JERUSALEM (VINnews) – A deeply personal essay by a young haredi Israeli explaining why he decided to enlist in the military has drawn widespread attention on social media, adding a human dimension to Israel’s ongoing debate over military service among the ultra-Orthodox community.

The essay, published on X by Yehuda Ben Saadon, traces his decision from the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, through the war that followed and a personal family experience that he says transformed his sense of responsibility.

Ben Saadon wrote that he grew up in a life centered on Torah study, prayer and family and acknowledged that military service would present significant religious challenges, including maintaining regular prayer, Torah study and strict standards of kashrut.

הריאות שחייבו אותי להתגייס

אני בחור חרדי.

כל החיים שלי היו תורה, תפילה ומשפחה.

בצבא אין לי מניין קבוע, אין לי סדרי לימוד, קשה לשמור על רמת הכשרות ועל אורח החיים התורני שאני חי לפיו.

אך כשהסתכלתי סביבי בשנים האחרונות, וראיתי את המחירים העצומים שאנשים שילמו עבור עם ישראל, הקושי… pic.twitter.com/AHJVN7SOXV

— יהודה בן סעדון (@YudaleBen) July 5, 2026

He said the first seeds of his decision were planted on the morning of Oct. 7, when he fled home to protect his wife and daughters after hearing gunfire near his community. Witnessing the attack and the months of war that followed, he wrote, left him feeling he could no longer remain on the sidelines while others bore the burden of defending the country.

According to the essay, he decided in May 2025 to close his business and begin the enlistment process.

His resolve strengthened after a personal tragedy became intertwined with the war. Ben Saadon said his father-in-law, who had suffered from severe lung disease for years, received a lifesaving lung transplant from Asael Babad, an Israeli reservist who died from wounds sustained during combat in southern Gaza. Babad’s family donated his organs after his death, allowing Ben Saadoon’s father-in-law to receive the transplant.

Ben Saadon wrote that the experience changed his motivation from one of solidarity with fellow Israelis to what he described as a personal moral obligation.

“Not every family needs a lung transplant recipient to understand this truth,” he wrote. “We are all breathing today because of those who went out to defend us.”

He said he is scheduled to begin mandatory military service in August despite the religious sacrifices he expects military life will require.

The essay has been widely shared online as Israel continues to grapple with the contentious issue of military service for haredi men. The debate has intensified during the nearly three-year war, with supporters of broader enlistment arguing that the burden of military service should be shared more equally across Israeli society, while many haredi leaders continue to oppose compulsory service for full-time yeshiva students.

Below is full English translation what Ben Saadon wrote:

I am a charedi man. All my life has revolved around Torah, prayer, and family.

In the army, I won’t have a regular minyan. I won’t have fixed Torah study sessions. It will be difficult to maintain the level of kashrut and the Torah lifestyle by which I live. But when I looked around over the past few years and saw the enormous price that people have paid for the Jewish people, those difficulties almost disappeared.

The decision to enlist began to take shape in my mind on the morning of October 7. When I left for synagogue that morning, I knew nothing about the massacre taking place just five kilometers from the city where I live. The faint, almost unbelievable rumors that reached us were met with complete disbelief.

During the prayers, when a rocket struck the street opposite the synagogue and no emergency responders arrived, we began to realize that something major was happening. A few minutes later, a burst of gunfire rang out. I ran home in a panic to my wife and my daughters.

That run, and the horrific day that followed, never left me.The feeling of helplessness,the realization that while my brothers were being murdered and massacred, I was running to hide in my home with no way of helping them, struck me mercilessly. That was when the first thought entered my mind: Things cannot continue this way.

During the year and a half that followed, I saw again and again the price that the people of Israel were paying so that my wife, my daughters, and I could continue living here. I saw hundreds of soldiers leave their homes and never return. I saw parents bury their children. Young women become widows overnight. Small children who would grow up knowing their fathers mainly through photographs and stories. I saw young men who had already set a wedding date but never lived to stand beneath the chuppah. Some left behind pregnant wives. And that is without even speaking about the countless wounded, both physically and emotionally.

As the months passed, the question that had first flickered inside me that Simchat Torah morning became harder and harder to silence. Then, in May 2025, I made my decision. I closed the business that I had built with blood, sweat, and tears, and went to the military recruitment office.

For personal reasons, the enlistment process took much longer than expected. Then something happened that changed everything. A few months ago, the war entered my own family.

My father-in-law, Amram Hazan, the father of nine children, had been battling severe lung disease for more than a decade. In recent years his condition had steadily deteriorated until only a lung transplant could save his life. Day by day, we watched him fade before our eyes. No donor was found.

We had already begun the complicated process of arranging a transplant in the United States, but G-d had other plans. On 21 January 2026 (3 Shevat 5786), Master Sgt. (Res.) Asael Babad, of blessed memory, passed away. Asael, a father of five, had been critically wounded several months earlier during fighting in the southern Gaza Strip and later died from his wounds.

Asael Babad HYD

After his death, his family made the extraordinarily noble decision to donate his organs and save lives. Asael’s lungs were transplanted into my father-in-law. They saved his life.

Suddenly, the price paid by the people of Israel was breathing inside my own home. Every breath my father-in-law takes today is a life that was given to him because a soldier went out to defend the people of Israel and never came home. Because a family lost a husband and a father and, in the darkest moment of their lives, chose to give life to my family.

It is difficult to describe what that realization did to me. Until then, I wanted to enlist out of a sense of mutual responsibility and solidarity. I felt I could not stand aside while my brothers were paying such a heavy price. But suddenly it became something else.From serving out of solidarity……to serving out of a profound, personal, moral obligation.

Then another realization struck me, one that was immediate, tangible, and impossible to ignore. This story does not begin and end with my father-in-law. Not every family needs to have a lung transplant recipient who received the gift of life from a fallen soldier in order to understand this simple truth:All of us are breathing today because of them.

My father-in-law breathes with Asael’s lungs.We breathe with our own lungs.But the air inside them…The homes we return to…The children we tuck into bed each night…All of these exist because people went out to fight on our behalf. And some of them never came home.

Asael gave his life for the people of Israel. And after his death, he gave my father-in-law the ability to breathe. Many others gave their lives so that you and I could breathe.

This coming August, I will begin my compulsory military service.Yes, it will be difficult. It will be difficult with finding a minyan. It will be difficult with kashrut. It will be difficult to maintain my Torah way of life.

So what. I am breathing.