A Rabbi's Reflections on October 7th and its Aftermath

By Rabbi Neal Borovitz

Israel and I are both 76 years old. Each year, as I approach Rosh Hashana with the awesome and awe-filled task of Chesbon Ha Nefesh, an accounting of my personal actions and inactions, and my interactions with others during the past year, the process always involves the state of the State of Israel.

I was 19 years old when The Six Day War of 1967 broke out at the end of my freshman year of college. That war was the catalyst for my decision to spend my junior year of college at Hebrew University in 1968-69. My year in Israel was a life-changing experience that led me to the rabbinate, to a lifelong love affair with the people and the Land of Israel, and to a devotion to advocacy for Israel’s right to life as a Jewish and democratic nation-state.

Over the last 56 years I have always been an optimistic advocate for peace between Israel and her Arab neighboring states and peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Ever since I first heard Abba Eban and then later Shimon Peres and Yitzchak Rabin propose the idea of “Two States for Two People,” I have been a believer in both the necessity and the possibility that such an agreement would lead to the end of more than a century of war, dating back to the end of WWI. I believed even through the events of the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the War in Lebanon of 1982, the Intifada of the late 1980s, and the Second Intifada that began in 2000. I retained my optimism and hope that one day the efforts of Israel, with the support of America, would lead to a lasting peace. I rejoiced when Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in 1977 led to a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. I hopefully believed that it would be the catalyst for other treaties. In fact, peace treaties with Jordan in 1995 and the Abraham Accords of 2020 are, I believe, outgrowths of the Sadat -Begin meeting of 1977. I remember too, the reluctant handshake between Yitzchak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn in 1993 with Bill Clinton, and the picture of Clinton, Arafat, and Ehud Barak at Camp David in 2000, where once again Arafat could not say yes, and the path toward peace was blocked by terror attacks. Even during the constant Hamas attacks from Gaza over the past two decades, I, like so many others have continued to believe in the possibility of peace.

The Hamas invasion and brutal slaughter and kidnapping of October 7, 2023 has shattered my faith that I will live to see Israel living at peace with her neighbors. My pessimistic depression is based upon a number of facts.

  1.  Hamas is more an ideology than an Army. Therefore, it cannot be defeated by military means alone.
  2. Israel’s justifiable defense has sparked a world-wide explosion of antisemitism.
  3. The breakdown in Israeli politics which traditionally produced coalition governments which were generally representative of the will of the majority of Israelis.
  4. My sense is that the current Israeli government is the least sensitive government in Israel’s history to both the concerns of Diaspora Jewry and the needs of its Arab citizens.

On Simchat Torah each year, as soon as we read the last words of Deuteronomy, we immediately rewind our Torah scrolls to the opening words of Genesis. Yet the haftarah for Simchat Torah is the opening chapter of Joshua, the very next book in the Bible. One of the lessons that I take away from this tradition, this year, is that even as we stand at the precipice of a new chapter, we must also look back from whence we have come.

Applied to Israel’s current moment in history, I hope that Israelis will, as they go forward, also look back on the history of Zionism in the 20th century. A place to begin is with The Balfour Declaration of 1917.

“His Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

For me, and for many others who identify themselves as Zionists, this document not only establishes the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish democratic state, but also, requires Israel to recognize the national aspirations of the Palestinian people.

I also hope that Israel will also look back with gratitude on the ongoing support of the United States government and the American Jewish community. Time and again, in every attack from May 1948 to October 2023, American Jews have said – in deeds, not just words – ‘hineni,’ I am here to help! The support for the founding of Israel by the Truman administration was crucial to its gaining International legitimacy. Since the 1967 Six Day War, America has been Israel’s primary supplier of both military assistance and diplomatic support. This has been especially true in this longest of Israel’s wars that as I write this in August 2024, is now over ten months long.

The Hamas attack on October 7 ripped open tears in the fabric of Israeli society; brought a cascade of tears to Jews everywhere, and has left deep wounds in the souls of Israelis and of Jews worldwide. Mending these tears and healing these wounds is an awesome task that at times seems improbable if not impossible to achieve. The very real existential threats can and at times do lead me, and I'm sure many of you reading this article, to despair. It is times such as this that I turn to the early generations of rabbis, who in the ashes of destruction and the aura of despair founded a new path for Jewish continuity after the Roman destruction of Biblical Jewish life.

Two such teachers were Hillel and Rabbi Tarfon.

Tractate Avot of the Mishna record’s Rabbi Tarfon’s assertion that: “The time is short and the task before us is great; though it may not be our reward to see its completion, we are nonetheless required to work toward it” For Rabbi Tarfon “the task” was redeeming the world. For me, these words apply directly to the task of creating peace in the Middle East.

In Tractate Shabbat of the Talmud, Hillel is quoted as defining the essence of Judaism by saying: “That which is hateful to you, don’t do to another person! That is the essence of Torah. Now go and learn how to actualize this in your interactions with others.” As I acknowledge the instability and insecurity that has been magnified for both Israel and for American Jews since October 7th, 2023, I take the words of both Rabbi Tarfon and Hillel as both guiding principles and a challenge.

The image shows Rabbi Borovitz with the Israeli Bedouin policeman who saved over 200 people from Nova festival.