‘We Come After’ — Reflections on October 7th and Watershed Moments

Rav Aharon Lichtenstein (zatz”l), in a seminal speech to the American Jewish community in the 1990s, offered a spiritual reckoning of Modern Orthodoxy—its strengths and its challenges. In it, he reflected on a belief he had espoused three decades earlier: that general culture—especially literature, which Matthew Arnold called “the best that has been thought and said in the world”—was a deeply enriching and ennobling addition to our avodat Hashem (service of God).

While he continued to value “high culture,” Rav Lichtenstein acknowledged that certain events had shaken his confidence. One reason is the subject of my remarks today: confronting watershed moments. In this context, he quoted philosopher George Steiner, who wrote in his 1967 book Language and Silence:

“We come after. We know now that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, then he can play Bach and Schubert and go to his day’s work at Auschwitz in the morning. To say that he has read them without understanding, or that his ear is gross, is cant. In what way does this knowledge bear on literature and society, on the hope, grown almost axiomatic from the time of Plato to that of Matthew Arnold, that culture is a humanizing force, that the energies of the spirit are transferable to those of conduct?”

The phrase “we come after” has always captivated me. Steiner identified the perversion of German culture and philosophy—how the same society that cherished Goethe also sent people to Auschwitz.

“Coming after” signifies a recognition that some events are so powerful, so terrifying, so transformative that they force us to reconsider our values, assumptions, and ideals. Steiner could not maintain his belief in the moral uplift of high culture after witnessing what the most “cultured” nation had done. The Holocaust shattered the myth of inevitable progress and called into question the very notion of a morally advancing civilization.

Another such moment was the Manhattan Project, which brought World War II to a close but also unveiled humanity’s capacity to annihilate itself. We came dangerously close to such devastation on November 9, 1979, when a computer error at NORAD headquarters led to a false reading that the Soviet Union had launched 250 nuclear missiles at the United States. The president had mere minutes to respond. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed—but the world stood at the brink.

September 11th rocked the United States and the world, raising deeply unsettling questions about the limits of security and the enduring power of ideological hatred.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed deep public mistrust in science and institutions and reminded us of the fragility of modern life.

Each of these events demands introspection. They force us to examine the paths we have taken, the assumptions we inherited, and the doctrines that shaped our worldview.

And now—we ‘come after’ October 7th.

Our deterrence failed. Our overconfidence was shattered. Our once-vaunted intelligence services were humbled. Our sense of security, our belief in redemption, and our confidence in the enduring strength of Am Yisrael were all profoundly shaken.

We are still reeling from its horror—its shock, its devastation, its brutal rupture of what we thought we knew about our future.

As the families of the 1,195 casualties will never return to the lives they knew, neither will we, as a people, return unchanged. Our question must be: Where do we go from here?

Our parsha begins with these words: “Acharei mot shnei bnei Aharon”—After the deaths of the two sons of Aharon. Aharon’s response to the death of his beloved sons—his heirs, his pride—was silence: vayidom Aharon. And how could it be otherwise? What words could possibly be spoken in the face of such shock and sorrow? He was paralyzed—by grief, by confusion, by disbelief.

And yet, Parshat Acharei Mot is the Torah’s model for spiritual response in the wake of catastrophe. It represents the reawakening from near-paralysis. God speaks to Aharon and tells him: there is only one direction—forward.

The pain must never be denied or forgotten, but it must also not halt us.

The parsha begins by setting out the laws for entering the Holy of Holies, ensuring that this sacred encounter does not become fatal. It offers Aharon—broken, bereaved, and numb—the highest form of revelation. And it calls on him to reengage, to see his surviving family as his future, and to serve God and Israel even through the pain.

On Yom Kippur, Aharon brings three sin offerings.

The first is for himself—for his thoughts, for questioning divine justice, for contemplating an exit from public service, for wrestling with his spiritual identity.

The second is for his family—for their suffering, for their anger, for the alienation born from trauma, for the wedge that pain can drive between loved ones.

The third is for the entire nation—for the existential rupture they experienced, for the spiritual fatigue, for questioning the value of the Temple itself, for nearly giving up on the sacred dream handed down by their ancestors.

Entering the Holy of Holies thus becomes the crucible of the “after.” In this space, the people must choose to rebuild, to reconnect, and to return—to that glorious history, to that grand tradition, and to that great destiny which still awaits us in the future.