We are bigger than this moment: Jewish holidays are Jewish defiance

In 1973, Elie Wiesel delivered a talk entitled Against Despair, which has gripped me deeply for the last 11 months. Every time I revisit it, I feel thunderstruck. Wiesel’s words are not just useful—they are transformative. Prescient even. Somehow, he knew we’d need his fiery, hard-won wisdom this holiday season. (Or perhaps, maybe the world has changed less than we’d thought in the fifty years since he bequeathed us this message.)

Wiesel writes about the fragility and courage required to live and lead as Jews, no matter our circumstance. His unceasing, creative thinking after unspeakable trauma—ensuring that the rich spiritual tradition he inherited would continue to thrive—has always been deeply inspiring. His work translated the lessons of genocide into a call for justice, for everyone, while never abandoning the deep tribal connection to his people nor remaining silent when the State Israel was under threat.

Enemies of the Jews have always sought to steal Jewish time by attacking us on our holiest days, to “turn the Jewish past against the Jews.” Wiesel points out that the Babi Yar massacres of 1941 happened on Yom Kippur. But how many of us knew that? That even the most engaged and historically-minded of us don’t often know this that tells us that Yom Kippur is bigger than Babi Yar. Yom Kippur is bigger than the Yom Kippur War. Our sacred calendar itself declares to the world – and reminds every Jew: No one has the right to tell us when to be joyful or how to feel on our holy days.

October 7th is now part of our history, another moment when enemies tried to steal Jewish time by desecrating our homeland and the holy day of Simchat Torah. But I challenge us to ask: How big is Simchat Torah to us? Is it small enough that someone can overpower it, or is it bigger than anything thrown at us? I don’t often speak in terms of “us and them,” but I find myself increasingly doing so in recent months. This is a moment for tribal reflection. Simchat Torah is ours—bigger than any force that could come against us. We are bigger than that.

Wiesel offers two vignettes that pierce the soul. In one, Jews pressed together in a train to their deaths realized it was Simchat Torah. Someone had smuggled in a small Sefer Torah, and they began singing, swaying, and celebrating. In another, within a concentration camp barrack, they had no Sefer Torah, so:

An old man – was he really old? The word had no meaning there – noticed a young boy – who was so old, so old – standing there looking on and dreaming. “Do you remember what you learned in heder?” asked the man. “Yes, I do,” replied the boy. “Really?” said the man, “you really remember Shma Yisrael?” “I remember much more,” said the boy. “Shma Yisrael is enough,” said the man. And he lifted the boy, clasped him in arms, and began dancing with him – as though he were the Torah. And all joined in. They all sang and danced and cried. They wept, but they sang with fervor – never before had Jews celebrated Simchat Torah with such fervor.

These stories embody what it means to face despair as a Jew—not by ignoring it, but by transforming it into hope. We cannot allow others to decide when we will be joyous or when we will mourn. In Wiesel’s words,

We had to rejoice…and let the world know that Jews can sublimate pain and agony, and draw new reasons for hope from despair.

Faced with despair, Wiesel taught that we have three choices: resignation, delusion, or the most difficult and beautiful—facing it head-on as Jews.

This is not about ignoring the pain.

It’s about resisting despair in our own way, by reclaiming our time, our joy, and our rituals.

I bless us to find our way back to dancing, to singing with fervor.

We are bigger than this moment, no matter how heavy it feels. We will dance again. Wiesel taught us that, and I pray we all find that strength. Even and especially now.

Amen.