Today, September 1st, is the first day of school in Israel. All across the country, children of every age will sling backpacks over their shoulders, filled with sharpened pencils, new notebooks, and a sense of possibility. There is joy in beginnings: fresh clothes, fresh books, fresh dreams. At the same time, September 1st carries with it a scar. On this date last year, as parents prepared their children for the year ahead, Israel received the devastating news that six hostages, abducted by Hamas on October 7th, had been brutally murdered. Their bodies were returned, and the nation buried them as our children stepped out into their own futures.
The contrast was excruciating. How does one send a child off with prayers for success while mourning the violent loss of someone else’s child? The two realities collided: hope and horror, beginnings and endings, celebration and grief. That tension has not gone away. It is the Jewish condition, to walk with joy and terror in the same heartbeat.
One year later, I return to words spoken by Rachel Goldberg Polin, mother of Hersh. For months she carried a mantra, whispered to her son in captivity:
We love you. Stay strong. Survive.
When she stood at Hersh’s funeral last September, after his body was finally returned to Israel, she repeated those same words. They are not only a mother’s cry, they are the nation’s cry. And they resonate with one of the most important commands in the Torah: Chazak ve’amatz, be strong and courageous.
But here is the question: How does the Bible expect us to be strong when everything around us feels broken?
The book of Deuteronomy gives us an answer. As Moses stands before the nation, preparing them to cross into the Land of Israel without him, he repeats again and again:
Strength in the Torah is not grit in isolation. It is not merely psychological endurance or national bravado. It is found in the unshakable presence of God. It is the faith that God Himself walks alongside His people.
Rachel Goldberg Polin’s cry to her son, Stay strong. Survive., channels that same truth. It does not deny pain. It acknowledges it in full. Yet it insists that survival is possible because something deeper, something eternal, is sustaining us.
This is why Israel can send its children off to school with kisses on their heads even as we bury hostages wrapped in flags. It is not because grief has disappeared. It is because life must go on, and our covenant with God demands that life go on. The Torah does not ask us to choose between mourning and joy. It commands us to hold them together.
This tension appears throughout Jewish history. At every wedding, the groom breaks a glass to recall the destruction of the Temple. At every Pesach Seder, we dip parsley in salt water to remember tears even as we celebrate redemption. At every funeral, we recite Kaddish, a prayer not of death but of God’s greatness. The Torah trains us to live with both truths simultaneously.
And here is the deeper point: strength in the Bible is not the absence of weakness. Strength is faith expressed in action. When God commands chazak ve’amatz, He is telling us: do not let fear freeze you. Do not let despair paralyze you. Move forward into the land, into life, into the unknown, because I am with you.
That is the message that reverberates from Rachel Goldberg Polin’s words. Hersh, trapped in captivity for months, never heard his mother’s voice during that time. Yet her words were real, carried by a nation that refused to forget him. They are the modern echo of Moses’ charge to Joshua, of God’s charge to Israel.
So what does this mean for us, standing today, one year later? It means that survival is not passive. It is an act of courage. To love your child enough to pack their lunch while the country mourns is courage. To return to school, to work, to prayer, to song, this is the courage God demands of us. Not denial of grief, but faith-filled endurance in the midst of it.
The Bible’s command is clear. Chazak ve’amatz. Be strong and courageous. Not because it is easy, not because the world is safe, but because God Himself has sworn never to forsake His people.
Rachel Goldberg Polin’s words and Moses’ words meet across the centuries. We love you. Stay strong. Survive. These are not only for Hersh. They are for all of us. For the children walking through school gates today. For the parents clutching the photo of a son still a hostage. For a nation that must live and mourn, weep and rejoice, in the same breath.
Strength is not pretending we are unbroken. Strength is knowing Who carries us when we cannot carry ourselves. That is why Israel still lives. That is why we will prevail.
