From October 7th To Simchat Torah

Why “October 7^th”?

How many of my readers can tell me, off the top of their heads, the secular date of the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur War?

I certainly couldn’t. I had to consult Professor Google (quicker than consulting my 100-year Hebrew-English calendar) to remind myself that it was October 6^th.

There were, I recall, some feeble attempts on the part of the media to refer to it as the “October War”. But the date of October 6^th, or “6/10”, never stuck in anyone’s consciousness.  It was the Yom Kippur War, quite simply because everyone realised that the massed attack of a coalition of Arab states was deliberately planned for the holiest day of the Jewish calendar when Jews of every stripe would be praying in their synagogues – the most optimum time to catch the Jewish State off-guard.

Fast-forward fifty years. On Simchat Torah last year, which fell on the holy Shabbat and is combined in Israel with Shemini Atseret,, the climactic culmination of the Tishri seasons of festivals, the country was again caught tragically unawares when Hamas invaded southern Israel and carried out brutal inhuman massacres, rapes and abductions, triggering a debilitating war which is still ongoing one year later.

Again the Hebrew date combining the holy Shabbat and the most joyous day in the Jewish calendar, was not chosen randomly by our enemies. It certainly wasn’t chosen because the secular date happened to be October 7^th. And yet everybody, but everybody, refers, for reasons which I find it hard to fathom, to “October 7” and not “Black Sabbath” or “The Simchat Torah Massacre” or even – if one wanted a catchy nomenclature – 22/7 (the Hebrew date, 22^nd Tishri).

This is yet another tragic example of how we, all of us, are led by the nose by the mass media in a way that would have been unthinkable 50 years ago. We no longer instinctively “think Jewish”.

We all remember – don’t we? – how last March the world, led by the United Nations, tried to put extra pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire due to the advent of the “holy Muslim festival of Ramadan” a month meant to be devoted to spiritual development and discipline, empathy and compassion. The world of nations. which was so quick to recognise this holy period for Islam, and Muslim sensitivities, had had absolutely no appreciation of our holy month of Tishri and its culminating festival.  It did not recognise our Shabbat, our Shemini Atseret, our Simchat Torah. Within a few days of the war starting, it had even forgotten what provoked Israel into outraged and unremitting self-defence (NOT vengeance as the media would have it). And so to the world it merely became October 7^th.

And to our shame we Jews have been complicit in this. We too have adopted the insignificant moniker “October 7”.  In doing so, we are robbing ourselves of a precious tool, one that is particularly important at this time of the year. The tool of cheshbon ha-nefesh, of national soul-searching.

A Nation Divided

Israel was  divided as never before prior to last Shemini Atseret/Simchat Torah

Hostile demonstrations in Tel Aviv against the Israeli Government reached hysterical proportions.  Manifestations of sheer hatred between charedim and arch-secular, between nationalists and liberals, abounded, The nadir came when an open-air service on Yom Kippur, conducted along traditional lines with men and women separated,  was violently disrupted by ultra-progressive intersectionalists who viewed through a distorted lens this sacred gathering on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar as an ugly manifestation of gender inequality.

But the most provocative act of all came on the weekend of Simchat Torah itself.  It is something about which few speak because it is so sensitive and painful as a result of the Hamas invasion.  One year on, on the cusp of another Yom Kippur, I feel compelled to address it, not with the aim of dredging up the past for its own sake but to try to learn for the future.

May G-D Avenge Their Blood

At the outset, let there be no misunderstanding.  All those who attended the Nova festival who were violently raped, murdered, butchered and dismembered are to be regarded as kedoshim and kedoshot, holy martyrs who died purely because they were Jews and Israelis. Mentionings of their names are to be followed by the superscription hyd – HaShem yinkom damam, “May G-D avenge their blood!” Their neshamot are surely shining as brightly as the firmament of the heavens in the World of Truth.  And those who are alive but barely still alive, the hostages violently abducted from Nova who have suffered so immeasurably are precious and holy souls for whose release “from darkness to light” every Jewish community in the world is davening every day.

The Nova Festival

However, with as much passion as we honour those whose lives were terminated or changed forever at Nova, with the same passion must we censure the concept of the festival itself and all that it represents.

Nova (or, to give it its full name Supernova) was a psytrance “alternative-spirituality” bacchanalia staged by Tel-Aviv based Tribe of Nova, a neo-pagan cult, in collaboration with Brazil’s Universo Parralelo. As the Portuguese name suggests, the aim of the festival was to create a “parallel universe” with the help of trance music, illicit drugs and a colourful display of “body art”, alias tattoos, strictly forbidden by the Torah (Lev. 19:28).  Its ambience sought to evoke the ashramic Hindu culture of South Asia replete with idolatrous statuettes – buddhas, no less!  (A golden-calf re-enactment?)

So far, so not good.  But the icing on the poisonous cake was that the festival took place on Shabbat which was also (in Israel) Simchat Torah, the day when authentic Jewish joy and celebration reaches its zenith. As such, it was set up as a provocation, a desecration and a challenge to authentic Judaism.

I stress again – this is in no way to take away from the grief and the outrage that we must feel at what transpired as a result of the Hamas invasion, and the honour we give to all the victims – the traumatised survivors, the hostages and those who lost their life and, of course, their grieving families..

What is most heartening is the stories told of several survivors of Nova who have turned their lives around and embraced a pure, Torah way of life.

However, it behoves everyone with power and influence in Israel to learn from what transpired a year ago.  Yes, the pragmatic lessons. But also the moral and spiritual lessons.  Nothing like that must ever happen again in Israel. It dare not!

Between October 7^th and Simchat Torah.

Because 5784 has thrown up a second Jewish leap year in three years, and a fifth in 11 years, all our festivals have been super-late in the solar calendar – and will continue to be until Chanuka.  Hence, two and a half weeks will elapse between October 7^th, the solar anniversary of the Hamas massacre, and Simchat Torah, its lunar equivalent.

As I have said, there is nothing intrinsically significant about October 7^th. But the fact remains it is the date to which everyone refers. And as I write, solemn commemorations are being planned in many Jewish communities  In addition, this year it happens to fall within the Aseret Yemai Teshuva, the days of repentance and soul-searching , between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur,.

Let us therefore, in the days between October 7^th and Simchat Torah, resolve to devote our minds and our hearts to try to divest ourselves of ways of thinking foreign to Judaism, foisted upon us by the mass media and by social media.  Because, like it or not, we are all influenced to a greater or lesser extent, by the atheistic, humanistic and “woke” culture around us which is so far removed from authentic Torah teaching.

And, most of all, let us determine, all of us, religious and secular, Right and Left, to celebrate Simchat Torah as never before. Because that is the true commemoration.  Let us show our enemies in the most Jewish way possible, that they cannot defeat us, neither in body nor in  spirit!  Both here and in Israel, let the day be suffused with life and love, with singing and dancing, with brotherhood and sisterhood, as we embrace our sacred Torah scrolls in celebration of another cycle of Torah readings completed, another year of “eternal life planted in our midst”.

A veritable festival of song.  The authentic kind.  Yes, we will dance again!