Oftentimes I find myself thinking back to that terrible Oct. 7 Simchat Torah Sabbath — and to life before our world changed. What occupied me then? It feels like such a faraway time and such a faraway world.
On that fateful Oct. 7, by night time, when the news kept coming in so ominously, in my bones, as much as I thought I understood something so savage and terrible had taken place, I honestly had no clue. It was the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, so the idea of being on the cusp of war dawned on me.
But the horrific Yom Kippur War — it was short of three weeks.
My gut knew we were up against something bigger. A barbaric invasion of our very own country. A huge number of captives, which at the time was a fraction of what it turned out to be. And I was horrified.
Yet mentally, in my wildest dreams, I hadn’t prepared for a war this long and this devastating. But today, as I write, unbelievably, it’s been 500 days. Or, as the recently released hostage Sagui Dekel Chen put it: “It’s nice that people count days, but it’s more accurate to say we were there for 43 million seconds of hell.”
It’s a time-standing-still kind of hell of excruciating moment upon moment.
The approach of this 500 day number has been hovering over Israel even before today. But then today, it hit with full force. Everywhere you turned here, there it was: 500. Not just the tangible newspapers. Not just the 500 minutes of fasting. Not just the numbers on shop windows. It was just the all pervasive feeling of 500 days of pain and suffering.
500 days of war itself.
500 days of fallen soldiers, of “hutar le-pirsum” memorials, the near-daily and at times daily notices of fallen soldiers.
500 days of chained, beaten, starved tortured hostages.
500 days of captivity, 500 days of carnage, 500 days of families in agony, 500 days of a nation in trauma.
Last night, when I was walked down to the Wailing Wall, I looked to see whether the massive Old City walls were lit up with the pictures of the remaining hostages, and the glaring digits: 500. That’s how the walls were illuminated at the 365-day, one-year marker.
What sick and wrenching “milestones.”
The country feels drenched in pain and anxiety. The situation, unremitting.
While it’s been 500 days of focusing on trying to support the hostages and the IDF soldiers and their respective families, it’s also been 500 days of, on the surface, striving to lead a semblance of normal life, of people going about their usual responsibilities, of days filled with “ordinary” moments.
It’s been 500 days of profound suffering, but also 500 days of what in a different “normal” dimension would be thought of as those ordinary yet precious moments, such as birthday parties, doctor appointments, worrying if you remembered your umbrella, cooking for Shabbat, births, weddings and the sweetness of reading bedtime stories or singing a lullaby to a sweet child.
It’s also been 500 days of seeing many in the world swarming around supporting a genocidal terrorist organization bent on the destruction of our people. 500 days when at times it seemed like there is no longer a stream of humanity that stands for just that — the goodness of humanity. 500 days when the world split and got mixed up, as if there were two different definitions of humanity. As if one definition has been severed from what true humanity means, endorsing terrorism, wanton bloodshed, theft of human beings, burning them, erasing them, all in solidarity with the people who deify murder. That is, if the victims are Jews.
From others corners of the world it’s been 500 days of silence. Silence in the face of the unthinkable.
500 days of tremendous tension here in Israel. 500 days of unbearable heartbreak.
But also 500 days of grasping onto hope. 500 days of endless acts of unconditional kindnesses and connection amidst the cross section of the most unlikely of communities.
These 500 days of searing national pain and mental anguish have been infused with astonishing fortitude that time and again has left me, stunned.
It’s inevitably also been 500 days to reflect on what and who this purportedly Hamas even is. What does it have to offer the world? What does it even have to offer its own people? The answer is: Nothing. Literally, Hamas is nothing. It stands for nothing other than bloodshed, evil personified, and savage cruelty. It has absolutely nothing other than these beautiful captives whom they viciously kidnapped from the safety of their for the tunnels of Gaza. That is literally Hamas’ only twisted “value” and leverage in this world. That’s all that Hamas gained from these past 500 days. Nothing else. For devils, that’s enough.
Unlike the depraved soulless human shells of Hamas, Israelis are deeply human. Whether it is wise or not to betray our pain and bleeding soul to Hamas, it’s laid bare. At this 500 day mark, the desperate cry for the release of the remaining 76 hostages continues, alongside prayers from the depths that no more soldiers will need to fall, G-d forbid. And that an agreement that will return the hostages will be forged from a place of strength.
To many around the world, understand that for 500 days, this is what you have been cowtowing too. To nothing but evil murderous thugs. 500 days, but for the tears and pain, no mathematical number will ever capture them.
When I remember it wasn’t always like this, I try to hope that one day it will be good again, even as the wounds and scars will remain; that one day numbers will be just numbers, not painful daily reminders; that the sinews of the wounded resilience we have earned at so dear a price these past 500 days will be woven onto the loom of the next iteration of the Jewish people, and into eternity.
This future, though, can only come after the remaining hostages are back.
After Hamas leadership in Gaza is completely vanquished.
After severed families are reunited.
After bereaved families who buried their heroic loved ones, or hostage families whose loved ones were murdered in the dungeons of Hamas, can somehow in time struggle through the pain toward the impossible, a sense of healing.
Only then, when we can live without a daily awareness of counting the number of days of hostages in Hamas captivity, when the three digit number 500 will return to meaning nothing special.
But now, when the Jewish people’s Achilles heel at this fraught and anguished moment counts 500 days of pain and worrying and waiting for our brothers and sisters, of endless tears for our heroic brothers and sisters we know never shall return — for now, it is “43 million seconds.”
Adding up to 500 days. Today.
© IJN 2025
