An emotional event was held Tuesday evening at the Chabad House in Jerusalem’s Nachlaot-Rehavia neighborhood, led by Rabbi Goldberg and Rabbi Marzel: the printing of the Tanya [work of Hasidic philosophy], attended by former hostage Eitan Mor and Itzik Gvili, father of fallen hostage Ran Gvili.
Mor, who lived in Nachlaot at the time of his abduction, was welcomed by local residents with chants of “Am Yisrael Chai," together with Gvili. During the event, Mor shared a deeply personal account from his captivity in Gaza, which he connected to the teachings of the author of the Tanya.
He recalled that his mother had previously reminded him of the phrase, “The mind rules over the heart." “After I told her what I went through in Gaza, she said to me: ‘In retrospect, you used that principle exactly there,’" Mor said.
Mor described a particularly dangerous moment on the 33rd day of the war, when he was being transferred through Gaza City and was briefly left alone in a classroom at a school. A man entered, began shouting at him in Arabic, and Mor said intense fear surged within him.
“In that moment, I used the Tanya’s teaching," he recounted. “I told myself: don’t listen to your heartbeat - think. I decided to pretend I was crazy. I started stammering without words, and that’s what saved me. He simply told me to go back to sleep and left."
“In retrospect, I acted exactly as the Tanya teaches," Mor concluded. “And I realized that even people who don’t know the Tanya live by its principles without knowing it. It’s a great joy to return to Nachlaot. Thank you all-and may Ran return quickly, amen."