The soldiers, who would be heading back to Gaza after their short break, loved the concept, and the song caught on
ON a post–October 7 trip to Eretz Yisrael, Joey Newcomb visited an army base during dinner. The soldiers gathered around the guitar-strumming, chassidic American singer, and a full concert ensued, the songs ranging from Israeli medleys to traditional tunes of tefillah.
At one point, Joey introduced his own song, “Im Yesh Mikveh, Yesh Tikvah.” But first he shared with the soldiers the teaching of Rav Nosson of Breslov that “mikveh” connotes “tikvah — hope,” and that Hashem gave us the mitzvah of mikveh to make us realize there is always hope.
The soldiers, who would be heading back to Gaza after their short break, loved the concept, and the song caught on, quickly becoming the highlight of the evening as they sang it again and again. Eventually, Joey left the base, happy to have provided some much-needed chizuk to battle-worn soldiers.
Several weeks later, Joey received a video from an acquaintance of his who had met the rabbi of the army base Joey had visited. When the rabbi learned that the man knew Joey, he excitedly asked him to send him a message. The concert was great, the rabbi relayed in Ivrit, but he only realized its real effect several weeks later.
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