On October 7, 2023, Sasha Troufanov and Sapir Cohen were taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas terrorists. They were dragged into Gaza, separated, and held in underground tunnels. Sasha’s father was murdered during the attack. Sapir was released in November 2023. Sasha was left behind — wounded, isolated, and imprisoned — for 498 days. He was shot in both legs, stabbed, beaten, and moved between cells with no sunlight, no contact, and no other Israelis. It was hell on earth.
This spring, Sasha was finally released. And just this week, he and Sapir got engaged.
It would be easy to read that as a hopeful headline. But this isn’t just a personal milestone, it’s a theological statement. After nearly a year and a half of darkness, they are choosing to build something sacred. They’re not pretending the horror didn’t happen. They are carrying it with them, and building anyway.
The Sheva Brachot, the seven blessings recited under the wedding canopy and throughout the first week of marriage, are often heard as formal or poetic. But they are more than ceremonial. These blessings were crafted to say something radical: that Jewish marriage is an act of spiritual rebuilding.
Take the seventh blessing:
“Sos tasis v’tageil ha’akara, b’kibutz baneha letocha b’simcha. Baruch Atah Hashem, mesameach Tzion bevaneha.”
“Let the barren one rejoice and be glad as her children are joyfully gathered to her. Blessed are You, Lord, who gladdens Zion through her children.”
The the barren one is not just a woman without children. It is Jerusalem after destruction. Zion without her people. This blessing is drawn directly from the prophet Yeshayahu, who describes the desolate city as a grieving mother. And then he tells her not to despair:
It’s not a metaphor for consolation. It’s a blueprint for defiance. The world may have emptied her out but she will not stay empty.
That’s what the seventh blessing declares. When a Jewish couple stands beneath the canopy, the ceremony doesn’t just bless their joy. It invokes the image of Jerusalem being rebuilt. The marriage is framed as a form of national return. The couple, in their personal covenant, is participating in something cosmic.
So when Sasha and Sapir stood together again, not in captivity, not in tunnels, but in the open air, among family and friends, planning a future, they were doing something that the Sheva Brachot have always pointed toward. They were turning survival into sanctity.
The sixth blessing draws the line even more clearly:
“Sameach tesamach rei’im ha’ahuvim, k’samechacha yetzircha b’Gan Eden mikedem.”
“Bring joy to these loving companions, as You gladdened Your creations in the Garden of Eden.”
The reference is to Adam and Eve, but the placement of the blessing matters. It comes right before the vision of Jerusalem’s rebirth. The liturgy is intentional: first we remember the ideal beginning, then we speak of the wreckage, and only then, joy. Not fake joy. Joy after desolation. Joy with memory.
That’s why the Sheva Brachot aren’t flowery or escapist. They are hard-earned. They don’t ignore suffering. They name it. They place it in the middle of the ritual and insist that it doesn’t get the last word.
Isaiah says it plainly:
The verse doesn’t just use marriage as a metaphor. It defines it as a process of national return. God doesn’t simply restore Israel’s dignity with borders and laws. He rejoices over her. That joy, intimate, human, emotional, is the proof that redemption is real.
This is the background music playing under every Jewish wedding. This is what the blessings are really saying. And this is what makes Sasha and Sapir’s engagement so powerful. They didn’t just return. They rejoiced. Not because their suffering is over. It isn’t. Not because everything is healed. It’s not. But because they are choosing, day by day, to turn trauma into something holy.
This is what Jewish marriage has always done. Not erase the pain, but insist on building anyway. Every marriage is a small act of resistance, against exile, against despair, against every empire that ever tried to scatter us.
Sasha and Sapir are not just a couple. They are a living blessing, a blessing recited not with wine, but with memory, with faith, and with the decision to begin again.
