Where There Is No Light, Be the Light

Orit Mark Ettinger grew up in Otniel, a small village in Judea. The Hebrew name Orit means light—a word that would come to feel painfully ironic after what happened on the first day of summer vacation, a Friday she remembers as “the happiest day of my life.”

That morning, Orit’s parents set out for Jerusalem with two of their ten children, heading to her grandparents’ home for Shabbat. Pedaya, 15, and Tehillah, 14, sat in the car with them. The other siblings stayed behind in the neighborhood with relatives and friends. Orit herself remained in Otniel, planning to spend Shabbat with her cousin Elchanan and his wife, Shlomit.

They had been on the road for only six minutes when terrorists ambushed the car.

Gunfire erupted—29 bullets in total. The first struck Tehillah in the stomach. Most of the bullets hit Orit’s father in the head and spine. The final shot tore into her mother’s eye, leaving a massive injury that stretched from her forehead to the top of her cheek. Pedaya was the only one not hit by a bullet, but he was wounded by the glass that exploded around him.

The force of the attack flipped the car upside down, trapping them inside. An Arab man came to their aid, helping them escape the wreckage and find help.

Orit’s parents’ car

Thanks to that Arab man, Orit’s mother is alive today. The injury unfortunately left her with an altered personality and psychosis. For one year, she would talk to her deceased husband on the phone, thinking he was still alive. She has a full-time caregiver.

Orit explained, “While today she is aware of my father’s death, my mother’s personality is not the same. The injury affected how her brain functions but she is able to walk on the street and looks okay. It is a miracle that she is alive. She is an amazing woman.”

Orit’s parents, Rabbi Michael Mark, obm, and her mother Chava

Pedaya and Tehillah also survived, and eventually served in the IDF.

Learning to Live Again

When Orit’s father was murdered, she was just a teen. She stayed in bed and cried. Her hopelessness was compounded by her mother’s absence due to her own recovery in the hospital.

But Orit quite quickly moved forward with positivity. She wanted to be happy and continue life to honor her father.

In the beginning, she thought she could manage the house like she did when her parents would go away, but the reality kicked in pretty quickly - it wasn’t going to be so simple. Her oldest sister Shira took the role of running the home while her oldest brother, Shlomi, became the father figure of the home. He said Kiddush on Friday nights and became the parent of the other children.

They had to start over and learn how adjust to their new lives. A lot of people in their community and the country supported them.

“One Family is an organization that literally held our hands from the beginning,” Orit said. “From the time my mother was in the hospital, they were by our side. A few months after the terrorist attack, they took me to Canada for a week to relax and spend time with other women who also lost someone. It was important for me to know that I was not alone in this situation."

Orit chose to look outward and see how she could be of help to others.

While sitting in the hospital beside her injured mother, Orit noticed how many patients lay alone, with no one coming to visit them. She thought about how much it would change someone’s life if even one person would simply spend time with them—offering attention, presence, and love.

“I decided that where there was no light, I could be the light.”

She founded the organization Or Michael, named for her late father. The organization provides volunteers to visit the sick and injured in hospitals all around Israel and has helped a lot of people.

“We don’t just live in the world—we can change the world – and can change lives!”

Orit explains that she doesn’t pretend not to be sad. She experiences traces of sadness all the time, but she chooses to focus her mind on the positive, like the miracles she has experienced and the things she has now, despite what she is missing.

More Loss

Less than three years after her father was murdered, her brother, Shlomi—who was serving with the Mossad—had just finished helping a family after a terrorist attack. Then out of nowhere, a Bedouin car without a license plate drove by and hit him.

For two days, his condition was critical.

“I thought, there is no way someone else will die. There is no way. I said, lightning doesn’t strike twice.”

On a Sunday morning, after praying her soul out, the doctors pronounced him dead.

Orit surrendered and said to God, “I have no idea what You are doing.”

Orit’s brother Shlomi walking her down to the chuppah at her wedding

After her father’s death, she saw a lot of light in her life—she met her future husband at the shiva. She did her army service with One Family, and was able to help other people who were in her situation, and she founded Or Michael. With all these blessings, she saw with her own eyes that there could be light after the darkness. But when her brother died, she felt it was too much.

“It was so hard the second time around because the first time you don’t know where you are going, but the second time it’s much harder because you know how hard it is. You know the journey you will have to traverse.”

Shlomi had filled out an organ donation card and ended up saving the lives of five people after his passing.

“Imagine, on the same day that I was so sad—the day of my brother’s death, the saddest day of my life—for five families, it was the happiest day of their lives. That’s perspective. There is a big world out there. God knows exactly what He is doing, even if I don’t understand it.”

Purpose from Pain

Orit asked God, “Why? Why the pain? Why the car accidents, disease, chronic illness, war, antisemitism?”

But then she had an experience that renewed her hope.

One day in Jerusalem, a woman stopped her and said, “Orit, I follow you on Instagram. You have a chronic disease, just like me.”

The woman said she had fought a terrible illness for ten years, and seeing Orit share her struggle publicly changed everything.

“From pain, we can help others. We don’t choose our pain, but if from our pain we help people, we prevail. When a ray of light breaks, it creates many more tiny lights—like a rainbow.”

October 7, 2023

Orit published a book about her story entitled, Broken Ray of Light, and one month later Hamas attacked Israel.

On October 7 at 8:30 a.m., her youngest brother went to Kfar Gaza to fight with his soldiers. Her cousins, Menachem, Eitel, and Elchanan, went to Kibbutz Beeri to help people, saving over one hundred lives.

One of the survivors that Elchanan, Eitel and Menachem saved was a woman who was 40 weeks pregnant. The baby, Arbel, is alive because of them.

But Menachem was injured, and Elchanan was killed.

Orit with President Herzog

Elchanan was very close to Orit. After her father passed, he was the one who had set her up on a date with the man who would become her husband. When he was killed, she thought she couldn’t go on.

After Elchanan’s death, an IDF Officer called Orit and asked her to come to the North to give encouragement to the soldiers.

“I was really broken. It was the first time in my life that I said, ‘I can’t do it. I don’t have the strength. I don’t know how to deal with this myself. How will I be of help to others?’ I started to say, ‘I’m so sorry, I apologize…’”

Then she thought, Does a mother want her son to go and fight in Gaza? No. Does someone want to take an ambulance and remove dead bodies? No. Nobody wants to do that, and nobody wants war. And yet, we are in a war right now. There is just one option—to win. And if they are fighting in the IDF, in the North or the South, then I need to help also.

After speaking to the soldiers, someone came over to her and said, “Okay. We need to find the light, and everything you said—but how?”

Orit didn’t know what to say.

But then she thought about her own family’s history. After the Holocaust, everyone was killed, and just one person remained. He made aliyah and moved to Israel where he got married.

And he had a son—Beni Kalmenson.

And Beni had a son—Elchanan.

And on October 7, Elchanan saved one hundred people. And if his grandfather had chosen not to continue, those people would not be alive.

Because of them, we are able to live our lives.

We have a responsibility—to wake up for the next generation, and also for all the people who were killed in the past for us to live.

We have a responsibility to continue.

After her initial experience, Orit addressed many groups of soldiers heading into Gaza.

One day after a talk, she ran into a cousin and uncle who were both active service members, and was able to sit down and catch up with them in an office. After a few minutes, several soldiers entered the room.

“I saw them and said, ‘Oh my goodness! I really appreciate all you are doing to help us. Thank you, thank you, thank you—’”

They cut her off.

“Are you Orit?” they asked.

“Yes, it’s me. Why?”

The soldiers solemnly said, “We wanted to tell you that your brother, Pedayah, was killed in Gaza.”

NO!!

She cried out, “I know you’re lying to me, there is no way!”

Orit said, “I didn’t even cry. I was totally shocked. My father was killed in 2016. My oldest brother was killed serving in the Mossad. Elchanan was just killed in Beeri. There is no way that my youngest brother was killed, too.”

She endured yet another funeral. Sat shiva again with her family.

“When you lose one person in a family, it destroys the family. People often don’t get out of bed… But even after I endured loss again and again and again…today I know there is light.”

Orit mentioned, “It is really hard. The pain does not disappear but I choose to find the light and the meaning, especially through public speaking.”

Orit described a family that lost their child in the war. “They didn't succeed to continue after they lost their son. And after my lecture, they said that it was the turning point of their life.”

Orit views her life split into two parts: the things that are in her hands, and the things that are not.

“The things you can’t change—put them aside. They take enormous energy. Don’t touch them. Take all your energy and pour it into the things that are in your hands. Focus on the kind of people we are choosing to be.”

Orit’s Final Message

Despite horrific circumstances, Orit has learned that happiness is a choice. “Whether you are sad or happy does not depend on your life circumstances. It depends on your decisions. Life can be unbearably hard—and still, we choose how we show up.”

When people die, they have completed their mission. If you are still here, God is saying: I need you here. The world needs you. “Your light is missing if you are not here.”

Most importantly, take a few minutes every day to give thanks for the blessings you still have, despite your loss. This moment of gratitude can be simple. It can be profound. But she believes it trains the brain to notice the good, even in the darkest moments.

“You can cry. You can be in pain. And you can still love your life. These are not contradictions.”

Despite years of pain and challenge Orit has chosen to keep smiling. She wakes up at 4:30 each morning as she is a TV panelist for a 6 AM show on Channel 13. She also speaks globally, sharing tools of hope and resilience to audiences worldwide. She is married with two kids whom she describes as the lights of her life.

Orit will be in America speaking in New York and Florida for her next tour in January.