Yaakov Bar Yochai, 47, from Sderot and father of eight, spent 25 years in the Military Rabbinate, including service with elite units, handling the identification, treatment and evacuation of the dead in war and terror attacks. In a long interview on the "Kikar FM" podcast with Eli Gothelf, he described how the images, smells and stress of that work left him with severe post-traumatic symptoms that worsened after the Second Lebanon War and finally broke open in late 2019 after a light-plane crash near Hatzor Air Base.
He said the collapse showed up in the shower, where he imagined blood on his hands instead of soap foam, and his life became marked by insomnia, nightmares, rage and shame. Bar Yochai said he sometimes drove to the Gaza or northern borders and prayed not to wake up, though he said he did not have active suicidal intent because Jewish law forbids self-harm. He was eventually recognized as a PTSD casualty, placed in a "Beit Maatzan" residential alternative treatment program run by Anoch and the Defense Ministry, and left the army shortly before retirement.
On the morning of October 7, 2023, after returning to synagogue for the first time in two years, he tried to drive to his treatment center in Sderot as sirens and explosions shook the city. Community guards at first aimed weapons at his white car before recognizing him. At the Sderot police station, after being directed there by the late Lt. Cmdr. Avi Amar, he came under heavy fire from a white Toyota pickup with a mounted machine gun. He took shelter in a protective booth, was rebuked by Police District Commander Amir Cohen, and then reverted to his medical training, bringing a first-aid kit from his car and treating wounded officers.
The most dramatic part of the rescue involved his friend Rabbi Chaim Sassi, an advanced paramedic and local rabbi, who was shot in the knee, hand and cheek while trying to reach a critically wounded police officer across the road. Bar Yochai and a Shin Bet fighter eventually dragged Sassi back under cover, then loaded him into Bar Yochai’s car along with injured police officer Ronen Gavai and critically wounded operations officer Mati Tzarfati. During the race to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, Sassi inserted his hand into Tzarfati’s wound to stop the bleeding, while Tzarfati cried that he loved life and did not want to die. Bar Yochai later said the scene at the hospital, flooded with casualties from the Re’im festival and nearby kibbutzim, looked like a slaughterhouse.
Today, nearly three years later, Bar Yochai says the October 7 trauma has partially overtaken but not erased the trauma of his earlier service. He is down to one psychiatric pill a night, uses ongoing treatments and monitors his symptoms with technology, and gives a lecture called "Everything Out of the Darkness" to raise awareness, especially in the haredi community. He says his wife carried the family and even changed careers to help him and others, and he ends with a warning that no one should face mental illness alone.
