Debunking Viral Claim About the Talmud and Minors
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Ofri’s profound experience of loss, grief, and trauma is helping her to inspire others to find strength in adversity.
On October 7th, Ofri Reiner was excited to enjoy her last day of vacation from the army. “Someone I had a crush on had asked me to go to the Nova festival. I immediately agreed.”
Ofri went with four of her friends, Timor, Nastia, Aviad, and Yael. Together they danced the night away. Amidst sweating and smiling, rockets began infiltrating the area at 6:29 am.
“To me, rockets are like peanuts, they come, they go and I was not really worried,” Ofri said in an Aish.com interview.
Timor began to panic and nudged everyone to get into the car. “When 3,000 people are all heading to their car,” Ofri explained, “it is complete chaos.”
They managed to get into the car and start driving. They approached a T intersection which only gave two choices: north or south. They chose north, only to come face to face with Hamas terrorists moments later. Hamas was shooting bullets in every direction.
Aviad, who was driving, made a U-turn and hit a car in the process.
Ofri found her phone, called her father and asked him to help guide them to safety by using the GPS location.
Driving south, Ofri and her friends arrived at the gate of a kibbutz hoping to enter to find safety. There was a civilian in front of the gate.
“We pulled up next to him and said, ‘Are you okay? Can we help you?’
He pointed at us and said, ‘Do you remember the car accident driving north? That was me! We need to exchange details.’”
Ofri and her friends were shocked! The girls raised their voices, “Really?! At a time like this, you are asking to exchange details?”
Ofri explained, “Aviad is a sweetheart and exchanged details to placate him.”
It took a while to exchange information and by the time they finished, another car came out of the gate and warned them not to enter the area – there were terrorists inside. The kibbutz they had wanted to enter was Kibbutz Beeri where 101 civilians were murdered.
“This was nothing short of a miracle,” Ofri said.
With the south and north blocked, the group had no option but to return to the parking lot.
There was an anxious silence in the car when Ofri grabbed Nastia’s hand and said, “I have to go to the bathroom, come with me!”
Ofri was looking for a private area to relieve herself when terrorists started shooting at her.
Ofri and Nastia managed to swiftly get back into the car. The group attempted to escape by driving into the potato field but after three bumps, the car got stuck.
Everyone got out and started running for their lives.
At the festival, Ofri had twisted her ankle. Every step was incredibly painful but she understood that if she fell between the cracks she would die.
“No one could have ever prepared me for the fear of death. I was like a deer running from a lion. I cannot explain the feeling.”
One thousand people were running through the potato field not knowing if they were getting closer or further away from the lurking danger. They ran 11 miles in the scorching sun for four hours. “After a full night of dancing and drinking my lips were so cracked that it felt like a microwave was on my mouth.”
At one point they came to an orange field. Although the oranges were green, Ofri described it as the best orange she ever tasted in her life.
She started to call out, “Tapuzim! Oranges!” Throngs of people ran to find more oranges to eat.
For Ofri, oranges have become a symbol of hope. She recalled that her great grandfather walked the Auschwitz death march. He used to hide small parcels of bread in his clothing and at night he shared it with everyone.
“I'm not saying Nova and the Holocaust are the same, but I am proud that in such inhumane conditions, I had the same core values as my great grandfather and I was happy to share my oranges and to tell everyone about them.”
The large contingent of people arrived in Kibbutz Patish where they were greeted by kibbutz members with huge pots from their Shabbat meal. They handed out plates of food and offered any assistance that they needed.
“They arranged for buses to bring us to Beer Sheva to safety. This is how I survived. I'm not sure I would have made it if I was not with my friends.”
Ofri survived, but her step-brother Shalev, an IDF soldier, was murdered.
“We were both fighting for our lives at the same time.” He and his unit rescued Kibbutz Nirim. No terrorist was able to enter Kibbutz Nirim because of him. He lost his life saving others.
My step-brother, Shalev
“Shalev was always getting into trouble as a young kid. He had charisma that could fill up an entire room. He was a brave soldier who loved this country so much. Every time he sang Hatikvah he would cry.”
“The presence of death that lingered in my room was circling around me for so long. When death is so close to you, it changes your whole lens. I suddenly felt like I knew nothing about myself and that all my core beliefs were deconstructed.”
Ofri managed to step towards something called post traumatic growth.
“My therapist introduced me to this phrase and changed my prism. I learned that I have the capacity to take my pain and trauma and transform it into something good. I can become greater and stronger than I was before.”
Ofri began drawing as a form of therapy and simultaneously began a speaking tour throughout the US. Both these elements have helped heal her.
Site of the Nova concert
She saw that so many Jews in the diaspora were losing hope and felt so removed from Israel. Her speaking tour has brought hope to Jews around the world.
Ofri explains that after a traumatic event there is a huge range of how your body or mind will react towards the trauma. Most people will experience natural recovery with minimum therapy. Many people experience post-traumatic stress disorder. But 65% of people respond with post traumatic growth.
“Post traumatic growth is a response that the Jewish people are built upon. What comforts me is that post traumatic growth is part of our nation's journey for so long. Our country was built over the ashes of the Holocaust.”
Ofri explained the four stages of post traumatic growth.
When Ofri was 14 years old she participated in an organization called Seeds of Peace. Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, and Jordanians were all invited to go to summer camp together to make peace. “I thought my mission in life was to bring peace to the Middle East. I was very idealistic.”
After October 7th, Ofri came back home and saw that the group chat with her “friends” from Seeds of Peace was full of memes and jokes about October 7th. “They completely accused me and ignored everything that I felt.”
After October 7th, Ofri lost her belief in peace. She now believes that as a nation the priority is to help secure Israel and to have compassion for our fellow Jew.
“There is a stage where intrusive thoughts keep resurfacing.” Ofri explains that the mind repeats the same event over and over with no control. Your job is to go back to the memory and recharge them with a new meaning. Then, your mind moves from intrusive thoughts to deliberative thoughts.
One example of an intrusive thought Ofri experienced was, Why him and not me? This survivor's guilt was pushing Ofri down. Over time she managed to deconstruct it by speaking to her step mother and other Nova survivors. Instead of fighting negative thoughts, she allowed them to surface and then float away on their own, much like a cloud passing by at its own pace.
Ofri admitted that the pain can be so big and so large that you can’t see beyond it, but what helped Ofri rebuild was meeting with others because it helped her step out of her own pain and create a new perspective.
She works towards making constant “active” choices. Instead of lying in bed all day in depression or anxiety she gets up and makes an active choice. “The moment you let the pain soak in and drown you it's harder and harder to get up. You have to get up and do. It can be baking, running or meditating. It's just you trying to signal your own brain that you’re not helpless and you’re not inactive.”
Holocaust survivor Dr. Victor Frankl posits that you are the one in charge of creating the meaning in your life. Ofri has found a way to make meaning by sharing her story and practical tools of resilience with audiences around the US. “Here in the States, I am managing to turn my pain into something beautiful.”
Ofri isn’t a politician; she speaks to audiences as a young Israeli who loves to dance. This enables her to open up conversation with so many people who otherwise would not hear Israel’s side.
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“I meet with a lot of college students throughout the US. They bring their non-Jewish friends to the room. Many of them shared that after my talk they spent three hours talking about Israel from a place of curiosity, not hatred. There are many Jews and non-Jews standing on the fence. They don’t want to advocate or take a side because they are either afraid to or do not know enough. Those are the people we can approach with compassion and pain.”
Ofri believes that pain is something many people try to push away and ignore. “They want to lead a happy life and that means to avoid suffering. But suffering is something that is inseparable from life itself. After the darkest of moments there is the biggest light. The deeper I feel the sadness, the bigger the joy and thankfulness that comes after. It's like waves in the ocean – every emotion comes and goes. It depends on which wave you are in.”
After October 7th, Ofri ironically feels happier. Although she is not sure she fully believes in God, she finds herself thanking Him for more time on earth. “Life looks so much more beautiful to me now. I got a gift, a new lease on life, and I want to take advantage of it. I have so many times that I’m in awe of the beauty of landscapes and the beauty of the people I meet. I’m experiencing expansion instead of depression.”
To me God is divine intervention so her purpose is to tell what happened and people will realize Gods divine intervention saved her and her friends. Everything that happened was not a coincidence but from God. All people who believe in God most of all Jews need to realize good will overcome evil as long as we have faith in God.
After 10/08/23 from peace now to being for Rabbi Meir Kahane( obm)(he was right), the only ones who would understand the survivors of October 10, 2023 would be the Holocaust Survivors that went through losing their families and also sometimes who survived or not, before what happened on Oct. 8 2023 a lot of people did not understand what happened to the survivors of the Holocaust unfortunately they learned the hard way, my mother(obm) was a Holocaust Survivor and any survivor that is still alive would get and also understand the survivors of what happened last year, after the Holocaust it is very disturbing and scary that is such anti semitism in the world disguised as anti Zionism to me it is one in the same, all Jews should be united all over the world
Excellent article - what incredible growth she had from such a traumatic experience. I wish her a continued path of moving closer to her internal peace.
Step up and tell the truth! The American Democratic Jew is an on-going problem for Israel (so sad)! They continue to support an administration which funds Israel's enemies which was the root cause of these 10-7 attacks and many other past and future terrorism against Israel.
How long will Jewish religious leaders here in America stay quiet on this critical issue (losing credibility for themselves and their religious support)? Are you going to continue to be the problem, or do you want to be the solution on this most important matter? Until this matter is straightened out, the empathetic message from Democratic Religious Leaders has holes (no credibility).
Good to see!
Splendid