A Father’s Day Story Like No Other

On the morning of October 7th, retired commander Noam Tibon and his wife were swimming off the coast of Tel Aviv when they heard the first rocket siren echo above them. At first they thought it was an isolated incident that would be intercepted soon enough by the Iron Dome, so they continued swimming. But then more sirens began to sound, one after another, and they sensed something was wrong.

Soon after that, they began receiving messages from their son, Amir, who was sheltering in a safe room in Kibbutz Nachal Oz with his wife and two toddler daughters: “Dad, there are terrorists right outside our house. They may even be inside.”

Noam ran home with his wife and grabbed his pistol. His wife offered to drive so that he could message contacts he had in the military on the way there. But no one he called knew how to help. Somehow, he knew that he was his son’s only hope.

As his son Amir wrote in his book Gates of Gaza: “Five minutes later, at approximately 8:30am, the connection briefly returned and I got another call from my father. “Don’t get out of the safe room, no matter what,’ he said. I could hear that he was speaking from inside a car and that it was in motion: ‘We’re coming to get you out of there.’

Noam Tibon’s heroic journey to rescue his family and save countless lives along the way demonstrates the values of a Jewish father.

This Father’s Day, let’s learn from the five values manifested by Noam Tibon and by all of our fathers who have sustained our lives and our families until this day.

1. My family is my life.

Noam was laser focused on his mission of getting to Nahal Oz to rescue his family. He doesn’t remember having many thoughts as he pushed forward to reach his son and grandchildren. But every now and then, even as he was speeding down south and shooting at terrorists, he would have the thought: How will I continue living if when I get there, my family is murdered? How will I go on?” As Noam Tibon said in countless interviews after October 7th: “This is the instinct of every father and grandfather: You will do everything to save your children. Your family is everything.”

2. Shortcuts can be dangerous.

When Noam arrived at his family’s house in Nachal Oz, he finally told the soldiers with him that this was his son’s house. Before that he had been systematically going house to house with the group of soldiers, clearing every house of terrorists. He shared his expertise as a commander with the young soldiers by his side, but he did not rush first to check on his children and grandchildren.

In numerous interviews, Noam explained that every single life in every single house on that kibbutz was precious, and according to his values, he could not prioritize his own children over someone else’s children.

He explained that in life, shortcuts can be dangerous. And in a war, shortcuts can simply kill you. They had to start at the edge of the kibbutz and work their way toward his son’s house, so that they weren’t surprised by terrorists behind them. They needed to follow a system and stick to it as a team. When you take a shortcut, you can lose everything.

3. You Don’t Leave Anyone Behind.

On his way to rescue his son, daughter-in-law and his granddaughters, Noam turned around twice. The first time was when he was approaching the border, and he and his wife saw a couple from the Nova festival standing terrified in the middle of the road. This was right beside a shootout occurring between the Israeli police and a Hamas vehicle full of terrorists. Noam and his wife knew immediately that if they didn’t help this couple, the wife and husband (who also were parents themselves of young children) would be killed.

Without even speaking to each other about the decision, they drove the couple a half hour in the opposite direction to save them.

And when Noam was finally, an hour later, one kilometer away from Nachal Oz, a soldier fighting beside him was shot in the stomach: “I knew from experience, that this soldier needed to get to a hospital within an hour to survive. I was so close to getting to my children and grandchildren. But deeper within me, I knew: You don’t leave anyone behind. This soldier, barely 18 years old, was also someone’s son. So I turned around for the second time that day. And that is what I am most proud of when I look back on that day. A Jewish father has compassion for everyone’s children. They never leave anyone behind.”

4. When You Are Afraid, You Find a Way.

When Noam was asked how he and his son Amir, locked in a dark room with his tiny daughters who had not eaten or seen daylight for hours, did not panic, he spoke about the challenge of fear: “Most people freeze when they are afraid. And we are all afraid when we face horrific scenarios like October 7th. But you do have a choice when you face that fear. And my wife and I chose to find a way.”

Whether it was crossing a field in their jeep to bypass a military checkpoint or driving fearlessly down ambushed roads to save fellow Jews, Noam and his wife did not freeze. And within kibbutz Nachal Oz, Amir and his wife Miriam were also afraid as they heard terrorists shooting right outside their shelter door. But they had two toddler daughters beside them, and they could not freeze.

Instead, Amir recalls: “I decided to make a promise to Carmel and Galia – and condition it on their behavior. Both of them were mature enough to understand the give-and-take dynamics of such a deal: If you behave, you’ll get to watch television after dinner, always worked on them. This time, though, the promise wasn’t mine to keep, and I could only hope it wouldn’t turn out to be a false one. I took a deep breath and said: “Girls, if we all stay quiet, then Saba will come and get us out of here.”

5. I’m here.

When Noam Tibon finally arrived at his son’s house and knocked on the steel window of the shelter, all he said was: “I’m here.” And as Amir recalls in his book Gates of Gaza: “When we heard my father’s voice on the other side of the safe room window, Galia was the first to speak up. She said simply, ‘Saba is here’… I could hear the exhaustion in her voice – she had been overwhelmed by the events of the day – but at that moment, she also sounded for the first time in hours, happy. My father stepped into the doorway and embraced me. For at least five seconds, we stood there silently, holding each other.”

As we celebrate fathers across the world this Father’s Day, let’s keep in mind those three words that aptly represent the role of a Jewish father: “Sabba is here.”

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