When giving up isn’t an option

As I watched the harrowing footage of Israeli hostages emerging from captivity, their faces etched with exhaustion yet radiant with an unmistakable glow, I couldn’t help but wonder: what fuels their unyielding resilience?

How do they manage to smile, laugh, and declare their determination to move forward despite the unimaginable trauma they’ve endured?

Take Agam Berger as just one example.

When 20-year-old Agam Berger, one of the young women recently released by Hamas in the hostage deal, was picked up by the Israeli military helicopter, she was handed a whiteboard and offered to write a message to everyone, in Israel and beyond, watching and waiting for her reunion with her family. Agam’s message began with, “I chose the path of faith, and in the path of faith I returned.”

This happened after a year of keeping Shabbos in captivity and refusing to cook and work for her captors on the day of rest! This wasn’t refusing a car ride with one’s friend to Sandton Mall on Saturday morning. This was saying no to her enemy, an enemy which seemed to hold all the power.

How in the world does someone do that?

There are many answers to this question. Faith. Purpose. Taking inspiration from people who have faced tough times. The power of the soul. The power of education. If you read up about Agam’s mother, Meirav, you will understand her daughter’s strength a bit more.

Yet, I believe that at least part of the answer lies in a profound realisation, one that has the power to transform our lives, no matter what challenges we face.

Resilience, you see, isn’t just about bouncing back from adversity, it’s about reaching a point where you understand that there’s no other choice but to show up, move forward, and rise above. It’s the unwavering conviction that failure isn’t an option, that the only direction is up.

We become resilient when we remove any other option because there really isn’t any other.

I’m reminded of one example within my family history, one that embodies the essence of resilience. My paternal grandmother, Cheyena Avtzon, lived through the unimaginable horrors of World War II. She witnessed the devastation of her community, the loss of loved ones, and the brutality of war.

Her mother died from starvation during the siege of Leningrad by the Nazis. Her younger brother died soon after. While trying to reserve a place in the Jewish cemetery for her mother’s burial, the earth was frozen, and my grandmother worried that with all the death taking place, somebody else would grab the few remaining graves in a Jewish cemetery. So, she slept in the frozen Russian winter cemetery for at least one whole long, unbearable, below-zero night. I heard a version that she slept there for more than a week! She suffered for the rest of her life from illness that came from this decision. But there was no choice other than to have her mom buried the right way.

Soon afterwards, her father realised that they had no choice but to cross the frozen river. They were lucky as others who tried to cross the river fell through the ice and drowned. Miraculously, they survived and then tried to avoid the Nazis by running through forests, eventually arriving in the Ural forests. The strain took its toll, and her father, a great Chassidic teacher and mentor, died as well on the road. She buried her dad.

She was left alone with her two younger sisters.

Eventually, she made it to Uzbekistan. She met my grandfather – 13 years older than her – and they got married.

Despite her unimaginable challenges, Cheyena Avtzon refused to be defined by her circumstances. Instead, she chose to move forward, rebuild, and create a new life for herself. There was simply no other choice.

The story gets even crazier.

She and my grandfather had a daughter while still living in the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). Then, she gave birth to five more children while living in displaced persons camps in France. When she and her husband, Rabbi Meir Avtzon, came to the United States, she expected a more advanced and patient-oriented approach to medical treatment.

How surprised she was that upon a visit to a gynaecologist, he adamantly told her that she should never consider having another child!

My grandmother tenaciously told the doctor that his job was to help women have children, not to count them or try to prevent them from having more. When she told the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory, about the doctor’s prognosis of the dangers that might arise in future pregnancies, the Rebbe answered with a vigorous blessing, promising her that she would have many more children.

Which she did. Nine more children subsequently joined the Avtzon family, including my dad. If you struggle with maths, I’ll spell it out. She had 15 children! More than 120 grandchildren! And you can only imagine the generations after that.

How does a woman who buried her own parents and siblings with her own hands go on with so much determination to rebuild the world lost, even bigger and better than before?

Faith – definitely in abundance. She had a strong “why”. And she had an incredibly strong character. She was no pushover.

And, she had no other choice. She didn’t allow herself to believe that there was another choice other than moving forward and upward.

We live in a world that celebrates choice. There are thousands of movie options on Netflix; 20 different jams in the supermarket; infinite places to live and emigrate to; limitless subjects to study; and a plethora of life choices and values to choose to live by. Everything is an option. Everything. And it is destroying us.

Choice is lovely and one of the great gifts of being human. But it comes with a price tag, which we often forget to highlight – too many options can immobilise us. The more choices we allow ourselves, the more confusion we allow into our lives.

One of the great gifts of religious observance is that for 25 hours a week – on Shabbos – the phone isn’t an option, it’s away. Ninety nine, point nine percent of restaurants aren’t an option – not kosher. Forgetting about G-d isn’t an option – prayer and blessings etc. You get the picture. When I choose to remove some choices from before me, I’m gifting myself the gift of clarity. I know what needs to be done.

When you marry someone, you are essentially saying no to every other person on the planet. They are no longer an option. And that’s a good thing. Choosing the path of resilience is saying no to any other option.

Let’s draw on our resilience, and face the challenges ahead. When we do, we’ll discover that the only direction is up and that together, we can overcome even the most daunting obstacles. We are so strong when we realise that weakness was never an option.

• Rabbi Levi Avtzon is the rabbi at Linksfield Shul.