October 7: Three Years Later
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
There is a reason why Hamas chose October 7, 2023, to carry out the worst, most vile and most atrocious massacre against the Jews since the Shoah, the Holocaust. The date was not random. Three years ago, the day they chose to launch their barbaric attack coincided with the Jewish Holy Day of Simchat Torah—Rejoicing with the Torah.
These dates are never random. On July 23, 1942, which corresponded with Tisha B’Av, a Jewish national day of mourning, the Nazis began the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto, sending them to the death camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau. 53 years ago, in 1973, an Arab coalition led by Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
These events are part of a long series of attacks against the Jewish People, going back thousands of years, attempts to destroy and erase our identity, our history, our religion, and our connection to our homeland, the Land of Israel.
Simchat Torah celebrates the core of Jewish identity: the Torah. On this day we dance with the Torahs, completing seven hakafot—processions around the sanctuary. Special foods are prepared, children wave colorful flags, the sanctuary is filled with music and joy—all meant to show our gratitude and love for the special relationship we have with God.
The Torah has been called Tree of Life. And even secular Jews, who may doubt the belief that it was dictated by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, understand the meaning of the Torah in Jewish life. Torah has shaped us, given us laws and customs, enlivened our discussions, kept us unified as a people regardless of time or geography. We still study its message, chant its words and apply them to our lives as have our ancestors going back thousands of years.
An attack against Jews carried out on the holiday of Simchat Torah holds the deepest significance possible.
Hamas did not merely try to hurt Israelis. Beyond the terrorists’ hope to start a war that would ultimately lead to the destruction of the State of Israel, October 7 was yet another attempt to destroy Judaism altogether.
October 7 2023 should have been anticipated. That it took place at all—and I will never, NEVER, shift the blame for the massacre from those who planned and executed it—is in no small part due to negligence on the part of Israel’s government, its intelligence agency, the Mossad, and even its army, the Israel Defense Force.
The political infighting, the cocky confidence that caused the generals to ignore clear and present warnings that something significant was about to happen, was all Hamas needed. For years the terrorists had been gathering arms—almost all produced in Iran; for years the terrorist organization had been digging a subterranean maze of invasion tunnels extending between 350 and 450 miles, fifteen feet to over two hundred feet below the surface, with some 5,700 separate shafts. The money needed to carry out these preparations amounted to about one billion dollars, some donated by NGO’s and well-meaning but deluded humanitarian organizations, but most coming from countries like Qatar—with Israel’s government acting as intermediary in the mistaken belief that the money would be used for its supposed humanitarian purposes. It wasn’t. And Israel should have known that.
Soon after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel’s government at the time resigned. Golda Meir, then Prime Minister, took the blame upon herself. For many years, I along with many others believed that she didn’t know about the impending attack, that she was kept in the dark—even as evidence showed intensified military buildup along the Suez Canal and the Golan Heights.
I no longer believe that. She must have known, and resigning was the proper step.
Three years after the Simchat Torah Massacre of October 7 2023, less than a handful of Israelis in government positions have acknowledged or accepted responsibility for the horrors of that day and the tragic war that ensued.
Less than two months after the Yom Kippur war, the Agranat Commission of Inquiry was established to investigate the failures that led up to the war.
As of yet, no such commission has been set up to determine what went wrong on October 7, 2023.
The man who was at the head of Israel, who was responsible for much of the political infighting and snug complacency that preceded the attack, who SHOULD have been alerted (he claims he wasn’t), who should have heeded whatever warning signs were there (he claims it wasn’t his responsibility), was asleep at 6:29 AM, when Hamas terrorists broke through the fences and brutally massacred more than 1200 Israelis and other nationals and kidnapped more than 250 others.
Benjamin Netanyahu may be the most powerful Jew in the world today. He is certainly the most feared, and rightly or wrongly, the most loathed. Yet he seems to be intoxicated with his own power and seeming invincibility.
He should have resigned. But he and his equally corrupt ministers are still holding on to their seats of power.
Israel will be holding elections later this month. It is up to Israel’s citizens at this point to weigh in and determine Netanyahu’s accountability. Israelis are the only people on this planet who have to wake up every morning—and go to sleep every night—with realities that few others anywhere in this world have to face, whose very existence as a unique people and nation is maligned or denied. They need to be the judge and determine their path forward. Not anyone else.
Not because Israel’s existential war against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran is right and justified. Not because this tragic war has awakened the slumbering evil genie of antisemitism all over the world and made it unsafe for Jews anywhere to gather, worship or even identify themselves as Jews. But rather because Netanyahu was part of the equation—the smiling face behind the equanimity which enabled Israel to be surprised. Because power, money and glory have blinded him to the purpose for which he was elected
Let me not be misunderstood. I hold the Islamic extremists guilty of unspeakable brutality and inhumanity. But I also hold much of the rest of the world in contempt for its response on October 7 2023, and the three years that have followed. Shame on a world that has once again condoned and embraced the world’s oldest hatred! Shame on a world that should come to the defense of the only democracy in the region and instead calls for its dismantling! Shame on a world that would have Jews become wanderers once again, defenseless against bloodthirsty mobs, subject to the whim and mercy of petty princes, sultans and popes! Shame on a world that once again co-opts Jewish culture, history, religion, homeland and identity—and even has the audacity to appropriate Jewish suffering (Anne Frank wearing a keffiyeh???).
But I wish to close this commentary with something wonderful and amazing that happened to me a few days ago, something that I consider no less than a miracle. At the Simchat Torah celebration at the temple where I worship, I was honored with carrying the Torah for the last hakafah—the last of the seven “laps” around the sanctuary. As I made my way through the congregation, my five-year-old grandson joined me, taking my hand and leading me forward. Then, right before we ascended the stairs to place the Torah back in the holy Ark, he turned sideways and kissed the aged scroll. My eyes filled with tears. This genuine and innocent gesture has been, since time immemorial, symbolic of the enduring love and devotion that the Jewish People have for the Torah, the Tree of Life, symbol of our existence and, despite all, our enduring relationship with our God.
At that moment, I truly understood the meaning of the phrase, Am Yisrael chai—the People of Israel lives.
On October 7 this year, I will recite the Mourner’s Kaddish in memory of those whose lives were cut short so brutally three years ago, and those who lost their lives since then in defense of our existence, identity and homeland. I will think of them and of the gaping hole that was left in the hearts and lives of their families, friends and an entire nation.
And then I will continue to learn and teach Torah as has been my blessing and privilege since I was a child.
Ken y’hi ratzon—may this be God’s will.
© 2026 by Boaz D. Heilman
