We are anxious about an uncertain future and feel lonely as much of the world vilifies Israel and the Jewish people. These feelings are now the backdrop of many of our lives. While Israelis fight in Gaza, we all wrestle with the emotional agony of this war. Marc Eichenbaum explains that the wisdom of R. Jonathan Sacks (and much contemporary psychological research) teaches how to contend with our pain through embracing community.

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Writing from the Gaza front, Rabbi Avraham Stav considers words that lead men into battle from the Bible and Maimonides to Tolkien and Churchill. The charge to the troops must animate their fighting spirit and offer faith and trust in the ideals for which they risk their lives. In the current war, what gives Stav strength is not so much the knowledge that God is fighting for us, but that we are fighting for Him. In this war we are aware that there are values greater and higher than life itself.