Complete and utter shock. That’s what I felt from Shabbat afternoon until later that night. Emptiness. Helplessness. Complete and utter shock.
Every person in Israel knows what I mean. But for those who don’t live here, who may have had scant opportunity to find out what it’s been like in Israel during yom tov, I’ll offer my own experience – with the full awareness that many, many Israelis experienced something infinitely worse.
On the morning of Shmini Atzeret – which in Israel is also Simchat Torah – I prepared to go to a sunrise minyan that began at 6:15. Because a number of our kids were not home for the holiday, there were five of us in the house: me, Aliza, and our daughters Meira, Yaeli, and Batsheva. There were no signs that anything was amiss, and I certainly had no idea that things were about to blow up. At 8:15, as I stood outside when the shul recited Yizkor, we heard explosions overhead. All of us looked up and saw the telltale smoky residue that indicated, most likely, Iron Dome interceptions – but there were no sirens, so I wasn’t really sure what to think. I arrived home at 8:45, warned Aliza that something worrying seemed to be taking place, and around 9 AM the sirens started. We had six over the ensuing three hours; we naturally assumed that this was a somewhat typical flareup around the Gaza border, which happens from time to time.
But in the early afternoon, two of our daughters came home from shul and told us that they heard a rumor that the town of Sderot had been invaded. Soon after, some neighbors told us that things were very serious, that – at that time – twenty Israelis had been killed and over a thousand injured. While we didn’t have any more sirens for the rest of the day, I could feel myself go numb. I’m sure I was as white as a sheet.
Sderot – invaded by terrorists? A thousand people wounded? How could that be? How?
I kept thinking about Eli HaCohen in the fourth chapter of the Book of Samuel, when he found out that Israel had been badly defeated on the battlefield, that his sons had been killed, and that the Holy Ark had been captured by the enemy:
Eli heard the sound of the outcry, and said, “What is the meaning of this loud commotion?” And the man hastened to come and tell Eli. The man said to Eli, “I am the one who came from the battlefront, and I ran from the battlefront today.” Eli asked, “What is the report, my son?” And the newsbearer answered him saying, “Israel ran from before the Philistines, and there was a great defeat among the people; your two sons, Chofni and Pinchas, also died – and the Ark of G-d was taken.” As soon as he mentioned the Ark of G-d, Eli fell backwards off his chair, across from the city gate, breaking his neck, and he died…”
The situations are obviously different, but that sense of shock was what overtook me. How could this be? How could this happen? Eicha?
Because it was Shabbat and yom tov, we didn’t find out any more information until nightfall. When we checked the news, it was far worse than we had heard, and it continued to get worse and worse the more that was reported. We had heard of twenty Israeli deaths, but by Motzaei Shabbat, we read that one hundred Israelis had been killed. As I write this now, the Israeli death toll is over seven hundred innocent people.
Seven hundred innocent people.
The stories that we hear are horrific; the videos that have been proudly shared by Hamas members are so sickening that they are unwatchable. Our worst fears have come true, and innocent Jewish blood runs down the streets of Israel.
It seems as though almost every family has a father, husband, child, child-in-law, brother or sister who has been called up to the army. This is not comparable to any other military campaign that I have seen in the almost 28 years that I have lived in Israel.
Given the scale of the tragedy and the weight of the fear we all feel, our societal divisions that are normally so acute – the religious secular divide, the huge arguments between right and left – seem to have evaporated completely, if only temporarily. Almost everyone, I think, is on the same page. Even though it’s a horrible way to be reminded, let’s hope that at least this reminder of our essential unity as a Jewish people won’t evaporate so quickly.
Because of that, this is not a time for political ruminations. But I’ll permit myself one reflection, as I think that it is shared by the vast majority of the Jewish citizens of Israel.
I’ll preface it by asserting that I’m a political centrist in many ways, or perhaps better put, sometimes I align with the right, sometimes with the left, and sometimes with neither. I generally try to look at each issue on its own. When it comes to giving away land for peace with the Palestinians (and I’m careful to say giving away land rather than giving back land, because the latter is historically inaccurate), I feel that if such a move would genuinely bring peace and an end to the battles between Israel, the Palestinians, and the wider Arab world, I would be willing to do it. I am also concerned about the long term effects of ruling over a large population of noncitizens; I think it’s dangerous, antidemocratic, a potential demographic disaster, and a moral wrong. I wish it were possible to maintain the entire Land of Israel and our moral uprightness – but I don’t think that it is.
That said, in order to give away land, there needs to be a reasonable partner with whom we can negotiate. And it has been clear to many Israelis like me who would be willing to give away land, that there is no partner on the other side. The past 36 hours have sadly proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
This leads me to two important truths:
First, when people ask why Israel won’t make a deal with the Palestinians, the answer should now be clear. The people who committed these atrocities and applauded them represent a huge percentage of the Palestinian people; and negotiations with those Palestinians who don’t agree with these attitudes will inevitably be sabotaged by those who want to kill Jews. Don’t forget that Palestinian President Abbas has canceled election after election, as he knows that he would likely lose to Hamas.
Second, the results of evacuating Jews from Gaza have never been more obvious. If Israel did the same with the West Bank or part of the West Bank, do we have reason to believe that it will be different? Or will it lead to an even greater slaughter in the future, G-d forbid?
Simply put, the situation in Israel is not simple. You can believe that Israel should give away land, and also believe that it’s not even close to possible now. That there should be a Palestinian state, and that doing so would be ruinous and suicidal. Easy solutions to this conflict are shallow and foolish, because the situation on the ground is exceedingly complex.
Israel is not perfect. Israel is a work in progress. Israel makes mistakes like any country that is trying to actualize its best reality. And we all know it. Those who are protesting judicial reform believe that Israel has to be better than it is, just as those who are advocating it believe that Israel has to be better than it is.
But we are trying. We want to be a light unto the nations. We want to create the greatest country on earth, the most moral country on earth, the example which every other nation longs to follow.
We just aren’t sure how to accomplish that.
But we also know that those who question our legitimacy, those who compare us to Nazis, those who assert that our enemies are blameless while we are morally blind: they are on the wrong side of morality, as well as on the wrong side of history. Israel needs to fight, and the reason why should now be absolutely clear.
What we’ve been seeing over the past two days isn’t a Palestinian fight for freedom; it’s a murderous opportunity to slaughter as many Jews as possible, in the most torturous manner conceivable.
Jews slaughtered while attending a festival.
Jews slaughtered while going to synagogue.
Jews slaughtered while eating in a kibbutz dining room.
Jews slaughtered while spending time with their families.
Jews slaughtered for the crime of being Jews… for the crime of being Jews living in Israel.
Our enemies kidnapped over a hundred people… they tortured children and the elderly who were carried back to Gaza as prisoners… they murdered a child while taking the rest of her family hostage. Reading the news feels like reading some of the Tisha B’Av kinot.
Those who perpetrated these acts are not freedom fighters. They’re moral monsters and the spiritual descendants of Hitler, Himmler, and Eichmann.
Everything has changed. As Talli Rosenbaum said on the podcast, there was before, and now there’s after. I don’t know what the future holds, but I can only encourage everyone who cares about the People and the State of Israel to pray, to stand by our side, and to publicly support Israel in what is likely to be a long and painful war against an enemy who has no interest in compromise.
No, Israel is not perfect. But in the long war against Hamas, Israel represents the side of goodness and morality. Let’s make sure that this fact is never forgotten.
