Season 9, episode 16 of Seinfeld is (appropriately for this post) called “The Burning.” It is described like this on IMDb: “Elaine finds out that Puddy is religious. Kramer pretends to have gonorrhea. Jerry’s new girlfriend has a tractor story to tell him. George wants everyone at work to like him.” Watch it. It’s hilarious.
George, specifically, decides that he’s always going to go out on a high. That is, he’s going to drop a joke, and if people laugh, then he’s going to walk out with everyone feeling good about him.
Now I’m not going to try and do that with this last post of 2024, but I do want to try and leave on a positive note. And in doing so, below, I am going to write about four things that I perceive to have been positive outcomes from 10/7.
Of course, this ought not detract from the million negatives in the post-10/7 world, and from the way that our hearts are collectively wrenched from what happened - we have been living 10/7 every single day for the last 441 days. Our hostages remain trapped in hell. Our tears stain our cheeks as we fight for their return, and we remember every soldier and each Israeli who has died in this war. But every now and then, we must take stock of where things stand, and recall that not everything is always as bad as it seems.
1. Fire on the streets
Two weeks ago, I gave a lecture on the history of Israel from 1948 to present. I said, in a glib moment, that perhaps 10/7 was the best thing that could have happened at the end of 2023 because it brought Israel back together after a year in which it was torn apart.
Throughout the first nine months of 2023, Israeli society had been torn apart on account of Netanyahu’s right-wing government, the inclusion of people like Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich in that government, and efforts by the government to overhaul certain powers afforded to Israel’s Supreme Court. For well over 30 weeks in a row, Israelis took to the streets every Saturday night in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in protests that grew rowdier and angrier. People began to light bonfires in the middle of the Ayalon Highway, with police at times actually fighting with the protestors.
There was even talk - shockingly - of a potential Israeli civil war. This was something that Israel had never experienced before (well, maybe since the short-lived Altalena Affair in 1948) but certainly not to that extent. People talked about leaving Israel and moving abroad, about not turning up for reserve army duty, and there was real concern about Israel’s future.
10/7 changed all of that in a heartbeat. It was a grand unifying event, not only for Jews around the world, but for Israelis themselves. Those who had been showing up at the protests, fighting each other over political views, were now united in a fight of Israel versus the world, or Israel versus Gaza/Hamas, or Israel versus Iran. Whoever the foe, it was no longer Israeli versus Israeli, or Jew versus Jew.
Certainly, issues with the government have remained since that time, but they have morphed. To quote something I heard recently, “In Israel today, there is a lot of brotherhood and sisterhood, but we are orphans - we have no parents.” Israelis are feeling closer than ever with their fellow citizens. They do not, however, feel that their government is acting in their best interests. That their government has their back.
10/7 extinguished the bonfires on the Ayalon. It stopped talk of civil war. It brought Israelis together.
2. FIRE and the left
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has a mission to defend and sustain individual rights, at least in the United States. I love the name, and it fits well with the theme of this post. At its core, the organization’s mission is to defeat the illiberal trends of the extreme-left, which have been spreading across the west, like (you guessed it) wildfire. They undertaken an invaluable task, in advocating for those whose views do not align with those of the far-left.
In the 15 months since 10/7, the world has been exposed, clearly, to the broken values of the extreme-left. I am talking about those people who wave the Palestinian flag without understanding what it means, who hold banners saying that “Queer rights are Palestinian rights” or “Reproductive Justice Requires a Free Palestine.” The campuses obsessed with “settler colonialism,” or those who scream that “it’s just about Israel” while throwing a Molotov cocktail at a synagogue.
What happened on 10/7 in Israel was the clearest possible illustration of what terrorists want: a world without Israel and with dead Jews. A genocide. Those Palestinian terrorists were not seeking to hide their crimes either: they broadcast their deeds on social media, using their GoPro cameras. But even with their genocidal, blood-curdling screams, as they put Jewish babies in ovens, raped Jewish women, and kidnapped Jewish grandmothers and grandfathers, the far-left stood by, seemingly energized and exhilarated by the brutality of it all. They defended, rationalized, and came to support the rapists and murderers. They wrapped their keffiyehs, they camped out in the Ivy League quads, and they swore they would boycott the Jewish state while tweeting from their Israeli-technology-powered cell phones.
What 10/7 did was expose the far-left for what they are. Finally. For what they actually believe in. For the lunacy and hypocrisy for which they stand. Not just that, there have slowly (slowwwwly) been steps to recognize the absurdity of their positions. Governments are changing, radical DEI programs are being dismantled, and there is a move back (again, slowly) back to some more common sense when it comes to societal values and virtue signalling.
10/7 exposed the far-left and its discontents for what it is: antisemitic, illiberal, and wrong.
3. Ring of Fire
By October 6, what was called an Iranian “Ring of Fire” surrounded Israel: Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza in the Southwest, the Houthis in the South, Hezbollah in the North, foreign militias in the Syria in the Northeast, and pro-Iran militias in Iraq in the East. Of course, just beyond that, lies Iran.
This Ring of Fire was bought and paid for by Iran. The guiding principle of the Ring of Fire was clear: keep Iran, the head of the octopus, ostensibly uninvolved, while its proxies surround Israel, threatening a war - hence, a ring of fire - at any provocation or move against Iran.
Today, December 20, 2024, that Ring of Fire is largely extinguished. Hamas and PIJ in Gaza are mostly dismantled, no longer posing a serious threat to Israel. Hezbollah is a fraction of what it once was. The Houthis have been attacked, and their leaders are likely next in Israel’s crosshairs. The murderous Assad regime has collapsed, and Israel is securing her borders.
10/7 was the pin pulled from the extinguisher that put out the ring of fire. Israel is mightier than ever, and has proven not only their military prowess, but their intellectual/intelligence superiority too. One can only hope that the Iranian regime will fall next.
4. Passing the Torch
On October 26, 2023, I wrote a post called “Everything has changed except we are once again survivors.” I wrote:
And now, we have a new batch of survivors. Of witnesses. Yes, you and I have witnessed the massacres because of what we have seen online. We saw the videos that Hamas wanted us to see of their crimes, and of their inhumanity. But those on the ground, our Israeli friends and cousins who lived or live in the Gaza envelope, around what is referred to as Hamastan, they are our new eyewitnesses. They are our new survivors. They lived these attacks. They feared for their lives. They are suffering an unimaginable pain.
Those Israelis who saw their friends raped and murdered at a music festival, those whose grandparents, parents, siblings, children, or friends, were killed in front of them, or who saw their bodies lying on the streets as the dust settled, they are our new survivors.
They must be given time to grieve, but soon these new survivors will do what so many survivors have done in the past. They will rekindle our torch of survival, that has been passed on from generation to generation of Jews. They will hold it high, not wiping off the fingerprints of past generations who have held the same, and who have proclaimed never again, often into an empty void. They will kindle the flame with their tears, they will share their experiences, they will do so with their heads held high, and they will remind us of our place in Jewish history.
So why is this a good thing? Why is this included in my effort to end on a high note? Because unfortunately, this is what it is to be Jewish. Our history is one of incredible bravery and accomplishment, but it is also one of sadness and memory. Only by remembering our past, can we remain vigilant for the future, and so we must always have “survivors” or eye-witnesses. Those who can recall the horrors that have been perpetrated against our people, and to remind us of who we are, what we have endured, and yet what we have accomplished.
To that end, 10/7 came at a time when we are losing so many of our remaining Holocaust survivors. And though the Holocaust is unique in our history, it is also not, given that it is just another episode of antisemitism that has plagued our community. The events of 10/7 updated that experience, creating a new generation of survivors, who now carry the torch forward, previously kindled by those Holocaust survivors, to continue to tell our story - both the good and the bad. This is a hard truth, but an important one.
Chanukah
So next week, we will begin to celebrate Chanukah. Each night of this festival of lights, we remind ourselves of days long ago when a different generation tried to kill us, and failed. Tried to extinguish our faith and rituals, that still exist to this day. An eight-day reminder that we won.
The flames of the Chanukiah symbolize an eternity. The eternity of our people. Of our capacity for greatness. Our ability to survive and thrive, despite whatever is thrown at us. We light the candles - an increasing number each evening - increasingly the light in our homes, and magnifying the light in our children’s eyes. In doing so, we remember that next year will be better, that there is always good that surrounds the bad. This year, we also pray that the war will end, and that our hostages will be home to light their own candles, commemorating their own personal victories against our collective foes.
As we say when we light our Chanukah candles,
Bless You, God, You performed miracles for our ancestors at this time and your miracles surround us all the time.
Shabbat shalom, chag sameach, and will see you in 2025.