For the past few weeks, we have been watching with bated breath as some of the Israeli hostages have emerged from the darkness of Hamas captivity in Gaza. Each release has brought stories that pierce the heart – tales of cruelty and deprivation, of children torn from parents, of elderly hostages denied medical care, of young women subjected to physical and psychological torture.
Among these incredibly emotional moments stands Agam Berger, a young female soldier whose story of spiritual resistance has captivated hearts across Israel and beyond. As other freed hostages told her waiting parents, Merav and Shlomi, their daughter had maintained her faith with extraordinary resolve during captivity. For fifteen grueling months, in a place designed to break the spirit, Agam found ways to track time and maintain the sacred rhythm of Jewish life.
“I chose the path of faith, and by the path of faith, I returned,” she declared upon her release, her words echoing through millennia of Jewish history. In the darkness of her imprisonment, this young Israeli woman illuminated an ancient truth: faith can be both anchor and compass in life’s darkest moments.
In Berger’s quiet acts of resistance, we see echoes of another young Jewish woman who once turned captivity into triumph – Queen Esther. Both women found themselves thrust into unimaginable circumstances, yet chose to cling to their faith like a lifeline. In Gaza, Berger refused to light fires or cook on Shabbat, defying her captors not with weapons but with unwavering devotion. She chose to abstain from meat entirely rather than compromise her kosher principles, transforming dietary restrictions into acts of spiritual resistance.
The parallels across time are haunting. Just as Esther had her seven handmaidens in the king’s palace – who our sages tell us helped her track the days to observe Shabbat – Berger too found ways to mark time’s sacred rhythm in a place designed to strip away all sense of normalcy. The ancient Megillah records that Esther received special consideration from Hegai, keeper of the women, who “assigned her seven maidens from the king’s palace”.
Today, we learn of Berger’s own quiet rebellion through the testimonies of other released hostages.
When Esther faced possible death for approaching the king unbidden, she responded with a call to spiritual arms: “Fast for me… If I perish, I perish”.
This wasn’t surrender – it was determination steeled by faith. Similarly, Berger’s choice to maintain religious observance under the eyes of terrorists wasn’t mere stubbornness. It was a declaration that some things run deeper than fear, some commitments stronger than threats.
The impact of such courage ripples through generations. Esther’s faith has became a cornerstone of Jewish survival, and now Berger’s spiritual resistance offers hope and inspiration to a world desperately in need of both. Her story reminds us that faith isn’t measured in grand gestures but in daily choices – in the quiet “no” to compromising one’s beliefs, in the steady determination to remain true to oneself even when everything else has been stripped away.
Her words, “I chose the path of faith” echo King David’s timeless psalm: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”
These aren’t just ancient verses but living truths, proven again in the crucible of Gaza’s darkness.
“By the path of faith I returned,” Berger testified. In those words, we hear the eternal story of Jewish survival – a story written not in triumphal declarations but in countless individual choices to keep faith alive when all other lights go out. In times that test the limits of human endurance, such faith becomes more than belief – it becomes a way home.
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