It was fifty-one years ago when our enemies attacked us in October, 1973, and one year ago when they struck us in October, 2023. Fifty-one years ago, the date when the Syrian and Egyptian armies attacked Israel was October 6, and one year ago, Hamas’ atrocities against Israel were carried out on October 7.
But neither of these calendrical dates – October 6 or October 7 – hold any meaning for our enemies. Fifty-one years ago, they chose to attack us on Yom Kippur, and one year ago, they chose to attack us on Simchat Torah. They coordinated their attacks on these dates, precisely because they understood the significance of these dates for the Jewish people.
By attacking us on Yom Kippur and Simchat Torah, they sought to destroy Israel and desecrate our most sacred day (Yom Kippur) and murder Jews and darken our most joyous day (Simchat Torah). Their attacks were directed against the core values of Judaism embedded in these Jewish holidays.
Yom Kippur is a day when we affirm life. We pray to be “inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life.” We seek reconciliation with God and our fellow human beings. On Yom Kippur, we look to solve disputes and ask for forgiveness. On Yom Kippur, God sits on a “Throne of Mercy.”
What a beautiful set of ideas and values: life, reconciliation, conflict resolution, forgiveness and mercy. It is these very values that our enemies came to attack and destroy on Yom Kippur. They looked to transform our day of life into their day of “death to the Jews.” They sought to defile our day of life, reconciliation and mercy, and to replace it with the “values” of death, war and mercilessness. It was an assault on the ideas and values of Yom Kippur. It was as much a “war on Yom Kippur” as it was the Yom Kippur War.
Simchat Torah is a day of joy and dancing. Dancing with what? A book. Our sacred book. On Simchat Torah, we dance with a scroll and we rejoice in its sacred words. We take pride in our beloved book of values, morals and ethics. It’s a day when we all dance together, children and adults. Children wave flags, we shower them with sweets, and we sing songs that affirm our commitment to the sacred words of our Torah.
Is there another people who dance with a book in their arms? How tragically ironic that the Muslim world named us “The People of the Book,” and on the day when we dance and celebrate our book, they attacked us with a pogrom the likes of which we haven’t experienced since the Holocaust.
On our day of dancing, on our day of joy – Simchat Torah – they sought to destroy all of this by bringing upon us darkness, rape, violence, hatred and murder.
The brutal attacks on Simchat Torah were not about territory. Hamas perpetrated a genocidal attack on our values.
To make all of this even more potent, both Yom Kippur of 1973 and Simchat Torah of 2023 fell on Shabbat. That, too, is not by chance, but by design. Our enemies know that Shabbat is our ultimate day of family, God and community, a spiritual day of rest. They know that Shabbat is the jewel in the crown of Judaism, our weekly reminder that we aren’t slaves.
Fifty-one years ago, and one year ago, these forces of darkness and evil sought to destroy our greatest gift to mankind – a weekly day of rest, a day that Rabbi Jonathan Sacks called “A utopian revolution,” a day that towers above tyranny, oppression and hatred.
These wars are not about land. They are about conflicting value systems. Life, respect, spirituality, intellect and progress vs. death, hatred, jihad, the closing of the mind and primitive behavior.
“To be a Jew is to be hated, and to defy that hate” taught Rabbi Sacks. He also taught us how to defy that hatred: “To be a Jew is to be an agent of hope.”
Let us never lose hope. “Hatikvah” – “The Hope” – is our national anthem. It’s in our DNA.
Beyond the heroic battlefield, our enlightened victory over the darkness of our enemies comes through our values, our intellect, our ideas. These are our ultimate weapons. Every Jewish ritual we observe – Yom Kippur, Simchat Torah and Shabbat – is our ultimate form of protest against darkness, brutality, racism, violence and hatred. Every time we study and teach that book we dance with, we bring light into the world.
Let’s dance again – with the Torah, with our values, with our ideas.
Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Daniel Bouskila is the international director of the Sephardic Educational Center.
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