And of course this mesirus nefesh has gone on right up until today with so many boys including many hesder boys who went proudly and bravely to fight any time their nation called them up. Many paid the supreme sacrifice R”L. The most beautiful picture ever taken is the one of a soldier on top of a tank in the 1973 war, his head wrapped in his tallis, and holding a Lulav and Esrog with his eyes closed, as he makes the bracha. Such a person knows what it is to ask the RBSH for mercy on him and the klal. A person who is facing pachad mavves but envelopes himself in dveikus to the Borei Olam as he pours his heart out bsimcha on yontof.
Just last year, there are pictures of the boys fighting in Gaza making minyanim in the field near their tanks. The Rosh Yeshiva of Sderot gave his boys a shmuz before they left to be mechazek them so they would overcome their natural fear. (He himself has served in the army.)
When the boys are not in service, they are learning Torah bsimcha and giving chizuk and doing chesed of all types to the frightened town of Sderot. In his recent speech at the Sderot dinner, Dov Hikind said if not for the Yeshiva’s chizuk and reaching out to all the members of the town and personally befriending each and every person, the town would not exist today, as they all would have left.
This is true Torah mesirus nefesh, that of ahavas yisroel and building and appreciation for the work of every other yid and idealism that we will have an even better tomorrow, as we fulfill yishuv haaretz and work with the medinah to build and create and establish more and more and continue to improve the lives of all its citizens and spread torah warmth so that people will on their own want to learn torah more and more because they will see it as the source of all this chesed and love and caring for this town and the entire klal. Vheishiv lev avaos al banim vlev banim al avosam.