Kfar Chabad Magazine

The sun was wintry, yet its rays shone through the gray clouds, illuminating the scorched earth of the blood-stained Nova Festival site. Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Gutnick, the Rebbe’s special emissary for the Integrity of the Holy Land, walked slowly among the ruins. His shoes were dust-covered, and the chilly wind carried the scent of destruction—a mixture of old smoke, scorched metal, and memories too heavy to bear. His eyes, which had seen the vastness of the world—from the gold mines of Australia to countless high-stakes meetings—were filled with heavy tears.

He stopped beside a charred tree, a living remnant of the massacre, and placed a trembling hand on its trunk. “I have seen the pain with my own eyes,” he whispered. “The destruction, the blood, the cries of the Jewish people.”

He did not come as a tourist nor as a mere observer. He came as a Jew who feels the pain of his brethren deep within his soul, as an emissary who knows that every inch of this land is an inseparable part of the Jewish people.

At the Nova Festival site—where dozens of young men and women were murdered in a horrific massacre on October 7, that devastating Simchat Torah—Rabbi Gutnick stood before the makeshift memorials, gazing at the faces in the photographs, their young smiles silenced forever. May G-d avenge their blood.

From there, Rabbi Gutnick continued to Kfar Gaza. He spent hours walking among the burned houses, listening to the stories of the residents who had returned—those who had survived. One man, a self-declared leftist in the past, sat across from him on a plastic chair outside a ruined house and said: “I was blind. My friends were murdered here, burned alive. Now I believe—there is a divine hand in all of this.”

Rabbi Gutnick listened, nodded, and felt his heart shatter into pieces. He saw the devastation, the fields that had turned into cemeteries, the innocence that had been cut short.
“This is not just pain,” he told us, “This is a wakeup call from Above. G-d is shaking us, crying out to us: ‘How much longer will you surrender?'”

A Wakeup Call

Rabbi Gutnick did not mince words when discussing the situation. He quoted the words of the Rebbe, the leader of our generation, who repeatedly warned: “No concessions, no compromises—stand firm; this is a matter of life and death.”

However, what happened? Mistake after mistake, decisions made against the Rebbe’s clear will. “We gave the enemy the power,” he said in a broken voice. “‘We showed weakness, and now they know they can abduct Jews not only in Israel, not only in Judea and Samaria—that have already become so dangerous—but anywhere in the world, in every place a Jew breathes.'”

His voice rose: “This must not be! They demand everything from us, and we surrender like leaves in the wind. There is no end to this!”

He spoke of the imminent danger—a whole settlement in Judea and Samaria could fall into the hands of the enemy. “This is total surrender,” he cried out. “We are releasing terrorists with blood on their hands, and they will kill again. Any agreement concerning Gaza that does not include conquering this hornet’s nest means allowing Hamas to declare victory!”

He reminded us of Lebanon—a war that ended without achievement, another abandoned objective, another terrible mistake.

With President Donald Trump in the White House, he said Israel has “no excuse of a hostile administration, of a leftist government, of an administration lying in wait for us. Trump said, ‘Release the hostages, or there will be hell.’ But we continue to show weakness, time and again, without standing strong.”

When the war broke out, Rabbi Gutnick, who was in Australia, felt an urgent need to act.

“I couldn’t travel to the Holy Land at the beginning of the war for various reasons,” he said. “But what I read, what I heard—it shook me. What happened on October 7 is an unimaginable crime. We saw the IDF’s investigations, but we all know that none of the decision-makers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, can wash their hands clean. Money was transferred to Hamas repeatedly over the years. The government did nothing substantial against the incomprehensible rocket threat for years. And who can even forget the vote in favor of expelling the Jews of Gush Katif and other agreements with the Palestinians, which cannot be separated from the horrific consequences? One mistake after another. Ultimately, if this is the devastating outcome of a series of past mistakes, then the time has come for a new leader who brings a new approach guided solely by the Rebbe’s vision. No external pressures, no mistakes that cost lives.”

Rabbi Gutnick spoke with anguish about the long road that led to this catastrophe, highlighting the Shalit Deal—in which 1,000 terrorists were released, including the mastermind Sinwar, who later orchestrated the murder of countless Jews, may G-d avenge their blood.

“The Rebbe was against releasing terrorists!” he cried. “This is a matter of life and death!”

Rabbi Gutnick repeatedly cited the Rebbe’s stark warnings against surrendering to pressure. “This surrender has led to wars time and again, and beyond that, it has also halted construction in Judea and Samaria—all because of the government’s weakness.”

Among Rabbi Gutnick’s most prized possessions are hundreds of personal responses from the Rebbe over the years, particularly regarding his mission for the Integrity of the Holy Land of Israel. These responses, meticulously organized in a special binder, accompany him wherever he goes. He regards each response with utmost reverence as if he had received it today.

He pointed to a response dated 6 of Mar-Cheshvan 5751 (1990), directly relevant to his current journey in the Holy Land. In response to questions about joining the government, the Rebbe wrote:
“It is opposite of the usual (according to Torah) in regards to managing affairs beyond the sea, as one can only rely on what his eyes (using his intellect) see, and nothing beyond.” From this, Rabbi Gutnick understood that the most precise assessment would only come after personally touring the massacre sites.

Revealed Miracles

Amid all this pain, Rabbi Gutnick also spoke of the revealed miracles that had accompanied the people of Israel during this dark and tumultuous period.

“The fact that neither Hezbollah nor the Arab population of Judea and Samaria joined Hamas during the massacre—a clear miracle. The hundreds of lethal missiles fired from Iran in two waves caused no significant damage—a manifest miracle. The foiled bus bombings last week—a manifest miracle. The unexpected delays that prevented hundreds of terrorists from carrying out their planned attacks in the south—another open miracle. And who can even count the countless personal miracles experienced by many Jews in the Holy Land?” Rabbi Gutnick raised his eyes to the heavens and said, “G-d is protecting us, but we must do much more.”

Now, in the era of Trump’s leadership, the Israeli government has no more excuses, he says. “Trump wants to crush Hamas, especially if they don’t release the hostages immediately. We must seize the opportunity. On the other hand, we must remember that the hearts of kings and rulers are in the hands of G-d, and who knows what will happen? There were opportunities to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities—at least twice over the years, according to security experts—and now Trump wants peace with them. Who knows if he will grant permission to eliminate the Iranian threat? G-d forbid, it could be too late.”

Rabbi Gutnick calls on the strong voices within Likud to speak out clearly, “without fear of anyone, without hesitation!”

Returning to his visit to the South, Rabbi Gutnick reflected: “To see the devastation, the terrorists who murdered and burned—it breaks the heart.” He lingered again on the memory of the leftist he met in Kfar Gaza, who admitted that his faith had been rekindled through the pain.

“We received a sign from Above—there is no peace with the Palestinians or Hamas. They are the same; they want to kill Jews in Israel and around the world to drive us from our land. If we give them the ability, they will continue to kill.”

Rabbi Gutnick speaks with pain about the blindness of Israeli Governments throughout the generations. He shares a conversation he had years ago with Netanyahu regarding a Palestinian state. “I asked him how this could be, and he said, ‘It will be without an army.’ I told him, But the Rebbe was against any form of autonomy—it is a matter of life and death! What would prevent them from turning it into a threat? And he answered: ‘I don’t have a solution right now.'”

“True, Netanyahu later came to understand the great danger of a Palestinian state, but I share this story to illustrate the atmosphere, the illness, the spirit of submission, and the short-sightedness of decision-makers—compared to the words of truth spoken by the leader of our generation, the Moshe Rabeinu of our generation, who repeatedly foretold the consequences of surrendering to pressure.”

Rabbi Gutnick conveyed some of these thoughts to top government officials, including Defense Minister Israel Katz, with whom he had a lengthy meeting. During this meeting, he presented Katz with a special dollar he had received from the Rebbe’s holy hand. He also gave such a dollar to Justice Minister Yariv Levin.

Rabbi Gutnick concludes his remarks with a prayer: “We need a miracle from Heaven for G-d to guide events. We are a strong nation, a nation of miracles, but we must stand firm, as the Rebbe said—without compromises, without surrender. Only in this way will we preserve the integrity of the Holy Land and the unity of the people.”

With a tear running down his cheek, Rabbi Gutnick whispered: “May we merit to see the Redemption—speedily in our days.”