"Shall your brothers go to war while you just sit there?"

That is the question that Moses asks in this week's Torah portion of the tribes who wanted to settle on the other side of the Jordan. They thought they would be safe from the battle.

But it was not allowed and a law, a moral code of ethics was established in the land that until this day has held the Jewish people together through the generations. We live and die together as a nation.

That is why our children run proudly with confidence to battle to protect our country. Every soldier in this small country is someone's son or daughter, brother or sister, uncle, grandchild or friend.

Please stand with us in prayer

The children born in the South of Israel have grown up with 13 years of missiles falling, alarms screeching and summers in the bomb shelter. But now we are all experiencing their reality. The members of Beit Immanuel come from Tel-Aviv, Jaffa and the surrounding southern towns of Holon, Bat-Yam, Rishon Lezion, Lod, Beer Yaakov and others. We are all under fire living with the ongoing screech of missile alerts. Children talk about their fears. Parents worry about their little ones and about their sons and daughters in the army. Wives are praying for husbands called up to go into battle.

All of us are praying for Shalom to come for both sides of the conflict, that God will give our leaders, and the leaders of the free world wisdom, and that our soldiers, our sons and daughters will come home to their families.

Letters from children

It is summertime, and our children have been waiting all year for camps, hikes, swimming and family holidays. Only this year most of them have been cancelled.

We share with you some of the letters that our children sent to our soldiers. This was their way of saying that they are also concerned and that they want summer to be a time of family and friends and fun once again.