October 7.
A date that altered the course of our people’s history.
Can the mind begin to fathom the evil, the depravity, such malicious, wicked acts of savagery?
That day thousands of men and women invaded Israel to commit the most grievous acts of inhumanity. They gloried in murder. They relished rape. They butchered children and burned families alive. They kidnapped infants and the elderly to hold as hostages. They stole corpses as bargaining chips.
More than a thousand were murdered. Thousands more were injured. And in the 731 days that have followed, hundreds of thousands of young men and women answered the call to serve, leaving behind families and careers for hundreds upon hundreds of days. And since that awful day, more than 1,100 have given their lives battling Israel’s enemies.
How to fight an enemy that deliberately built an infrastructure for war, hundreds of miles of tunnels underneath the most densely populated civilian population on the planet? How to fight an enemy who embeds itself within and hides among and behind the civilian population it is their responsibility to protect? How to fight an enemy who uses hospitals, schools, and mosques as centers of military operation? How to fight an enemy who steals humanitarian aid to feed its own, and then resells the aid to their own people to fund its operations? How to fight an enemy whose strategy is to maximize the suffering of its own people?
The attacks of October 7 brought catastrophic and unbearable human suffering. While so much is done to prevent civilian casualties – text messages and phone calls to warn when a target will be attacked, requests for civilians to evacuate areas of military activity – warfare in this setting has caused untold devastation and suffering to civilians trapped in the middle. Thousands of people have been killed, thousands more bear devastating injuries. Hunger is persistent. The suffering is overwhelming.
On this anniversary, we cry out with shattered hearts – enough!
Enough hate! Enough violence! Enough!
Enough to infantile, hate-filled religious fanaticism!
Enough to using human beings as bargaining chips to be traded, as human shields behind which to hide, as pawns to be used for political advantage.
Enough to the dehumanization of the people who live on the other side of the border, who deny the humanity of the Other.
Enough to the narrow-minded virtue signalers who fold their arms in smug self-righteousness, who spout slogans they don’t understand, and who pretend there are simple answers to one of the most complex conflicts in the world.
Enough to those who pretend that promulgating anti-Zionism does not inexorably lead to antisemitism.
In Hebrew, this day is called Shiva B’October. In many ways, our people have been observing Shiva, mourning and grieving for two solid years. But our tradition also teaches there is a time to get up from Shiva, to begin to rebuild life from the brokenness of loss.
So, as we move forward from Shiva B’October, it is time for healing and renewal.
It is time for the guns of war to be silenced.
It is time for our enemies to lay down their weapons.
It is time for every hostage to be released from bondage and returned to their families.
It is time for our soldiers to return to their homes.
It is time for new leaders to emerge committed to building a new future where the concern is not what can be destroyed, but what can be built.
It is time to stop litigating the injustices of the past and instead look forward to what can be constructed together.
It is time to let go of hate. It is time to embrace understanding.
On this first day of the festival of Sukkot, we pray for the wisdom and fortitude to build in the land of Israel and for her neighbors, a Sukkat Shalom, a sacred structure where we can dwell together in peace.
Rabbi Dan Levin
Temple Beth El of Boca Raton
