In recent days, we’ve seen their faces: young soldiers with shining eyes and wide smiles, their personalities radiating through the photographs shared in the wake of unspeakable loss. We learn their names, hear their stories, and mourn not only for the lives they lived, but for the lives that will now never be. These are not just “casualties.” They are sons and daughters, siblings and friends. Each one beloved. Each one irreplaceable.

And then we try to understand how it happened.

Buildings in Gaza, cleared and declared safe, turned out to be deadly traps. Moments like these leave us heartbroken and shaken. They raise questions we don’t always know how to ask, and fears we don’t know how to quiet.

My son will soon be sent into Gaza. I know I have no control over what awaits him there. But I also know that there are people who do bear that responsibility, leaders, commanders, strategists. And I am appealing to them, from the depths of my heart, to do everything humanly possible to keep our children safe. If there is any measure that could make a difference, any added layer of caution that might protect a life, then I will do what I can to raise my voice.

Refusing to accept silence where there should be intervention

Ours is not the first generation of mothers to feel this terror. The Midrash (Vayikra Rabbah 20) tells us that when Sarah learned what had nearly happened to her son Yitzhak on Mount Moriah, that his life had come within a whisper of the knife, she screamed. Six times she screamed, the sages say, cries so raw that they became the source of the shofar blasts we blow until this day. She did not go numb. She did not go quiet. Her body could not bear the weight of what had almost been, and she died before she could finish crying.
‘Abraham and Isaac’ painting, Rembrandt, 1634. (credit: Wikimedia Commons)
‘Abraham and Isaac’ painting, Rembrandt, 1634. (credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Sarah’s scream was a refusal. A refusal to normalize near-death. A refusal to surrender a child’s life as collateral damage. A refusal to accept silence where there should be intervention. She screamed because someone had to. And so must we.

In the aftermath of each tragedy, people ask, often quietly, often painfully--Are we just supposed to accept this? I don’t pretend to know all the answers. But I know this: Parents are not passive participants. When we send our children to serve, we are offering up something more sacred than words can capture. And with that offering comes the hope, sometimes the desperate hope, that everything possible is being done to protect them.

Israel’s army has remarkable tools at its disposal: drones, robots, remote-controlled bulldozers, advanced surveillance, and more. These technologies exist for one reason above all others: to save lives. I pray that they are being used to their fullest capacity, as consistently and thoroughly as circumstances allow.

Still, like many parents, I find myself wondering. Are we using everything we can, every single time? Are we slowing down when caution calls for it? Are we doing all that we can to give every soldier the best chance of coming home?

These are not accusations. They are the quiet, trembling questions of people who have placed their trust and their children in the hands of a nation they love.

When I sent my son to serve this country, I entered into a kind of covenant. Not a formal agreement, but a sacred one. A covenant of blood, love, of loyalty, of immeasurable trust. I gave him to the State, believing that those in charge would do everything they could to give him back.

I don’t expect perfection. No one can. I know how complex this war is. I know how much weight rests on the shoulders of our soldiers and commanders. But I also know the difference between what cannot be helped and what might be prevented. I am simply asking that we lean, always, toward prevention. That we treat every decision as if it holds a life in the balance, because it does.

This covenant is not symbolic. It is binding. And I am holding the State and the army to it. We are doing our part. We are sending what is most precious to us. And with that comes the expectation that every possible measure is being taken in return.

There was a time, not long ago, when parents sent their children to the army with a mixture of pride and trembling. There was fear, of course, but also faith: in the leadership, in the purpose, in the system we were entrusting them to. Giyus, or army enlistment, was a rite of passage infused with meaning, with unity, with dignity.

That trust feels more fragile now. Among many parents I know, the act of sending a child into combat no longer feels like a proud offering. It feels like an Akeidah without the faith. Fear and trembling, yes, but without the quiet certainty that someone, somewhere, is watching the knife.

And so we watch.

We hope.

We ask.

Not because we lack gratitude, but because we love too deeply to remain silent.

I do not want words of comfort.

I want action.

Caution.

Clarity.

I want my son to be protected not just by his vest and helmet, but by the full weight of a system that remembers what he is: a child of this country. A human life. Irreplaceable.

And I want to know, before he enters, that someone, somewhere, took an extra moment to make sure he could come home.

The writer has spent over two decades teaching Torah and Jewish thought in universities, high schools, and communities across the US and Israel.