Guest Post: A Never-Ending Week

Shiputzim family friend Sarah lives in Nof Ayalon – the small, tightknit community in central Israel that is also home to Naftali Fraenkel, 16, one of the three kidnapped teenagers.

Yesterday, Sarah posted a beautiful description on Facebook of what she and her neighbors have been feeling, and she graciously allowed me to share her post here:

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A Never-Ending Week

by Sarah

It’s been a never-ending week.

A never-ending week that started last Friday morning when we woke up to news that one of our boys had been kidnapped along with two other boys when traveling home from school.

Disbelief turned to shock as we grappled to comprehend. What sort of evil person kidnaps kids? And yet again this week, we have been surprised at how much cruelty there is in the world.

It’s been a never-ending week where we’ve been in constant never-ending pain, tears rolling down our cheeks, when we’ve walked around like zombies, when we haven’t been able to smile or laugh. The world goes on as if nothing has happened. Yet for us time stands still.

It’s been a never-ending week where suddenly people know where I live. No longer a small yishuv near Modiin.

It’s been a never-ending week where at every moment we have beseeched God. It’s been a week where I’ve discovered Tehillim and how comforting that the words express our feelings, our pain, and our hope.

It’s been a week where the three mothers have shown us unbelievable emunah, comforted us instead of us comforting them.

And it’s been a never-ending week where Am Yisrael stands strong, together. One family. A week with an incredible feeling of unity and support. A week that community after community around the world have come together in prayer.

A week that we pray, b’ezrat Hashem, will end with our boys coming home to their families, to Am Yisrael.

May Hashem bless our soldiers and keep them safe.

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Thank you, Sarah, and amen!

Please continue to daven and recite Tehilim for the three boys - Yaakov Naftali ben Rachel Devorah (Fraenkel), Gil-Ad Michael ben Bat-Galim (Sha’ar), and Eyal ben Iris Teshurah (Yifrach) - and also for the IDF forces who are working around the clock to rescue them.