October 7 - Past, Present and Future

On October 7, as our nation mourns and continues to feel its wounds, I'm going to my mother's (z"l) apartment for one of the last times. We need to clear it out.

She moved to assisted living 4 years ago, thus sparing us much of the nightmare (not fair, my sister carried the bulk of the nightmare while I was busy with some other things) of 60 years of married life. We only have to deal with 4 years of a life well lived.

Taking it apart is painful but necessary. Someone else will move in and make it theirs, we'll go on with our memories and pieces of the life they built together...

Much like all of Israel. Today is agony. How can today hurt more than yesterday? I don't know but it does. Each day brings more. Hours ago, a rocket landed in a major city. We are a land of miracles. Each rocket carries the promise of death and destruction...and each delivers a miracle.

Shot in the sky, shot in the outer atmosphere of the world high above...or deflected by the hand of God, who moves missiles to protect His people. There is no other explanation in this world.

99% shot down in April. No deaths. One Bedouin child injured.

And now in October, hundreds of ballistic missiles shot at Israel...one death - a Gazan worker killed in the city of Jericho.

Much of the radical Arab world (Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Hezbollah, Hamas) view October 7 as a victory. They murdered 1,200 - but thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people survived that day...as we have survived every other. Through miracles. Through saving each other.

October 7 was a tragedy for Israel, for the Jewish people, and perhaps more, for the Arab world. It was a day they lost any semblance of humanity, any attempt at peace. It was the day they lost.

We rose on October 7, in unity. We have been struggling to keep that unity since. Today, we are all in pain. Today, we stand with the families of the hostages and demand the release of the remaining 101...only then will this war end, only then will they be able to rebuild, will we be able to return and rebuild.

Any nation (moronic leaders in whatever countries) who think to discuss ceasefire or peace are delusional, at best.

Gaza stands in ruins today, as justly it should. This is what happens when a people elects murderers to rule. Hamas should never have been chosen to represent the voice of Gaza.

Lebanon should never have allowed Hezbollah to represent them, to attack Israel. Soon, much of Lebanon will lay in ruins as well. This is what we can do. This is what we must do. This is what we will do.

October 7, like the Holocaust, is a lesson etched in blood, added to the history of the people of Israel. We are an eternal people because we never forget. We remember slavery of Egypt. We remember what Amalek did, Haman, Hitler.

October 7 has surely forged the new Israel, just as the Holocaust's legacy, the hatred of centuries in Europe, Yemen, Russia and elsewhere has left its indelible mark.

We are a people who learned the lessons Menachem Begin begged us to learn. There are indeed things more precious than life and more horrible than death. October 7 was such a day, such a lesson. Many risked and lost their lives on that day to save others.
On October 7, Gazans came in to murder, and Israelis rushed in to save...

And now, Israelis are delivering justice on every front. Don't mess with us. Your missiles are nothing compared to our God and the army and air force blessed by our God. You think we are kidding? Invoking history and men that died thousands of years ago...you have no idea.

You just have no idea.

Today, we will mourn from the depths of our souls. Agonize and suffer as we remember. Every minute we are sharing with each other the names of the hostages, of those murdered. To remember is our destiny. Some day, generations from now, our children's children's great great great grandchildren will remember and mark October 7 at the tragedy that marked the beginning of the end of our enemies...

Just as Pharoah's army drowned in the sea, and Amalek's forces fell to our swords...as Haman and his sons hanged from the king's tree, as Hitler died without fulfilling his dream...the end of today's enemies has begun...and each rocket they fire brings the end that much closer.

Am Yisrael Chai