I was sitting and writing my article for Parshat Bereishit, and I realized that there was something more pressing for me to write about today. The Bereishit article will have to wait for another time.
20 hostages are back in Israeli hands today. I keep thinking of these tortured people, who survived two full years in captivity, finally seeing their families, and hopefully starting the long road to recovery. It is not lost on me that they have come home exactly two years after they were taken. Yes, today is October 13th, and we have been measuring the war’s start from the Gregorian date of October 7th, but we must bear in mind the date in Gd’s calendar: Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah. It was a Shabbat morning, the last day of the High Holiday season in Israel, when tragedy, in the form of monsters with no conscience or sense of morality, struck. 1,200 were murdered. Men, women, and children. Many women were first violated. 251 hostages were taken. While the Jewish world stood still, in shock over the tragedy, the world began to mobilize in support of the perpetrators of the heinous massacre. Our brothers and sisters in captivity were quickly forgotten, and the lie of “genocide” began as soon as Israel took the only logical and responsible step they could: they fought back. Over the last two years, combat has ensued with terrible cost.
Continue reading “Simchat Torah – True Simcha”