Faith in Captivity

Elia Cohen’s story of survival and spiritual strength.

Today is October 7th, marking two years since the war began. According to the Jewish calendar, this date falls on Simchat Torah — but that is a holiday of celebration, of dancing with the Torah scrolls, of joy. So let’s use this day to pause and remember.

I want to share with you the story of one of the hostages who was released — his name is Elia Cohen. On that Simchat Torah, two years ago, he attended the Nova music festival with his partner, Ziv. When the terror attack began, they fled to a roadside shelter. A Hamas terrorist threw a grenade inside, then entered and abducted Elia to Gaza. Elia had no idea what had happened to Ziv. That’s how he disappeared. Ziv survived the attack. Elia remained in captivity for 504 days.

He recounts that during that time, what gave him the strength to survive was faith. There were horrific moments — times when he had to drink salty water. He would think to himself: if I don’t drink, I’ll die. If I do drink, I might die anyway. He was living on the edge, in unbearable conditions.

One day, lying there alone, he thought: G-d, show me something. Give me a sign. Give me proof. I believe in You. I love You. I believe You will save me — but please, send me some sign of life. Something.

And then, suddenly, he heard something through the walkie-talkie of the guard — a Hamas soldier assigned to watch over him. The guard had fallen asleep, and the radio remained on. The signal was still open. It switched frequencies, and suddenly — Hebrew. It was Radio Darom, broadcasting from southern Israel. And through it, Elia heard the voices of mothers protesting. They were shouting that their sons must be brought home.

Until that moment, Elia had no idea what was happening in Israel. He hadn’t heard a single word from the outside world. He didn’t know if there were any efforts to rescue him, any results, any hope. The Hamas captors had told him repeatedly that no one cared about him back home. But those voices — the cries of the mothers at that massive protest — gave him strength. Suddenly, he had a sign. A sign from G-d. Proof that G-d hadn’t forgotten him. That someone was thinking of him.

Prayer in the Shadows

At some point, Elia was held with three other young men. The four of them spent a lot of time talking about faith — about G-d, about survival, about meaning. His friends would ask him, again and again: “How can you still believe in G-d after everything that’s happened to you?” And Elia would answer: “How can you not believe in G-d? After all this — we are alive. We exist. We go through — so much pain, so much fear — and still, we’re here.”

Every morning, Elia would wake up and pray. He would recite the Shema, and other prayers he remembered. He would pretend to put on tefillin — wrapping one arm over the other, mimicking the motions. Before captivity, he hadn’t put on tefillin every day. But he knew how. And in captivity — he wanted to. He deeply wanted to. So each day, he would go to a corner, simulate the act of putting on tefillin, and say the prayers that go with it.

One morning, one of Elia’s fellow captives turned to him and said, “You know what? I want to join you. You pray, and I’ll repeat after you. I don’t know the prayers so well — but I’ll pray with you.” And so, the two of them began to pray together. His friend, too, mimicked the act of putting on tefillin — wrapping his arm as if he were laying the straps. It wasn’t real tefillin, of course — but it was something. It was intention. It was connection.

Soon, the other two joined in. And what began as a solitary ritual became a shared practice. Every morning, the four of them would wake up, pretend to put on tefillin, and recite the prayers they remembered — together. This became their routine. Their anchor. Elia kept it up every single day — until the day he was released.

He says that this — this faith, this spiritual rhythm — is what kept him going. It gave him strength. And when he finally returned home, he began putting on tefillin for real. He embraced more mitzvot. Whenever he drinks a cup of water, he says the blessing of Shehakol.

He encourages others to do the same. There are other stories, too — of people who found G-d not in synagogues or study halls, but in the tunnels of Hamas. In the darkest hours, in the most broken places — that’s where they connected. That’s where the deepest bond was formed. As it’s written: “From the depths I called You, O G-d.”

Who Gets the Credit?

Now we find ourselves celebrating the holiday of Sukkot. Sukkot comes with two central mitzvot: one is the ritual of the Four Species — blessing the lulav and etrog each day. The other is dwelling in the sukkah, a temporary structure built before the holiday begins, where we’re meant to sit, eat, and even sleep throughout the week.

But this raises a deeper question: why do we sit in the sukkah at all? What are we meant to remember? On Passover, we recall the Exodus from Egypt. On Shavuot, we commemorate the giving of the Torah. So what exactly is the memory embedded in Sukkot?

The Torah tells us: “In sukkot I made the children of Israel dwell when I brought them out of Egypt.” G-d placed them in sukkot. This idea is rooted in the Book of Exodus, in the portion of Bo: right after the Israelites leave Egypt, the Torah says, “They journeyed from raamses and camped in Sukkot.” This is not the first time the word Sukkot is mentioned in the Torah. Earlier, in the book of Genesis, we read that Jacob traveled to a place called Sukkot, built himself a house, and made shelters for his livestock — hence the name of the place. In other words, the location was named Sukkot because they built actual sukkot there.

From this, we understand that when the Israelites left Egypt, the first place they arrived at was called Sukkot — and it was named that because they constructed huts. That’s the straightforward reason we build sukkot today: to remember those first steps into freedom.

There’s a famous debate between two great Talmudic voices — Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer.

Rabbi Akiva teaches that the Israelites dwelled in actual sukkot — physical huts — after leaving Egypt. According to his view, the sukkah we build today commemorates those simple, temporary shelters that our ancestors constructed in the desert immediately after their liberation. On the very first night, they arrived at a place called “Sukkot,” and that’s where they slept. The name wasn’t symbolic — it was descriptive. They built sukkot, and so the place was called Sukkot.

Rabbi Eliezer, on the other hand, offers a different perspective. He says the sukkot mentioned in the Torah refer to the Clouds of Glory — a miraculous divine protection that surrounded the Israelites for forty years in the wilderness.

These clouds shielded them from rain in the winter, from the blazing heat in the summer, and from the cold at night. They served as a wall, a shade, a shelter — a kind of heavenly canopy over an entire people.

There’s a similar idea we find in the Torah regarding Passover. In the Torah itself, the holiday is called Chag HaMatzot — the Festival of Matzot. And in our prayers, we refer to it that way too: “this Festival of Matzot.” But in rabbinic literature — in the Mishnah, the Talmud — it’s called Chag HaPesach, the Festival of Passover.

The Rebbe often brought the following insight of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev.

Why does the Torah call it Chag HaMatzot, while the sages call it Chag HaPesach?

He explained that when God speaks about the Exodus, He calls it Chag HaMatzot. What does matzah remind us of? It reminds us of how the Israelites left Egypt in haste, without time to bake bread. All they had was dough that hadn’t risen — and they baked it quickly into matzot. It was a moment of raw faith. They didn’t wait for certainty. They trusted God and walked out of Egypt with nothing but belief.

It’s like what God says through the prophet Jeremiah: “I remember the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal — how you followed Me into the wilderness, into a land not sown.” God remembers the trust the people had when they left Egypt — how they followed Him into the unknown. That’s why, when He refers to the holiday, He chooses to praise Israel. He highlights their courage, their faith, their willingness to go.

But when we speak about the holiday, we want to praise God. So we call it Chag HaPesach — Passover. What does “Pesach” mean? It refers to how God passed over the homes of our ancestors in Egypt. When He struck down the Egyptian firstborns, He skipped over the Israelite homes — the ones marked with blood on the doorposts and lintels. He spared them. He protected them.

So when we celebrate Passover, we’re giving credit to God. We’re remembering the miracle He performed for us. The kindness He showed us. That He passed over our homes — and saved us.

Maybe we can say the same thing in this dispute as well. Rabbi Akiva says we recall the actual huts — the fragile structures built with human hands, the first step into freedom. Rabbi Eliezer says we remember the miracle — the divine embrace that carried us through the desert.

Think about it: they had just left Egypt. Yes, they had been slaves — but not all of them, and not entirely. For months leading up to the Exodus, many had stopped working. They had homes. They had roofs over their heads. And suddenly, they were out. Free — but with nothing. No infrastructure. No privacy. They slept alongside their animals — cows, goats, sheep — all together. They had to build makeshift shelters, crude huts, whatever they could manage. And still — they went. They followed G-d into the unknown.

So when G-d tells the people to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot, He’s really asking: what do you want to remember? And the answer is — I want to remember the faith and trust you had when you left Egypt and sat in those sukkot. You didn’t complain. You kept walking.

Rabbi Eliezer the Great teaches that the sukkot we remember are the Clouds of Glory. Today, when we sit in the sukkah, we’re recalling how G-d sheltered us for forty years in the desert. Yes, on the first night they likely slept in actual huts, but for the rest of the journey — it was divine protection. The clouds shielded them from rain in the winter, from the scorching heat in the summer, and from the cold at night. They were a wall, a shade, a covering — a sacred canopy over an entire people. That’s what we want to recall.

We’ve just come through Rosh Hashanah — the Day of Remembrance. I once heard a Hasidic teaching that asks: what does it mean that God remembers? It means He remembers what we’ve forgotten.

If we remind Him of what He did — He reminds us of what we did. But if we stand before Him and say, “Look what I’ve done — this mitzvah, that good deed,” then He might remind us of what we didn’t do. But if we humbly say, “Here’s what I failed to do,” He’ll remember what we did right.

It’s the same here. Better to remind God of the miracles He performed — and then He’ll remind us of the sacrifices we’ve made.

It’s like a happy couple — each one giving the other credit for the success of their children. “It’s all thanks to my wife,” the husband says. And if he’s lucky — if he’s truly found an ezer kenegdo, a partner in the deepest sense — then she’ll give him a little credit too.

So whether we’re talking about the Clouds of Glory or the actual huts, one thing is clear: Sukkot is a holiday that expresses trust in God. We all have trust in G-d that this week will be the miracle of release of the hostages.