Finding meaning imprisoned in Gaza’s tunnels

Sapir Cohen and Sasha Troufanov were two of the Israelis seized on October 7, 2023, and taken to Gaza. Sapir was released after 55 days, and Sasha was released after 498 days. Sapir spent almost all her imprisonment in the tunnels, while Sasha spent half of his imprisonment above ground and half below, almost entirely in solitary confinement. Yesterday, they spoke at our local Chabad synagogue, and what they said is worth sharing.

Sapir and Sasha are both tech people (he actually worked for Amazon). They met on a dating app, although Sapir had decided on October 6, as they were driving to visit his parents at Kibbutz Nir Oz for the weekend, that she wanted to break up with him.

Sapir describes herself as on October 6 as apolitical, ignorant about the world around her, and mostly secular, although she believed in God. A looming sense of existential anxiety had sent her looking for God, and, for 30 days—ending on October 6—she had done a daily prayer asking God to deliver her from her enemies.

Meanwhile, Sasha, the son of Russian immigrants who had arrived in Israel when he was a small child, was totally secular. Sapir felt that Sasha’s constant complaining about his bad “luck”—a worldview without meaning or purpose—was so at odds with her growing search for meaning that their relationship could not continue.

And then, October 7 happened. The two were isolated from the rest of the Kibbutz in a small guest room when they heard sirens, followed by a barrage of rockets. They sheltered in a corner of the room under a bed. The rockets were soon followed by shouts of “Allahu Akbar,” screams, and the smell of smoke. (Of Nir Oz’s 400 residents, one quarter were killed, including Sasha’s father

There probably is not a simple answer there. I suspect herd mentality has a lot to do with it. Add to it the lack of knowing or understanding history, add a little hatred for Jews and a bunch of communist agitators can ramp up the hatred big time.

Just my guess.

But Hamas is unquestionably the bad guy here.

I never understood the student protest mentality, where some how or another young persons, not fully of a mature age yet, without any world experiences yet, can be a political force every one bows down to. The crap started in the 60’s.

Great article, thanks for posting it. It was interesting that she was on the verge of breaking off the relationship with him when they were taken hostage. Neither of them had a significant relationship with God. I found this to be a very powerful passage of explanation:

"...Before I get to that, let me interject here with a little Viktor Frankl. Frankl was a Viennese-born psychotherapist who was interned in Theresienstadt, where his father died of starvation and pneumonia, Auschwitz, where his mother and brother were gassed, Dachau, and Turkheim, a subdivision of Dachau. Meanwhile, his wife died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen (just as Anne Frank did).

Yet Frankl survived, and in 1946, he wrote Man’s Search for Meaning, explaining how he came out of the camps alive. According to Frankl, assuming people weren’t murdered, their survival depended on finding a purpose in life: completing a task, caring for another, or simply finding meaning in the suffering. As he wrote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way,” and “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”..."

I believe, as hard as that may be to actually do that in adverse situations, that it is true.

In 1942, Eddie Rickenbacker (The American "Ace of Aces" in WWI) was on a B-17 flight the government was sending him on to remote island outposts in the Pacific to look at operations and provide inspirational leadership. They ran out of fuel, ditched at sea, and the seven other survivors spent 27 days in the wastes of the vast Pacific Ocean before they were found, all nearly dying. If they had gone one more day, they likely would have perished.

They all survived.

And it was because Rickenbaker would not let them die. Because he would not let them die, constantly badgering them, making them sing, look for food, carry on conversation and would denigrate them for wanting to die, they all grew to hate him with a white hot burning passion.

They all individually determined to live in order to spite his contempt for their desire to die! And when they were rescued, they all unfailingly credited him, in exactly those terms, for saving them, even the pilot, a Lieutenant who greatly resented Rickenbacker while in the raft (and for the rest of his life) for impinging on his prerogatives and decision making, things that were his right as the pilot of the aircraft. (Granted, he was a 35 year old Lieutenant, so he had some life experience, but I would still have deferred to Rickenbacker who was an astoundingly qualified person in nearly every aspect of life from being a race car driver, ace fighter pilot, businessman, and head of an airline, and above all, was tougher than nails with an unbendable will.)

Hating someone enough the the emotion saves your life in adversity is about as base a reason as one can get, but...it is a reason nonetheless! My wife was a critical care nurse for years, and when she heard a patient say that they wanted to die...she was convinced that was it for them, that their days were numbered. I do believe having a purpose is a reason to live.

"...I never understood the student protest mentality, where some how or another young persons, not fully of a mature age yet, without any world experiences yet, can be a political force every one bows down to..."

I agree, but I understand why...I think.

All young people want to be older and treated as peers by adults even though they do not possess the life experiences that can mature and round out the perspectives and beliefs they might hold. More dangerously many (though not all) young people's minds are still forming, and they can be influenced and shaped.

There are people (such as Leftists in particular) who fully recognize this, and as a practice they attempt to exploit it as fully and deeply as possible.

It is why they begin indoctrination on children, flatter them, tell them how important they are, and offer them a figurative "seat at the table" in "adult matters".

It is why they have attempted to indoctrinate them with Climate Change, DEI, and Homosexuality at such young ages, because they can serve as scolds to pliant parents who won't stand up to them (or who hold those same Leftist beliefs themselves)

It is why they made someone like the execrable young Swedish scold, Greta Thunberg, one of their prime faces in the "Climate Change" movement.

And it is why they have, for years, been advocating for "Children's Rights" as low as the age of 13 to include voting rights, self-determination, the legal ability to enter into contracts, etc.

Because they are malleable and impressionable, and as targeted individuals, the Left can own them. They just cannot resist twisting those young, malleable minds.

Young people make great "Useful Idiots", and it is why people who never grow up, gravitate to Leftism and become "Useful Idiots".

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