Who said that (….!) sentence that on Oct 7, more Jews died than in the worst day during the Holocaust? Ok, clearly, based on comments, that is not the exact quote (which might explain why I can’t find the original…), but what is? “Since”? “During”? We could have compared this to the War of Independence, when 1% of Jews in the Land died defending it; or the Yom Kippur war, when more than twice as many who were killed since October 2023, were killed in about 3 weeks of a surprise war (and the whole country had less than half the population!).

But no. Always back to the Holocaust. For us, who teach that every person is a whole world, even one is too much. The comparisons to the Holocaust take it to another level, which more than it teaches us about what happened, who’s our enemy and what’s going on, it reflects our trauma.

Oct 7 – is not like the Holocaust and I’m pained whenever the two are so easily put side by side. Needless to say, back then, we had no state, no army, no amazing, proud, strong citizens.

And here’s another – very important – way in which “Oct 7” is nothing like the Holocaust. Near Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance museum in Jerusalem, there’s a garden, commemorating the righteous gentiles who risked their lives in order to save Jews from annihilation in the hands of the Nazis without receiving any reward. Are there any Gazan righteous gentiles?? I’m looking for them. Anyone? Just one, maybe? Please?

I also know there is much we don’t – and can’t  – know about what’s going right now; much that will revealed years from now. Just recently, two people who were killed on Oct. 7 were declared dead, based on new findings. “How come you have new findings?” asked an interviewer in one of the exhausting radio stations, “Do you get intel from the IDF? why, I dont remember a recent secret operation to get new intel out of Gaza”…. really???

But the lack of knowing everything, keeps me hopeful. Maybe. One day. A couple of Gazans will show up on our border and say, ‘we fed Israelis in hiding’; ‘we guarded the Israeli women’s honor’. I’m waiting. But until they show up, please, drop the Holocaust. This is a different trauma. And in order to deal with it, we have to recognize it for what it is, not for what it’s not.

And if we’re talking our trauma:

This past Saturday night, I had the honor to hear a panel of three people: two are authors who a new book, called “One Day in October”, depicting heroic stories from that one day. And the 3^rd – one of the heroes, the unassuming, humble, incredibly brave, resourceful and inspiring, Eran Masas (worth listening to if he speaks wherever you are). One of the speakers, quoting someone else (I sadly, didn’t catch who), spoke of the difference between trauma and tragedy.

Tragedy, he said, is, for example, losing someone in a very old age. It is sad and it is “tragic”, but since death – very sadly – is part of life, we expect a certain amount of life’s “normal” ups and downs. Trauma – is the abnormal, horrible things that happen, like Oct 7. If this distinction is true, it might explain how different people process Oct 7 differently. One person said to me, ‘Oct 7 is terrible, but I am not surprised’. Is there a correlation between “surprise” and “trauma”? is it possible that part of healing, is moving trauma to be a tragedy, and if so, how??

I would like to know. Because we all accumulated additional trauma over these past months.

Rotem Levy was 5 years old when the family came for a few years to California, where we met and became good friends ever since. Over the years, we watched him become a beautiful, charismatic, kind, strong, adventurous young man. No wonder he opted for one of the most difficult units – that of combat engineering. No wonder he went for Yahalom, which literally means “diamond”, and is the special ops of combat engineering. In that prestigious and difficult unit, he rose to be an officer, becoming a captain (seren) in the IDF. On the morning of Dec 18, 2023, his unit – stationed in Shuja’iyya, a neighborhood in the city of Gaza – was ambushed by Chamas terrorists. Having been in the lead, he was shot, thus saving the rest of his unit.  

There are many stories to share. Here are two:

When in Gaza, one of his soldiers kept saying to him that it’s so dark there, and it’s impossible to see anything. Rotem, who took it both literally and metaphorically, turned him around and said to him, ‘you see over there, the lights from Israel? Those are our Light; that’s what keeps us able to see, even here’.

The second story is, that in his pocket, he kept the famous photo of the child from the Warsaw Getto, threatened by the Nazis, walking with his hands held up. On the back of it he wrote, “never again”. He was not from a survivors’ family. Rather, his actions were guided by this idea of “never again”.

But what is “never again” after Oct 7? Maybe this vision “failed”?  

Here, today, on the thin line between Remembrance and Independence, pained over the loses, I also know how much worse things could have been on the 7^th; countless times worse. But we’re here. And every day I see the beauty of the Land and its people. And I know we continue and live Rotem’s and so many other inspiring angels and humans’ vision.

About 450 years ago, the Ar”i z”l (Rabbi Isaac Luria 1534-1572) taught, through his kabalistic insights, that the 20^th day of the Omer is a special power point in Israel’s redemption. The 20^th day of the Omer is what ended up being – by “coincidence” – Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. I don’t think the Ar”I z”l knew there will be a British Mandate and Ben Gurion, but he saw the 5^th of Iyar.  

Our journey is complicated. Rav Avi Weiss says that, this is why the Mesiah comes on a donkey, taking one step forward, four steps back, three steps sideways, then suddenly, gallops forward…. Jacob, our forefather, struggles with an angel and comes out limping, yet victorious. What is “never again”? The morning after the recent Eurovision song competition, we were almost delirious to discover we won 5^th place!!! We were so proud and happy! 5^th place is not a gold medal. And yet, it’s a huge success. “Limping”, but victorious. The “limp” hurts; not for a moment would I say there’s no pain. But we live at a time, only few in the last 2000 years could even dare dream about, and this miracle of the State of Israel doesn’t escape me for a minute.

Wishing you and yours a safe and joyful Yom Atzma’ut