Contemporary discussions of spirituality and religiousness in relation to health and resilience are often grounded in individualised models of coping and adaptation. This paper problematises such approaches and shifts attention toward the relational dimension of resilience as it emerges under conditions of extreme uncertainty and threat.
The paper draws on an ongoing qualitative study based on Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of interviews with Czech women identifying with Judaism and living in Israel and the Czech Republic, who experienced the impact of the attacks of October 7, 2023. At the time of submission, the research is in its analytical phase and focuses on a close, in-depth understanding of individual lived experience. The study does not aim at generalisation, but at exploring how participants structure everyday experience under conditions of prolonged stress.
Preliminary analysis suggests that resilience is not articulated primarily as an individual psychological capacity, but as a relational response to the other. A central analytical motif is the experience of the face, understood as an appeal and vulnerability that gives rise to responsibility and orients action in situations marked by fear and tension. Resilience thus appears not as a return to balance, but as remaining open to relation despite ongoing threat.
The interpretation explicitly draws on Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical phenomenology. By foregrounding vulnerability and responsibility, the paper reframes resilience as sustained endurance rather than psychological optimisation, offering implications for qualitative research on spirituality, health, and lived experience in contexts of violence.