On a hot summer day in 1970, Israeli fighter pilot Menachem Eini was returning from a mission when his plane was hit by an Egyptian anti-aircraft missile. He was just fifteen seconds away from the border, but with his plane about to crash he was forced to parachute into hostile Egyptian territory.
Badly injured on landing, Eini saw the smoke of his ravaged plane, but found no sign of his co-pilot. In the distance, he saw a truck full of Egyptian soldiers coming his way. He feared his end was near. The soldiers searched him, sedated him, and took him into captivity. After some time in the hospital, he was placed in a cramped cell with nine other Israeli captives.
For three long years they lived together, hidden from the sun. On the few occasions they were allowed to leave their cell, they were blindfolded. Isolated from their family and friends and cut off from the outside world, the prisoners had no idea when, or if, their captivity would end. Finally, in 1974, after the Yom Kippur War, a prisoner exchange was brokered and the captives were released.
Some time after arriving home and reuniting with his wife and daughters, Eini accepted the Air Force’s offer to return to base in a non-combat role.
“Outwardly I was productive and energetic,” Eini later recalled. “In fact, I was held up as a model of recovery and resilience. Inside, however, I was hiding a terrible inner fatigue. I would look around and see people at ease with themselves, while I felt profoundly restless. Any noise would irritate me. Even music became an intolerable clamor. I could find no peace.” A friend of his recognized that everything wasn’t right and advised him to visit the Rebbe.
In the Rebbe’s study, for the first time since his release a few months earlier, Eini unburdened himself. “The memories were very painful,” he recounted, “and I think people who’ve gone through a traumatic experience often prefer to suppress the trauma as much as possible. Yet here I was recounting these memories, without feeling a drop of pain or shame, if there even was anything to be ashamed of.”
As Eini exposed his months and years of trauma—the loss of his co-pilot, his fear of imminent death, the never-ending interrogations, the years in captivity, the shock of freedom, the anxious anticipation, the surreal reunion, the visits with families of friends who didn’t survive—the Rebbe gently coaxed him to share more.
“He was absolutely and totally present, sharing my burden with me. I felt that he became my consciousness. I was speaking to him, but also to myself; I was bringing things to the surface from inside that I would never otherwise tell anyone else or even myself. His listening the way he did helped me heal from the experiences of captivity. I even had my first healthy laugh. I discovered that a person can be addressed fully through silence and listening alone.
“I needed this meeting like oxygen. When I left, I felt more reflective, more connected to myself. I was able to revisit my time in captivity, and begin to relate to it without fear. I felt like a stone had rolled off my chest.”
Eini went on to spearhead the multi-billion dollar project to develop the Lavi, a fighter jet for Israel’s Air Force. But before concluding their meeting, the Rebbe advised Eini to write a memoir of his time in captivity. “Unfortunately,” he explained, “you will probably not be Israel’s last prisoner of war, and others who will be taken captive will benefit from reading about your experience.”
Eini recounted a particularly poignant moment in this fateful meeting:
“I told the Rebbe that one of my challenges while in captivity was the pressure from the incessant togetherness. Even as I engaged in personal work, like drawing or writing poetry or journaling, I knew I wasn’t alone and others could always look at what I was doing. ‘It was always crowded in the room,’ I said, ‘being together all the time, without even a minute to yourself…’
“After a moment of silence, the Rebbe remarked: ‘And yet, despite the togetherness, everyone was left with their own loneliness.’
“I looked at him for a moment and thought: How does he know that?! But I knew he was right. And I also realized that he had insight into how a person could overcome this universal loneliness.
“Today, many years later, I sometimes think that the Rebbe would want me to find this path, too…”1
Alone in a Crowd
On an elementary level, when we think of loneliness we think of the absence of human interaction; the craving we feel to be with others when we’re all alone.
However, as Eini experienced, feeling lonely can mean something deeper than simply wanting to be with other humans. Even when surrounded with many friends it is possible to feel alone on life’s journey—that no one is really with us; there’s no one who truly knows and pays attention to what’s going on inside our hearts. Despite the best intentions of the people we spend time with, we might still feel like we carry the burden of life entirely on our own.
When studying the Rebbe’s letters, it appears that addressing this core human loneliness sat at the center of his counseling. He sought to provide an antidote to the sadness, the emptiness—the sheer, utter aloneness—that so many endure. He believed that filling this void was critical to becoming a healthy human being. As he wrote to a teenage boy:
To feel not alone in life (with only you on one side, and the entire world on the other) is the most important thing of all. A person’s entire sense of fulfillment and contentment is dependent on it…2
When the Rebbe assumed leadership in 1950, the world was still reeling from the devastation of the Second World War and the atrocities of the Holocaust. People were displaced and broken, and many were struggling to find their place—literally and figuratively—in a world that had treated them so brutally. People were thoroughly alone. A letter from 1951, addressed to a couple who survived the war, describes this:
The tremendous upheavals of our generation, which shattered various spiritual foundations and tore many away from deeply rooted traditions—both familial and national—have caused many people to feel like they’re suspended in mid-air…. They go about their days thinking they are alone, and each one draws conclusions from these [lonely] thoughts in accordance with their own individual natures and personalities….3
Though the world we live in today is far removed from the traumas of the first half of the 20th century, these words still seem to accurately depict the experience of many. Despite living in an age of round-the-clock connection, people feel increasingly isolated.
Clearly, we are all yearning for something more than simply to be with others (physically or digitally). It appears that, ultimately, “despite the togetherness, everyone is left with their own loneliness.”
So what can allow us to fill this gnawing void?
There are various approaches, ranging from the soberly practical (see chapter 11) to the profoundly existential. In the next part of this chapter, we will explore a spiritual response to this most perennial of questions.
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