- Shmuli Sagal
- Oct 16
- 9 min read
In a few moments we will daven Tefillas Geshem, in which we say:
זְכור שְׁנֵים עָשר שְׁבָטִים שֶׁהֶעֱבַרְתָּ בְּגִזְרַת מַיִם
שֶׁהִמְתַּקְתָּ לָמו מְרִירוּת מַיִם
תּולְדותָם נִשְׁפַּךְ דָּמָם עָלֶיךָ כַּמַּיִם
תֵּפֶן כִּי נַפְשֵׁנוּ אָפְפוּ מָיִם.
בְּצִדְקָם חון חַשְׁרַת מָיִם:
Remember the twelve tribes, whom You brought through the divided waters;
for whom You sweetened the bitterness of water.
Their descendants, their blood was spilled for Your sake like water.
Turn [to us], for our soul is engulfed [with woes] like water.
In [the merit of] their righteousness grant us abundant water.
On this day, exactly two years from that horrendous nightmarish day of Shemini Atzeres 5784, we know exactly what it means, “Their descendants, their blood was spilled for Your sake like water.” On the yartzheit of over a thousand Jews killed al kiddush Hashem, and the ensuing horrors from that day that have lasted two years, this is a very heavy and heartbreaking day.
On the other hand, last night was the first time we could go to sleep knowing that no hostages are having to spend another night in the dark, cold, scary tunnels in Gaza. We could sleep in comfort, knowing that our IDF soldiers are no longer fighting a costly war.
After two terrible years, yesterday felt magical, even messianic. Collectively, the Jewish people could smile fully once again. We could cry tears of joy, not only pain. Our hostages are home and there is real hope.
A reframe that went through my head yesterday whilst following the incredible events in Israel was the final verses of Chapter 30 in Tehllim, which we begin Pesukei D’Zimrah with every morning:
הָפַכְתָּ מִסְפְּדִי לְמָחוֹל לִי פִּתַּחְתָּ שַׂקִּי וַתְּאַזְּרֵנִי שִׂמְחָה׃
לְמַעַן יְזַמֶּרְךָ כָבוֹד וְלֹא יִדֹּם יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהַי לְעוֹלָם אוֹדֶךָּ׃
You have turned my sorrow into dancing. You have removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may sing to You and not be silent. Lord my God, forever will I thank you (Koren Sacks Siddur).
Malbim, in his commentary there written in the 19th century, says something that could have been written this Monday afternoon.
הפכת, והנה ראיתי שגם אתה שמעת תפלתי בעבור תכלית זה, כי מה שהפכת מספדי למחול לי היה על הכונה למען יזמרך כבוד,
ומצייר שכבר נתאספו כל העם להספידו כי חשבו שמת, ופתאום חזרה בו נשמה עד שהקבוץ שבאו להספידו ועמדו סביב מטתו התחילו לחול במחול ובמחולות,
God has turned things around for us – so that we should praise Him! God wants us to call out to Him not only in times of distress but also on days of delight. We have been praying fervently for the return of the hostages and for peace to come and now we have to pray in thanksgiving that these have come to be.
Then Malbim picks up on how the verse uses a specific word for sorrow, מספד, which means eulogy. The psalmist is speaking of a situation where those gathered were ready to eulogise the person, but in an astonishing turn of events, end up dancing around them. How many of us feared, and even assumed, that we would have to eulogize and mourn the remainder of the hostages. We held onto hope but braced ourselves for returning coffins. Yet, we witnessed living people standing on their own two feet emerge from two years of captivity in Gaza. Indeed, our eulogies were quickly transformed to dancing and celebration!
On of my favourite midrashim is a passage in Medrash Tanchuma Noach 5:
אֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת נֹחַ נֹחַ וְגוֹ', אֶת הָאֱלֹהִים הִתְהַלֶּךְ נֹחַ. שָׁלֹש פְּעָמִים בַּפָּסוּק נֹחַ לָמָּה, זֶה אֶחָד מִשְּׁלֹשָׁה שֶׁרָאוּ שְׁלֹשָה עוֹלָמוֹת, נֹחַ וְדָנִיֵּאל, וְאִיּוֹב. נֹחַ, רָאָה עוֹלָם בְּיִשּׁוּבוֹ וְרָאָהוּ בְּחֻרְבָּנוֹ וְחָזַר וְרָאָהוּ בְּיִשּׁוּבוֹ.
Noach’s name is used three times in the opening verse of the sedrah bearing his name. Three is deliberate to teach us that Noach lived in three worlds: the pre-flood world, the destruction of the world, and the once again inhabited world.
So too for us. There was the world pre-7 October. Then the world of 7 October 2023 to 13 October 2025 – the world we have been living through over the last two years. And perhaps now a new world, beginning today 14 October 2025.
We can never go back to the world of pre-7 October. Too much has changed. We cannot go back to a world where Israel is in existential danger. We cannot go back to a world where the Jewish People is dangerously fractured. And we cannot go back to a world where we pretend that all is hunky dory for Jews in the Diaspora.
Neither can we live forever in the ark we have escaped to over these past two years to ride out the storm we have been tossed around in.
Like Noach, we have to emerge into a new world. Indeed, it may take time for the land to dry and for us to make sense of it all. But then, like him, we have to first of all bring a figurative korban to Hashem. To recognise the miracles we have witnessed. Yes, there has been much pain, but when in our lifetimes have we felt God so near. And then we have to plant a figurative vineyard. We have to learn to live fully and joyfully again.
Tomorrow we conclude the yearly cycle of festivals. The Gemara in Rosh Hashanah says that even though calendrically the Jewish year begins in Tishrei, Pesach is the first of the festivals. Perhaps we can draw a lesson from each of the festivals of how to move forward into this new world we are now in.
In Dayeinu on Seder Night we sing:
אִלּוּ נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת־מָמוֹנָם וְלֹא קָרַע לָנוּ אֶת־הַיָּם, דַּיֵּנוּ.
Even if God had given us their money but not split the Sea for us, it would have been enough.
This is a reference to the promise God gave Abraham, and the instruction Moshe gave the Jewish People, that they take gold, silver and clothing from their Egyptians overlords.
Indeed, in Shemos 12:35-36 we read:
וּבְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל עָשׂוּ כִּדְבַר מֹשֶׁה וַיִּשְׁאֲלוּ מִמִּצְרַיִם כְּלֵי־כֶסֶף וּכְלֵי זָהָב וּשְׂמָלֹת׃
וַיהֹוָה נָתַן אֶת־חֵן הָעָם בְּעֵינֵי מִצְרַיִם וַיַּשְׁאִלוּם וַיְנַצְּלוּ אֶת־מִצְרָיִם׃
The Jewish People did as Moshe said, and they asked from the Egyptians vessels of gold, vessels of silver, and clothing. And God made the people favourable in the eyes of Egypt, and they borrowed and they emptied out Egypt.
Why was it so important for the Jews to take Egyptian wealth out with them? Many answers are given.
Dr. Erica Brown in her Haggadah (page 110) explains:
This idea of holding onto a piece of the past as we walk into a dubious future may also explain the commandment to the Israelites to take something of Egyptian value along with them. Perhaps they needed to believe that they had not cut themselves off totally. Maybe Egyptian gold and silver and clothing - which would hardly be necessary in a desert where water is valued and little else matters - were taken not merely to strip the Egyptians, but also to provide the Israelites with physical reminders of their past, of the wealth that they enhanced without enjoying, of the slavish submission they nursed for centuries, of the imbalance of power in the master/servant relationship. As they matured into a nation, it would be easy enough to forget where they came from. It would be much harder to forget when a little Egyptian trinket took up space in their packets or clinked with their own coins in a pocket.
Perhaps don’t throw away your yellow pin and hostage posters so quickly. Something profound took place, I am sure, in the hearts of each one of us over the last two years and especially yesterday. We felt a togetherness. Many have felt a genuine Jewish longing and belonging. Thank God the nightmare is over. But let us not block out these two years completely from our memory.
Rabbi Sacks, in his Haggadah, brings another explanation from Benno Jacob.
The verb venitzaltem means not "you shall despoil" but "you shall save" - meaning, "You shall save the reputation of the Egyptians and their standing in your eyes." The Torah did not want the Israelites to harbor ill will toward the Egyptians. Indeed it forbids resentment: "You shall not despise an Egyptian, for you were a stranger in his land" (Deut. 23:8). Only when justice has been done - when a slave receives compensation for his or her slavery - can one let go of the past and shape a new society without lingering animosities.
I don’t know exactly what our feelings should be towards Hamas, the Palestinians, and all their many global supporters. But I do know that we cannot let hatred be at the forefront as we move into this new world. Somehow, at the same time of remembering and holding onto the personal and communal growth of the last two years, we need to let go of all the worry, stress and anxiety we have been living with.
The next festival is Shavuos. As we know, the giving of the Torah which Shavuos celebrates, was the goal of the Exodus, the purpose of the freedom from Egypt. We have won the war and have our hostages back. But these are not the end goals. Rather, it enables us to once again live, prosper and develop in our country.
Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin often says on his podcast, “we are not Jewish to fight antisemitism. We fight antisemitism to live Jewish lives.” Of course, we have attended rallies, contributed what we can to the war effort, gone on solidarity missions etc etc. But these are not the goals of Judaism. They have been sad realities of what it takes to ensure Jewish life. But now we need to get back to focusing on the real thing. Not on fighting for Jewish existence. But ideal Jewish existence itself. Now we can pour all these herculean efforts, all the time we found, all the energy we mustered to building stronger Jewish life.
On Shavuos we also remember the broken luchos of that festival. As Mijal Bitton wrote in her Substack piece this past Friday:
Our sages teach that both sets of tablets, the whole and the shattered, were placed together in the Ark.
The second tablets became a symbol of the new covenant of the Jewish people - a testament to our ever-present ability to hope.
Jewish hope isn’t, as Emily Dickinson wrote, “the thing with feathers.”
Jewish hope is different. It isn’t blind or naïve. It doesn’t erase pain or pretend the world is unbroken. It is carved on stone and lies alongside shards of broken dreams.
The secret of Jewish hope is that it holds grief and faith, fear and courage, loss and renewal—side by side.
Of course we are happy about the hostages coming home. At the same time, we share the brokenness of so many whose loved one is not coming home to them.
Finally, Sukkos, the third festival of the year, reminds us that freedom is fragile. The Jewish People leave the captivity of Egypt and go straight to a place called Sukkos. Hashem was telling them that freedom and peace are not forever guarantees. Just like the Sukkah is shaky and feeble, so too in this unredeemed world, peace doesn’t necessarily last.
We add to our benching over this yom tov the prayer:
הָרַחֲמָן הוּא יָקִים לָֽנוּ אֶת־סֻכַּת דָּוִד הַנּוֹפָֽלֶת:
Merciful One, may you establish for us the fallen Sukkah of David.
The Maharal explains why the House of David is referred to as fallen sukkah.
ועוד, הבית כאשר נופל, נתבטל ענינו הראשון שהיה לו. ואם חוזר לבנות, הוא בית חדש. ולא נקרא שהקים בית נופל, שכבר נתבטל, רק כאילו בנה בית חדש מתחלה. אבל הסוכה, שאינו בית שהוא בנין גמור וקבוע, ובקלות הוא חוזר ומעמידו, לכך אם נפל שייך בו הקמה, והוא חוזר לענין הראשון בקלות.
וכן מלכות בית דוד, שהוא עומד להקמה אחר נפילת המלכות, נקרא המלכות "סוכת דוד הנופלת". ואף בשעת נפילתה יש עליה שם "סוכה", כיון שהסוכה עומדת להקים אותה, וקרוב מאוד הוא להקימו בקלות:
When a house is demolished, you don’t rebuild the same house again. The recreated structure is a new house. However, each year we dismantle our sukkah, put it in the garage or shed, and then rebuild the very same Sukkah the next year. You would never include the same cracks and stains in your newly rebuilt house. Yet, the sukkah goes back up each year exactly as it was in the past. So too with Jewish monarchy. We may have lost the Kings of Israel millennia ago, but when it is resurrected, it won’t be a new dynasty, but a reconstitution and continuation of what came before.
When I went on a rabbinic mission to Kibbutz Be’eri in January 2024, I saw the sukkahs of 2023 still standing. For us rabbis there, these were a symbol of the סֻכַּת דָּוִד הַנּוֹפָֽלֶת. Amongst so much destruction, a stark reminder that the Jewish People may sometimes be down, but are never out. We may fall, we may have taken a heavy blow, but we stand tall again. Not as a new entity, but a reestablishment of what we have always been.
Please God, no more Jewish blood will be spilled. Instead, it will the water of the nissuch hamayim, the water libations, that we will soon be pouring onto the Mizbe’ach.
וּפְרוֹשׂ עָלֵינוּ סֻכַּת שְׁלוֹמֶךָ
May Hashem spread His Tabernacle of Peace over all of us. Amen.