Between RH & YK; between the 7th & the 8th

To reach October 7th this week, during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, in this dialog between the Hebrew and Gregorian calendars around us… perhaps we thought we could choose only one calendar, but it turns out that it’s not possible: Sun and moon; Hebrew and Gregorian; us and the world around us. In all this, it will be impossible to ignore the “7^th” of “October.”

The evening began with ceremonies, films, interviews, memories in honor and remembrance. It is impossible not to see. It is impossible not to be touched. And after and in between, the siren. And a boom. Then another. What happened where, when, who. A day that will be hard to forget…

And yet.

October 7^th – is not my day. Not my date. Of course, I am aware that this concept – “the 7^th of the 10^th” became such a concept that on the 17th of Tammuz someone said to me, “Look, 7 plus 10 equals 17! It’s a hint to the 17^th of Tammuz! The day the city wall was breached! It was a sign”…

But October 7^th is not our day; at least – not mine.

For me, this war started on a completely different day.

It started on Shmini. Atzeret. The 8^th day of Assembly. The day the world stopped. On the 8^th.

And somewhere there, between the 7^th and the 8^th – that’s the whole difference.

Did you notice? The Six Day War – started on June 5. Yom Kippur War – on October 6. “Iron Swords” – on October 7… does that mean anything? perhaps… what does it mean? what exactly? Well, that we don’t know so much…

We only know that for us the number 7 describes things within nature. Sheva (7) is related to the word “save’a” – satiated, full, exact, not too much and not too little: Seven days f the week. Seven blessings for the bride and groom. Seven days of mourning. Seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot. Seven years to Shmita. Seven describes the circles of life that we move through and within “to enjoy them to the fullest”. This is our physical, “normal”, everyday existence, here and now.

But eight.

Eight is another story.

The 8^th day is the first day we were able to actively participate in the world, after the seven days of creation. This is the day of brit-mila, circumcision, the day of the covenant between us and G-d. The Torah portion Shmini tells about the inauguration of the Tabernacle, the point where heaven and earth connect. The root of the number eight, shmone, is shared with fat (shamen) and oil (shemen), and it expresses that which fills too much, overflowing and spilling over. And most of all, “eight” leaves the known place of the circles of life, and goes to the unknown, like the number eight that looks like infinity and goes on and on and on…

Shmini Atzeret – the 8^th Day of Assembly – is the holiday in which Gd said, as recounted in the Midrash: Stay with me one more day. The holiday, Sukkot, the holiday of all nations, is seven days long. Those seven days – wonderful in their own way  – describe the orderly world and its rules. But you, says the Holy One, you stay with me for another day, a day of going above and beyond.

For me, the war didn’t start on “October 7^th“. It started on Shmini Atzeret, a day which, according to tradition, comes to remind us that there is something above and beyond us, and that we, nevertheless and in spite of everything, do not know “everything”.

And if there’s anything we’ve forgotten, it’s exactly that.

We thought, each in their own way, that 100% of the Justice, Knowledge, Truth, is only with us. Actually, no, we didn’t just “think”. We “knew”. Clearly and decisively. We didn’t even have a shadow of a doubt that there might be something we don’t see. And after such decisiveness, so loud, so confident, so angry – because how is it even possible that there is someone on the “other” side who does not understand things as clearly as we do!! “Those xyz over there, they know nothing, nothing!!!” And then it turned out that we too, all of us, really, really all of us – we didn’t really know, and we don’t really know so much.

Just last month…

Before the pagers operation, “everyone” “knew” that Israel “has absolutely no plan”. And after the wow, we immediately “recovered”, and “knew” what we “must” do immediately… and after more and more revelations that we didn’t know, there is always someone who will say, “we knew”! It’s “always” like this and that…

Sometimes I envy the people who know everything, for whom things are so clear. Even now, between sirens, they decide to block a main thorough-way, because they are a million percent sure that only they know and only their way will work; that they pay for huge signs on my way home so that I will think only and exactly just like them; who know, for sure, that my prayer is not worth it, and the additional candle I light – does nothing, and the donation I send, is meaningless. Because they know and have always known…

It’s hard to see something new when you already know everything…

But what turns out after this year? We, all of us, don’t know. We didn’t know and we still don’t know. And that doesn’t mean giving up and not doing, Gd forbid, and I don’t mean we should bury our heads in the sand, but maybe, it does mean that we can add a bit of humility, a small question mark, some remorse, a tad of hesitation And this is for me this transition, from the 7^th to the 8^th: asking to learn and know while also knowing that we can’t really know it all, and to live somewhere there in between.. .

Some will say that not knowing is a type of doubt, and doubt is an enemy, Amalek in gematria, and they will add, that “there is no joy like undoing doubts”, because it’s said so, although it’s not known who said, when and why this well-worn-out saying… yes, even that, we don’t know… but this year we learned that while there is a place where doubt is an enemy, there is also a place where it is blessed, welcomed and necessary. How different everything could have been had we known back on October 6th that there might be things we don’t know and require a second look, perhaps a doubt?

“From the place where we are right,” wrote the poet Yehuda Amichai, “flowers will never grow in the spring

The place where we are right

is trampled and hard

like a yard

But doubts and love make

the world fluffy

Like a mole, like a plow

And a whisper will be heard in the place

where the house once stood

that which was destroyed…

I have a need for a well-drained soil, breathing, wondering, curious, hoping, believing, waiting for rain, not yet knowing, ready to start again, and precisely this week between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

And don’t get me wrong: in the end, I will sit and watch and listen and participate. I will cry and ache with everyone. Even today. Because it’s impossible to ignore October 7^th just like it’s impossible to ignore the world with its practices, its customs, its circles.

But I’m waiting for the 8th day; waiting for Shmini Atzeret.