few months.
After months of preplanned construction, the house is almost fully operational and has begun receiving its first groups. Those who come and stay can participate in therapy sessions in all different forms, learn the Torah, join tours of Safed and the surrounding area, and enjoy a good barbecue.
“What people are going through, we probably need 20 of these homes,” Rob ponders. “The amazing thing is because we did all this work beforehand, we are ready to go. It’ll be three or four days to get away from the world and concentrate on healing. We will bring in top therapists and educators, which is meant to be pampering. Unfortunately, there’s a big need. A lot of soldiers need it.”
The Airleys are fundraising in the US to kick-start operations at Beit Binyamin and open its doors to all those who need their help.
Toldot, the Torah portion read on that fateful Shabbat back in November, ends with the famous tale of Jacob donning Esau’s clothes and receiving the blessing from a near-blind Isaac.
“So God gives thee of heaven's dew, the earth's fat places, and plenty of corn and wine” (Genesis 27:28).
For Jen, the deep and burning love that her son felt for the land and his sacrifice in protecting it and the Jewish people should be conveyed now more than ever.
“I always feel that King David trains our soldiers,” she said. “They are the singers, the dancers, the lovers, and the fierce warriors and fighters who have God on the tip of their tongues. They are brave, strong, and fierce, but also children who sing and dance and sing God’s praises, so King David should keep watching over all our soldiers.”
For more information, visit https://beitbinyamin.org/ or https://causematch.com/BeitBinyamin.