In the Book of Psalms, it is written: «You turned my lament into dancing, you undid my sackcloth and girded me with joy» (Psalm 30:12). Today, the opposite has occurred. Instead of our dances with the Torah, our people are burying their dead. Zman Simchateinu (the time of our joy) has turned into «זמן דמעותינו» (Zman Dma’otenu, the time of our tears) this year.
As I write these lines, we know of more than 150 lives lost, 1000 wounded, and dozens kidnapped. A picture is worth a thousand words, and videos are more powerful than any narrative. With every piece of news, with every image and video, I couldn’t help but recall the words of the prophet Jeremiah when he witnessed the devastation of Jerusalem by the Babylonians: «For these things do I weep, My eyes flow with tears: Far from me is any comforter Who might revive my spirit…» But unlike the prophet, who concluded his words by saying, «My children are forlorn, For the enemy has prevailed,» I am convinced that Israel will prevail. History has taught us much, albeit sometimes we fail to learn, but Israel will not go anywhere, the IDF will triumph… I have no doubt about it, but today, my heart is broken.
The image of that desperate mother in that Kibbutz, watching as Hamas (Imach Shemam, may their memory be erased) kidnapped her two sons. That young girl mutilated in a van with dozens of Palestinian extremists spitting on her blood-soaked body. Grandmothers being kidnapped in trucks. Photos of Israeli civilians shot on the streets by Hamas terrorists.The stampede at the party in the Negev when surprised by terrorists. The soldier they captured and brutally paraded through the streets of Hamas, demeaning his body. The desperate audio messages of entire families, holed up to avoid falling into the hands of the enemy. For them, Rachel weeps, and for them, I weep. For them, we weep together.
Just a few days ago, under the Sukkah of peace, we sang for Israel and for peace. We debated the Golda movie and remembered the Yom Kippur War. The enemy is sinister but also cunning… and they did not choose just any day. In the Gregorian calendar, the Yom Kippur War began on October 6th, and our enemies began their surprise attacks yesterday, on October 6th, 2023. Israeli news channels can’t stop comparing what we are experiencing today to the Yom Kippur War. Fifty years later, we are surprised once again. Fifty years later, a day that should have been a joyous celebration turned into a Yom Shoah uMeshoah, a day of catastrophe and desolation. Fifty years later, excessive confidence, government misunderstandings, and an enemy finding new ways to inflict harm infiltrated Israel by night, killing, maiming, ravaging, and kidnapping hundreds of Israelis.
This is the Simchat Torah War, fifty years after the Yom Kippur War. This is how history will remember it. Today, we were supposed to march with the Torah, but now hundreds of thousands of soldiers and reservists are marching with their weapons to every corner of Israel to prevent this war from spreading to multiple points in our tiny state. However, with these soldiers, with our soldiers, with our soldiers of the IDF, a Torah will also go to each of the battalions. «When you go out to war against your enemies,» says the Torah… The very Torah we celebrate today speaks of war. The prophets’ idealism is peace, but the Torah regulates war. We should never forget. It is a mitzvah to go to war when the enemy threatens our gates. It is not an option; it is an obligation, a Milchemet Mitzvah. The Torah, with which we cannot dance this Simchat Torah, reminds us that even in war, we must behave ethically… that we must always offer peace first, and even when we must face our enemies, the Ramban tells us, we must ensure not to behave like our enemies. We are not them. We must never forget. Our war is not against Palestine; it is against Hamas. Our war is not against Palestinians; it is against terrorists. And against them, we will prevail; I have no doubt.
Today, at noon, during the Shabbat lunch with my family, my son Noah asked me with great enthusiasm what time we had to come back to the synagogue to dance with the Torah and the flags… with tears in my eyes, I told him that today we wouldn’t dance in the end. We tried to explain to him, with our hearts heavy, that Israel is at war, and although we are safe here, our hearts are with the Jewish people and the nation of Israel, and we couldn’t act as if nothing were happening. Noah then asked if it would be like this every year, if we would never dance with the Torah again. Holding back tears, I told him no. That I had faith that next year and in the future, we would dance with the Torah again.
As the Jewish people, we know pain. As the Jewish people, we know tragedy. But as the Jewish people, we also know how to rise, how to recover, and how to find joy again. We are the phoenix of humanity. No other people have been attacked so many times, yet no other people have the resilience of ours. Today may be one of the most tragic days in Israel’s history, perhaps the largest pogrom in the history of the State of Israel. The images today are the ones we read about in the words of the prophet Jeremiah, the images of Cossacks invading shtetls in Poland, the images of pogroms in Tsarist Russia. Today, we have suffered many losses, and sadly, the numbers will likely continue to rise. Even at this hour, we speak of the missing, which, as an Argentine, doubly breaks my heart. But today, we have Israel, today we have the IDF, today we live in democracy across the world. This time, like every time, we will recover. We will mourn the victims, do everything possible to retrieve the kidnapped, learn from our mistakes, and dance again.
