By Anouchka Ettedgui, Staff Writer
When the Israeli hostages first emerged from Gaza, thin, shaking, eyes dull from a lack of exposure to sunlight, the world focused on the physical devastation. The shockingly small frames. The trembling hands. The way some blinked against daylight because it hurt. But very quickly, something else began to appear, quietly, subtly, like a glow under ash.
A faith that refused to die.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t the kind we practice at a Shabbat table or bring into a beit midrash. It was the kind forged in darkness, in hunger, in fear. The type of faith that appears only when everything else has collapsed, and the soul has nothing left to cling to except Hashem Himself.
Many hostages described whispering Tehillim (Psalms) in the tunnels, not out of religious obligation, but because the words rose from somewhere deeper than fear. One former hostage recalled singing “Shir Lamaalot” while tied up moments before his release. Another said he began making blessings over whatever food he was given, clinging to the smallest act of holiness. A third described whispering Shema Yisrael again and again, never knowing if each recitation might be his last.
In captivity, prayer became breath. It became an identity. It became a rebellion.
One hostage said he found a small, torn Tehillim buried under debris in a corner of the room he was kept in. The pages were ripped. Some were missing. The cover was half-burned. And yet, he held onto it as if it were life itself. He said reading even one pasuk from that ruined book felt like lighting a candle underground.
One survivor was careful to observe Shabbat and keep kosher throughout her time in captivity, refusing to eat any non-kosher meat she was given. “Despite the difficult conditions and the limited options, she chose to stay true to her faith,” said a fellow survivor who was held with her.
These are just some of the most striking stories from survivors. Hashem was not an abstract idea to them. He was the one constant they had, never abandoning them.
There were also the Yanuka stories that spread across religious communities, not through journalists, but through families, neighbors and those who witnessed them firsthand. Before October 7, several hostages had received blessings from the Yanuka, Rav Shlomo Yehuda Be’eri, a mystic and teacher known for his musical gifts, his blessings, and the deep spiritual comfort people seek from him. Some families said their children remembered his voice or his melodies in captivity, even though they had only heard them once. One of the hostages spoke with the Yanuka, and he told him, “I have a request, I want to meet you, I want to thank you in person for everything you have done.”
The father of another survivor said he had gone to the Yanuka while his son was still held captive. Broken, helpless, and desperate for guidance, he asked him what he could do to help the hostages from afar. The Yanuka told the released hostage gently, “I told your father to read the story of Yosef and Yaakov, and b’ezras Hashem, you’ll reunite with him.” The father did exactly that.
When his son was released, his father told him what the Yanuka had told him to do. And the son began to cry. He said it was the only story that the terrorists allowed him to watch in Arabic, not knowing they were learning the same story across two different worlds, one in the tunnels and one in the light. The father later said he realized that even in captivity, his son had never been spiritually alone. Their prayers met each other halfway.
Call it psychology, call it miraculous spiritual protection, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it kept their souls alive.
In our world, faith is a choice. We turn to it for comfort or inspiration, fitting it neatly between work, classes and everyday life. But in the tunnels, faith was not a choice. It was a lifeline. And a lifeline does not need to look organized or fit into normal expectations; it just has to hold.
It’s one thing to believe in Hashem when life is normal. When you can light candles, when you can sit in a beit midrash, when you can reach for a siddur whenever you feel like it. It’s another thing entirely when you have nothing, no light, no food, no calendar and no certainty, and somehow your soul still remembers who you are.
The hostages didn’t have a regular Shabbat experience. They didn’t have mezuzot. They didn’t have song or learning. They didn’t even have the freedom to speak, and yet, they remembered Hashem. They remembered prayer. They remembered the words their parents whispered to them as children. They survived by clinging to the last thing they had left: the spark that cannot be stolen.
The hostages’ testimonies reveal something essential about the Jewish soul: it does not break.
You can lock a Jew in a tunnel, starve a body and strip away every physical comfort, yet you cannot imprison a neshama (soul). In the deepest darkness, when everything else was taken from them, that stubborn, glowing, eternal part inside them fought back. Their captors underestimated the one thing they could never touch: the inner faith and identity that has carried our people through every exile and every oppression. The hostages emerged bruised, thin and traumatized. But their neshamot walked out whole.
The survivors walked out with their faith, not because it wasn’t tested, but because it can not be extinguished.
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