‘Moadim L’Simcha’: ‘Times of Joy’ After Two Years of War ?

After two years of war, hope for the hostages’ return and peace was in the air. So was I. As our October 7th El Al flight left Ft Lauderdale Airport for Tel Aviv, I closed my eyes and tried to recall the last time Israel and the Jewish people felt true ‘shalom’ – peace. Two years ago, the afternoon of October 6, 2023,  I stood with my Lulav and Etrog and gazed upon the magnificent Old City of Jerusalem before the joyful evening of Simchat Torah. The next morning our Jewish world changed forever.  Jerusalem awoke to air-raid sirens. From our communal bomb shelter we heard the unmistakable sound of the Iron Dome intercepting a Hamas rocket overhead. An Israeli in the shelter broadcast Al Jazeera live footage from Hamas terrorist head-cams as they breached our nation’s security fence and barbarically massacred innocent civilians and captured hostages along route 232. That morning many of my young cousins immediately left their families to join their IDF units.  

My Israeli cousins decided it was safe and important to hold our dinner reunion as planned outside Tel Aviv. The next morning on October 8th, I drove North to our Aliyah residence in Zefat near the Lebanese border. Thousands of abandoned cars along every roadside foreshadowed the massive mobilization of over 300,000 IDF “reserves” across Israel to defend our Jewish homeland against Iran’s funded terrorist groups on five active fronts – the Southern Gaza border, the Northern Lebanese border, the Eastern border with Syria, and in Judea and Samaria (also called the West Bank). The intense political divisions within the country disappeared overnight. Israeli citizen volunteers sprang into action, mobilizing an extraordinary relief campaign distributing food, clothing, and shelter to those in need. Israel was in shock and mourning, yet united with moral clarity in defense of our Jewish homeland against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its terrorist proxies.

Ten days later I took the last El Al scheduled flight to Miami Beach. Our synagogue held an Israeli Solidarity Kabbalat Shabbat service. Jews in Miami and across the country came together to donate supplies to our Israeli brothers and sisters and to buy Israeli bonds. 

It seemed America and the West held the same world view. Perhaps the collapsing World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001 awakened America and the West to the global Islamic jihad underway for over two decades after the Ayatollah and Muslim theocratic extremists overthrew the Shah of Iran and ended Iran’s democracy in 1979. Their fundamental mission: first the elimination of Israel and the Jewish people, then the overthrow of America and finally the replacement of liberal democracy in Europe and the Western world with Shariah law. On October 7th in that Jerusalem bomb shelter, it seemed to me that Israel was now on the front line against this Islamic death cult. 

Yet, almost immediately the moral clarity of what was at stake on October 7th was lost. A perplexing and entirely different narrative permeated our air like poison gas.  Israel was the aggressor, a European colonizer, an occupier of Palestinian land and the oppressed Palestinian people. It did not matter that the Israelites, who escaped slavery in Egypt, may be the oldest surviving oppressed people on earth. It did not matter that Israel is a sovereign, diverse and democratic nation today in the land of our Torah for the third time in our 4,000 year history. It did not matter that numerous peace overtures from the Israeli people were met with gunfire, suicide bombers and rockets. It did not matter that on October 7th, women were raped and tortured, babies killed, and families burned alive in the largest pogrom Jews experienced since the dark times of the Shoah. And it did not even matter that the lives of Palestinian people were being sacrificed by Hamas in pursuit of their evil cause. Al Jazeera was broadcasting to the world that Israel and the Jewish people deserved what happened on October 7th in the name of Palestinian liberation.  Moral clarity was seemingly lost, replaced with Israel and Jewish hatred for the world’s miseries.  

Since October 7th, my beloved wife Karen and I have sought to learn firsthand the truth of what is happening in our  Jewish homeland, America and the world. We have returned many times to Israel to volunteer and bear witness with an amazing organization called Livnot U’lehibanot (‘To Build and be Rebuilt’). Through Livnot,  Diaspora Jews and non-Jews can live in Gaza and Lebanese border communities with fellow volunteers, witness the daily war Israelis have experienced, and help Livnot professionals rebuild homes, schools, and playgrounds so that displaced families may return home. Just as “the March of the Living” opened the eyes of hundreds of thousands to the truth of the Shoah in Europe. Livnot offers a window into October 7th and a connection with the land of Israel and our Jewish faith that is truly transformative.  

Last Simchat Torah in Jerusalem I blogged in TOI about a resilient Israel yet still in mourning one year into the war. Recently, I blogged in TOI about how difficult it is to find the truth in the Diaspora about Israel and the Jewish people when we are suffocated by a massive Qatari-funded global disinformation campaign that permeates our television, newspapers, social media, college campuses and coffee shops.  

Two years into the war, I awoke in Israel this Thursday morning October 8th to the miraculous news that President Trump had secured an agreement between Israel and Hamas to immediately free the Israeli hostages, end the Gaza war and pursue his vision of a moderate Middle-East built upon peace and economic cooperation through the Abraham Accords. The first rain that we pray for at this time of year since ancient days is falling like joyful teardrops from the heavens!   

During these intermediate days of Sukkot, we traditionally greet each other with the words “Moadim l’simcha’ – ‘times of joy’ – and respond ‘Chagim u’zmanim l’sasson’ – ‘holidays and times for celebration’. For the first time after two years of a long and difficult war, Israelis have a sense of cautious optimism.  May this truly be ‘moadim l’simcha – times of joy!! We all pray it will be so.