Outside, there was chaos. Inside, Sapir awaited death. She heard a vehicle race up to the outside door, heard soldiers disembarking and approaching. “I just continued saying my perek, over and over. And strangely, I felt an inner peace that defied understanding. Was I calm because I was about to die, or because I was about to be saved?”

The terrorists shot through the door’s lock and stormed in, hurling furniture and other items. Sapir heard them attacking Sasha, heard his desperate screams from her hiding place. Moments later they unrolled her blanket and her horrified gaze met theirs.

“They took me outside in my pajamas, and I saw Sasha on the ground, on his knees with his hands behind his head, his face bloodied. It looked like they were about to finish him off. They pushed me onto a motorcycle, seated me between two terrorists and drove me around the kibbutz. The last thing I saw as they drove me off the kibbutz was Sasha trying to run away, and then I heard gunshots in his direction.”

As the motorcycle exited the kibbutz gates toward Gaza, a Gazan took the liberty of snapping a picture of Sapir on the back of the motorcycle, wedged between two terrorists. Despite the shame this engendered, two weeks later this picture was discovered on an American news outlet and via intricate identification techniques, provided salient proof that Sapir was indeed alive and among the hostages.

Sasha’s mother and grandmother were also taken hostage that morning. Tragically, his father was killed.

With disgust, Sapir describes the role “innocent Gazan citizens” played in the massacre and hostage taking. “There were countless Gazans who came to steal, to kill. They pillaged every home on the kibbutz, taking televisions, money, anything they got their hands on. Tractors, cars….”

Their frenzied thievery provided some black humor. When the army arrived and assessed the damage, they found an incongruous scene in the suite Sapir had used. An empty container of cottage cheese rested on the table. “Sapir, how did you have time or the appetite to eat cottage cheese the morning of the invasion?” she was asked after she returned home to Israel.

Sapir snickers. “You really think I ate that cottage cheese? After I was abducted, the Gazans who ransacked the place took a break to have a snack. Many homes were found with half-eaten meals left on the tables. Who do you think had those meals, the kibbutz residents at six a.m. under heavy mortar fire? It was the Gazans.”

Born and raised in a traditional family in Haifa, Sapir’s family observed Yom Kippur and basic kashrus. Sapir believed in Hashem and recognized that He was responsible for everything that transpired, going so far as to attribute everyday mishaps to her own lax observance. Ten years ago, her family embraced a closer commitment to Yiddishkeit, and her parents began incorporating more mitzvos into their life.

This climate of belief in Hashem explains Sapir’s response to an inexplicable feeling of dread that enveloped her spontaneously, a month before October 7.

Around six months before she was kidnapped, Sapir began experiencing a feeling of impending doom, as if something terrible was going to happen, but she had no explanation or context for her feelings. “I stopped doing anything I felt could be dangerous. For example, I refused to drive because I was sure something terrible would happen,” she explains. “Time passed and nothing happened, but the feeling of doom just got worse. I thought maybe I was developing some sort of illness, that my body was incubating something dangerous without my knowing. I made the rounds between doctors and was tested for various sicknesses. Finally, a doctor discovered that I had a virus that could be potentially dangerous, but that we’d caught it early enough to be treatable.”

At first, Sapir was relieved to have discovered the cause of her anxiety and agitation. But despite the doctor’s reassurance that she’d be fine, Sapir was sure her illness was far more dangerous than he admitted — her sense of doom was too overwhelming to be attributed to something simple and treatable. “I sensed that a disaster awaited me, something that only G-d could protect me from. I was in such a state of panic that I felt I had to pray. I started looking for a tefillah to say for refuah sheleimah, but I had no idea of what was appropriate for illness.”

The answer came from a most unlikely place. “I saw an advertisement featuring a perek of Tehillim that claimed to have special segulot if someone said it for thirty consecutive days. It said the person would be healthy and experience miracles. This was the exact description I was looking for.”

The tefillah she’d discovered was none other than perek 27, “L’dovid Hashem ori v’yish’i.” Sapir began reciting her perek on 21 Elul.

“I had no idea what the perek meant, or that it was customary to say it during this time, I simply started saying it every day.  After a short time, I knew the tefillah by heart, without having made a conscious effort to memorize it. I was actually surprised that I’d memorized it. I’m not the type to remember things, especially a tefillah with words I wasn’t familiar with.”

Approximately a week before October 7, Sapir had a startling realization. The perek she’d been saying daily to merit a refuah sheleimah didn’t speak about health or healing! On the contrary, it rumbled with undertones of war, enemies, and adversity. What was she saying? Why had this tefillah, specifically, insinuated itself into her daily routine? “At that point I asked myself, unequivocally, what war I was praying to be rescued from? I wasn’t sure if it was a war with Israel, or a personal war, but I knew there was a war on the horizon.”

ATthe moment Sapir realized she was being abducted instead of killed, “I erased every thought and simply said, ‘Thank G-d I’m alive. I’ve been given the gift of life, I have an unprecedented opportunity to live.’ And at every road we crossed, every turn we took on that motorcycle, I repeated my perek again. At that point, I already understood that this perek of Tehillim was connected to my survival.”

In the iconic picture, Sapir is seen straight-backed, with her head held high. “I wanted to see everything that was happening to me. And I wanted to ensure that if someone took my picture, they’d see my face and tell my mother I was alive.”

Initially, Sapir feared she was the only hostage taken, that all the others had been killed. She was utterly relieved at encountering other hostages, “because now there would be enough pressure exerted to release all of us. If I were the only captive, or if there were very few of us, I don’t believe we’d ever have left.”

Sapir’s initial reaction to captivity was understandably grim. “I wondered, ‘Why am I here? What cruel fate brought me here?’ The conditions were unbearable. You were always hungry, your stomach hurt from hunger. You didn’t see the light of day. If you were in the tunnels, it was hard to breathe, there was no air. I kept thinking, ‘Why are these terrible things happening to me?’ ”

However, it didn’t take long for a paradigm shift to set in. Drawing on her innate sense of Divine destiny, Sapir said to herself, “You aren’t here randomly. It can’t be that all the pieces of this puzzle — the feelings of dread, my illness, the perek I chose that spoke of war — don’t connect.”

It has to be that, “l’kol davar yesh matarah,” Sapir said to herself. For everything, a purpose. “But what could the purpose here be? Why am I here? True, everything seems bad, but is there perhaps something good that can be discerned from the destruction?

“And then I realized that I was the only one from our small group of hostages who had the ability to be optimistic and hopeful.” 

Nothing in Sapir’s early life indicated she would be capable of speaking to crowds, sharing her macabre odyssey in Gaza. Nothing in her mild manner alludes to her capacity to have not only survived, but to have served as a beacon and support to the others she encountered in captivity. Sapir’s story is precisely that: a tribute to untapped capabilities that lie beneath the surface, undiscovered, until the eleventh hour.

As a child, Sapir was shy, introverted. She was often frustrated by her inability to express herself in public. “People who knew me then are very surprised that I now travel around, speaking in public. That was never something I could do,” she says. But her childhood reticence also worked to her advantage; she’d studiously watch people around her and tweak her own behavior based on her observations. This skill would serve her well.

In an effort to temper her diffidence, Sapir enrolled in acting classes. Then, after a short stint studying law, she pivoted toward a degree in computer programming. This was less of a fit for her, and Sapir was concerned about passing the courses. She turned to Hashem for help. “I remember saying, ‘G-d, please help me with this degree, and I promise I will help every one of my fellow students who asks.’ ”

It was a bold commitment, but her promise infused her with motivation to succeed. More importantly, true to her word, she assisted anyone who asked, answering her fellow students’ questions and helping them understand the material, regardless of the time it involved. Sapir saw how her pledge was the impetus for her own success — she’d research material to help answer her friends’ questions, and it would be that material that was prominently featured on her tests. Sapir credits her success to the promise she made to Hashem, and she graduated with the highest honors.

“I can’t be sure,” Sapir says, “but in captivity, I recalled the promise I’d made years ago when I was studying computer programming, when I vowed to be the person who would give to others. I asked myself, if it worked then, what are the chances it will work again? I was determined to try to give of myself to my fellow hostages.”

Her first opportunity wasn’t long in coming. One of her fellow captives was a young girl who sat with her eyes covered, crying. When their captors delivered food, Sapir turned to the girl and said, “Look at the delicious food they brought!”

The girl categorically refused to eat. But Sapir gently encouraged her, reasoned with her, told her jokes and stories, and gradually drew her out. The girl ate, she shared, she lived. She was freed in one of the first hostage releases.

“This is what gave me strength, seeing that I could extend good to others, bring people out of their depressive state, introduce laughter, jokes, and good feeling. To take adversity and transform it into something good.”

Essentially, Sapir’s captivity was characterized by a mantra she adopted for herself. With the uncertainty of death trailing them constantly, Sapir asked herself, “If I’m going to die here, what do I want to do with the short time I have left? I realized I wanted to do something mashma’uti, something significant. I guess I never really felt I’d done anything significant in my life, and now I wanted to start.

“I decided to stop counting the days, to stop thinking of what will be, of when I may die, and to simply focus on the present and do what I can. To do something mashma’uti with my time here. I realized that what I could do was share hope, and to unite the hostages who were with me, so no one would be inclined to retreat into themselves, no one would sit in their own corner, alone.”

And this was precisely what Sapir did. “When I stopped focusing on myself, on how awful my personal situation was, but instead shifted my focus to how I could do good for this person, how I could get more food for that one, I suddenly found I had the strength I needed to survive.”

Here she shares a hard-won insight: “There’s nothing greater than knowing you are a ben adam mashma’uti, a significant person.”

Sapir engaged in her quest to “do something significant” in many creative ways. She organized games for the hostages to play together. She initiated interesting conversation, told jokes and stories and encouraged her fellow hostages to share as well. And she knew just how to spin a tough situation to unearth its comical, engaging side.

“I remember the hostages were terrified to be forced into the tunnels. So I told them, ‘Look, if we’re already in Gaza, we have to visit the number one attraction here! The tunnels have been spoken about for years, let’s go see what they’re really like!’ ”

Her attempts at uniting the captives proved so successful, on numerous occasions she noticed the terrorists looking on with obvious yearning and jealousy. She had created an atmosphere of inclusivity and love that demonstrated to her captors the indomitable spirit of the Jew.

Perhaps what was most outstanding about Sapir’s “something significant,” was that sharing hope and uniting others were traits she was unfamiliar with; she’d never encountered these capabilities in her 30 years of life. “People used to tell me that there was no bigger egoist than me,” she laughs. “I was never the one to unite others, to organize activities.”

But the past was irrelevant; Sapir’s only thoughts now were, “I’m here in captivity for a reason, and this is the reason I’ve found.”

All along the way, Sapir maintained her commitment to her perek; she recited it daily, and again whenever she was moved to a new hideout. On the whole, she kept her practice private. Only once did she share her perek, incongruously, with one of her Hamas captors. “One of the terrorists asked if I was a Jew. I told him I was. He asked if I pray. I said yes. ‘So tell me one of your prayers,’ he demanded. I started saying my perek, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t understand the Hebrew, with all its allusions to winning wars, and being saved.” She laughs.

Sapir’s extraordinary role in encouraging her fellow hostages didn’t escape the attention of her captors. One of the terrorists, an individual Sapir had engaged in conversation in attempts to gain better conditions and treatment, drew a picture of a yahrtzeit candle and penned her name on it. Sapir was incensed. “I asked him, ‘Why did you draw this? Do you want to kill me?’ He said, ‘I hate you, we’re enemies. But here, you spread light,’ and he pointed to the picture he’d drawn. ‘Wherever you go, you bring light.’ ”

After spending 55 days in captivity, Sapir’s release was remarkably anticlimactic. “I found out I was being released ten minutes before it happened. They told me, ‘Ninety percent chance, you’re going home.’ I didn’t pin my hopes on them — it had happened too many times before that they’d told us, ‘You’re going home,’ only to come back and say, ‘Actually, they don’t want you back in Israel, so you’re staying here.’ But when I saw the person who’d escorted the other released hostages show up, and say ‘Sapir, you’re going home,’ I knew it was real.”

Leaving her fellow hostages was painful. It was primarily men who were left behind, and many of them were in seriously compromised emotional states. “Many of them had come into captivity after seeing their families brutally murdered, their children, their wives, slaughtered before their eyes. They saw some of the most incomprehensible things. They didn’t necessarily know what had become of their friends and relatives. I had left my family safe in Haifa, but these men weren’t as fortunate. I’d hoped they would be freed before me.”

These were precisely the people Sapir had invested in so heavily, cheering them up, engaging them in conversation and games. These were the people for whom she was that “adam mashma’uti,” that significant person doing significant things. These hostages were the reason she was able to maintain her optimism, her strength, to survive. And now she was leaving them. “They had tears in their eyes when I left,” she shares with evident pain.

“They asked me not to forget them, and I told them I was sure they’d be freed tomorrow.” 

Perhaps it’s a reaction to the discord she believes caused the war, or perhaps it’s the power the hostages generated and demonstrated in their own unity. In truth, the “why” is irrelevant. Because from her unique vantage point, Sapir’s call for achdus, for harmony from within, is exceedingly valuable, regardless of its origin.

“When I was still in Gaza, one of the terrorists said, ‘When the Jews are united, they’re very, very, very strong.’ This is what a terrorist said, but not to compliment us. They’re waiting for us to misuse this strength because then we destroy ourselves. And they said that very soon, there’s going to be tremendous upheaval in Israeli society,” Sapir says knowingly. “And here we have it. To our great detriment, we’re back to fighting with each other all over again.

“When they see us fighting, when they see the rifts in Israeli society widen, they don’t feel they have to do more than just sit back and watch. We’re doing the work for them. They keep a finger on the pulse of Israeli media, and they choose their next move based on us. When they see us fighting, when they see our hatred toward each other, they recognize that they don’t have to hurry to the negotiating table. We’re doing the dirty work for them.”

Sapir suggests that when Hamas released the first rounds of hostages, it was in response to the unity they saw displayed in the Israeli media. They felt compelled to react to the strength we embodied as a united nation. Unfortunately, that honeymoon phase didn’t continue. And neither did the release of captives.

What is real unity? Sapir dismisses the notion of each side retreating quietly to their corner, terrified of triggering their counterpart, as an expression of true achdus. “In a strange sense, protests can bring more unity,” she explains. “The irreligious person comes with his views, the religious person with his views, and they are forced to talk and to listen, and to hear each other. That’s far better than each faction sitting at home without any communication between the sides.”

Sapir shares a pet peeve of hers: “I speak at many events with religious and chareidi Jews, and frequently, when I speak about unity, someone from the audience calls out, ‘Now go to the leftists and tell them to start keeping Shabbos, this is all their fault!’ And I answer that it’s precisely because of this reaction that we’re in this situation today.’ ”

Sapir suggests that we focus on tolerance and on actively listening to and hearing people who think differently from us. This, she maintains, is the foundational building block to living as a united people. Additionally, she finds that forcing people to embrace mitzvos is highly counterproductive. “You can’t force someone to keep Shabbos. There are miles to travel before you get anywhere close to convincing someone to adopt your lifestyle. Put away your agenda, pull out your capacity for tolerance, be the mature person in the room, and simply sit down. And listen.”

After Sapir returned from captivity, numerous people shared things they had done as a merit for her release. Whether it was keeping Shabbos, making a brachah, saying Tehillim, or volunteering, myriad zechuyos were collected on her behalf. “When I heard that, I finally understood a phenomenon I’d seen while I was in Gaza. While I was there, I felt I was surrounded by so many malachim, and I saw many outright miracles. I didn’t understand where they came from. But when I came back and saw what so many others had done for me, I understood that my instinct in Gaza was correct. Countless people put their differences aside and united to do things in my merit. I saw unity between chareidim and chilonim, and even unity in branches of my own family that had never spoken to each other. In fact, they said that in the zechus of what we did together, for you, we’ve become a real family.”

We need to go back to that, Sapir pleads. It’s the only thing that can save us.

To Follow Him

Ziva answers the heavy double doors and I immediately note the artistic touches expressed in every corner of Sapir’s parents’ home. Abstract paintings line the walls of the living room, a vase constructed of tree branches graces a corner of the dining area. Even the front doors, magnificently etched with metal and wood, are testament to an appreciation for offbeat beauty.

Ziva’s smile practically leaps off her face and I am immediately taken with this thin, energetic, and effusive woman. She speaks with rapid confidence, her words direct and precise. Avi sits at her side, a tall, serious man whose manner is far more deliberate. His philosophical bent is evident; nearly every one of his comments is layered with meaning. Yet despite their contrasting natures, it is abundantly clear that this couple shares a deep mutual respect and love for each other, for Sapir, and for their Creator.

While Sapir’s survival hinged on her ability to be a significant person for someone else, Avi and Ziva’s ability to contend with a parent’s worst nightmare centered on their trait of bitachon. In a sense, it was as if they’d been preparing for this test their entire lives.

For the last 16 years, Avi has been compiling a peirush on Chumash, spending up to ten hours a day on this project and filling stacks of notebooks. As his life’s work, it provides him with the spiritual nourishment he seeks. He is also deeply inspired by Toras Hasod and relies on many of its principles to guide him.

Several years ago, Ziva was struggling to find meaning in her life. She began listening to shiurim and found them satisfying a need she hadn’t been aware of before. She began to work on her emunah and bitachon in Hashem and slowly adopted an entirely new perspective on her life.

From the start, Ziva and Avi’s immense bitachon set them apart. “We were sure Sapir would return,” Avi says. “For us it was simply a question of how this nisayon would change her.”

On the morning of October 7, when reports of the Hamas attacks began filtering in, Avi was in shul. Initially, he didn’t digest the implications in relation to his daughter. In the interim, Sapir’s friends contacted Ziva and informed her of the attack at Nir Oz, and that they hadn’t been able to contact Sapir. “But I didn’t panic or experience fear,” she notes. “Perhaps all the years I’d been working on bitachon finally came to fruition, ‘min hakoach el hapoel.’ ”

Initially, there was no confirmation that Sapir had been taken hostage. The army notified them that Sapir’s cell phone had been located in Gaza, but they had no conclusive information as to her whereabouts. For two weeks, she was officially listed as missing.

Avi interjects, “Nonetheless, we knew she was alive. Her entire life, HaKadosh Baruch Hu had held her hand, she was successful in every endeavor. There was no chance He would abandon her now. She is His kli, tool, who accomplishes for Him.” He qualifies his perspective: “We aren’t robots, and naturally, every so often, apprehension and worry snuck in. But on the whole, when we put HaKadosh Baruch Hu first, and everything else is secondary, your perspective changes. It’s as if He gives you new glasses to see events through Him. And then, although it’s natural to worry, you don’t.”

Avi and Ziva understood that something far greater was at work. “It wasn’t accidental that Sapir herself was taken, and that my daughter specifically was taken,” Avi explains, delineating between the two. “She was abducted because of herself, because of me, because of Ziva, because of all of us. We each play our part in greater picture.”

Two weeks later, the photo of Sapir was discovered in an American news outlet, and her identity was established. Now, Avi and Ziva were officially parents of a Hamas hostage. Nonetheless, their demeanor didn’t change. Ziva recalls a neighbor who noticed Avi, a Kohein, duchaning in shul. “Is it true that he’s the father of a hostage?” he asked himself in disbelief. Avi wasn’t crying, and didn’t fit his profile of a father whose daughter was captive in Gaza. After confirming with Avi that he was indeed Sapir’s father, the neighbor invited him to say Tehillim at the home of a neighbor. Avi invited them to his home instead, where his wife could join the Tehillim. This gesture was the beginning of a study and tefillah group, where 15 women gathered every evening at Ziva and Avi’s home, for three hours of shiurim and tefillah for Sapir’s return. The group met for 40 days, until Sapir’s release.

For Ziva, this group was Heaven-sent. “I remember telling these women that despite the circumstances that brought us together, these are the best days of my life. I told them that I’d never understood the purpose for my existence, but now I’ve found such meaning, such depth in my life. I’m so fortunate.” Ziva’s gratitude even brought her to recite Mizmor L’sodah several times daily during the period of Sapir’s captivity.

Avi and Ziva’s positivity was deliberate. Ziva refused to listen to the news, and allowed Avi a brief two-minute daily peek at the headlines. “People tried to share information with me, but I told them not to. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I have what I need from the Borei Olam, your information isn’t relevant to me, nothing down here, not protests or the like, determines outcomes, it’s irrelevant.’ ”

Ziva’s shiurim were based on the Torah of the Baal Shem Tov, and a great premium was placed on living with simchah. Avi explains: “The idea was that with your simchah, you relay positive energy, even all the way to Sapir in Gaza. If you engage in sadness, that is broadcast to her instead. We don’t want to give power to negative forces that could impact Sapir.”

He likened Tehillim to a bridge that connects people on a subconscious spiritual plane. The Tehillim emanating from the women’s group was in a sense nourishment for Sapir. “When we spoke with her after her release and she described the sense of confidence and hope that she spontaneously experienced, that was the work of the Tehillim that connected her to the people here.”

Actions speak louder than words. Avi and Ziva didn’t just speak bitachon, it informed their behavior and the things they did while Sapir was held hostage. Ziva encouraged her study group to plan the mesibat hoda’ah they would have when Sapir returned. “We discussed the music we’d play, the table decor, the food we’d serve, everything!”

Ziva shopped for an outfit for the party, and bought clothing for Sapir as well. She also purchased other items she knew Sapir needed or would appreciate, and arranged them on her bed, in anticipation of her return.

When Sapir’s work colleagues came to visit, Ziva, noting their miserable expressions, invited them in with a huge smile and explained, “This is the way you come into my home.” Her reframe was something they appreciated, and they stayed to discuss topics relating to the Borei Olam and emunah. When they asked what they could do for Sapir, with the implications being political activism, Ziva demurred. Instead, she suggested they choose pirkei Tehillim to say on behalf of all the hostages and all of Am Yisrael. Sapir’s colleague immediately agreed, galvanizing all 400 of his workers to undertake this project.

“This is what we tried to do during this entire period,” Ziva relates. “Imagine all of the efforts people took on for Sapir as a rock thrown into a pond,” she explains. “The ripples are still spreading. So many people accepted upon themselves different mitzvot, and these effects are still spreading, triggering further commitment to avodat Hashem.”

Avi sums up their approach to this chapter in their lives: “When Sapir was taken hostage, we understood we were in the midst of a nisayon, and our responsibility was to understand the nature of the nisayon, and how to remain strong throughout. HaKadosh Baruch Hu does what He does, and we can’t come with complaints to Him. We don’t understand why He does things, the same way we don’t entirely understand why He created us. Our job is simply to follow Him.”

Please daven for the safe release of Alexander Sasha ben Lena Leah, along with the rest of the hostages in Gaza.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 890)