This painful challenge has also presented our greatest opportunity. According to our sages, crises pave the way to opportunities, and this current crisis, I believe, will bring forth a new era for the Jewish people and for humanity in general.
A dark day
The magnitude of the October 7 attack and the murder of 1,250 Jews and innocent civilians is matched only by the despicable manner in which many were mercilessly killed. They were murdered without any distinction between soldier and civilian, young and old, men and women, and they suffered unspeakable torture and brutality.
More than 250 hostages both alive and dead were dragged across the border to Gaza to be bartered with as if they were commodities. As of the writing of these lines, Ran Gvili has just been returned for burial, marking the first time in 12 years that no Israeli hostage remains behind in Gaza.
Our own son, Capt. Daniel Perez, who fought bravely on that dark day along with his tank crew in the defense of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, was returned three months ago for burial. Now Ran Gvili returns as the last hostage to have been killed and taken captive on that day.
An inspiring day
Despite the immense pain and suffering that was perpetrated on October 7, it was also a truly awe-inspiring time. A day where despite the near-total paralysis of Israel’s political and military establishment, an inversely proportional swell of courage, heroism, and unmatched self-sacrifice emerged.
Soldiers and civilians from all across Israel put their lives on the line to save people they didn’t know in countless acts of remarkable bravery and selflessness. Where the Israeli establishment failed terribly, Jewish civil society shone so brightly.
Jewish heroism continued to shine when 100,000 Israelis returned from around the globe to join the fight and countless Diaspora Jews showed up to support Israel in many ways. In our darkest hour, our bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood rose to the challenge, renewing our deep covenant of linked fates and common destiny.
As Jew haters emerged in their new form of “Israel eliminationism” – the aim to deny and destroy any Jewish state from the river to the sea – so, too, did our deep sense of Jewish solidarity. .
Selfless reservists and their families served for months and years until the reservists of the Alexander Brigade brought the last hostage home.
Witnessing the continued support, compassion, and camaraderie of Jews and friends around the world is humbling. The external enemy of Hamas and their supporters, who target all Jews and Jewish communities globally, are unifying and galvanizing us internally.
Out of the ongoing pain of loss that many of us are still experiencing, a new Middle East is emerging with remarkable Israeli deterrence, resilience, and strength.
We are witnessing seismic geopolitical shifts before our very eyes. We have all seen the relentless war of justice against the vicious Hamas leadership, the astounding beeper incidents and the continued weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the miraculous 12-day Iranian war, which continues to erode Iran itself and its axis of evil. We are all proactive partners, along with heavenly miracles, in these astonishing events that indicate the dawn of a new and better era.
Pattern of history
Why am I so confident?
Why do I believe that all this pain will bring forth a new era for the Jewish people and humanity?
The reason is that the clearest and most consistent pattern of Jewish history is exactly this: After darkness comes dawn, and after pain and suffering come salvation and redemption.
This is the basic plot of the Haggadah – the story of Jewish history that we tell our children every year on Passover when we sit together to reflect on being part of Jewish destiny.
Our sages teach us that the underlying theme of the Haggadah – and all Jewish history in general – is that our history begins with difficulty and pain, and it ends with light and redemption. Did the back-breaking bondage of Egyptian slavery not culminate in liberation, redemption, and revelation? Did our wandering in the desert not culminate in the return to the land of our forebears? Didn’t the terrible sale of Joseph, threatening to tear our inaugural Jewish family apart, lead to reconciliation and forgiveness with the family intact?
After the destruction of Jerusalem’s First Temple at the hands of the Babylonians, the Shivat Tzion movement emerged so that we could return to Zion and build the Second Temple. After the destruction of the Second Temple at the hands of the Romans, the Mishna and Yavneh emerged – the great pillars of Torah leadership and learning. The synagogue, too, took shape – a place of prayer, worship, and community-building. All these things would sustain us during our long exile.
After the terrifying Crusades and the Inquisition came the sages of Safed, the rekindling of Jewish hearts through Jewish mysticism of the Arizal, and the Shulchan Aruch, the great work of Jewish law.
After the horrific Chmielnicki massacres in Eastern Europe, the hassidic movement arose to rekindle the Jewish soul. After the terrible pogroms of the late 19th century, the Zionist movement was formed and made clear the Jewish yearning for return and redemption. After the unspeakable Holocaust, the State of Israel was born, and with it, the return to Jewish national and collective life after 2,000 years.
After the tragic and sudden Yom Kippur War, Israel became a regional superpower and trusted ally of the United States.
The pattern is clear. After immense pain and suffering, a new era is beginning to take shape. While Jewish survival for the benefit of the world has been foretold, the role that each and every one of us chooses to play is our decision. We can either be passive bystanders or proactive protagonists working together to turn the darkness into light, the disarray into unity, and the challenges into opportunities.
As attacks on Zionism and Israel continue to this day, we, together, have our greatest opportunity to forge a better and brighter future.
And, together, we will prevail.■
Rabbi Doron Perez is executive chair of World Mizrachi and president of the World Zionist Organization.