The weight of the loss of Oct. 7 is in the air.
Because three years ago, Oct. 7 was the date of Simchat Torah. Now, it’s as though there are two official commemoration dates.
The Jewish holiday.
And Oct. 7.
But then, last year on the holiday of Hoshana Rabba — the eve of Simchat Torah — the last of the hostages returned home, bringing the cursed war to its technical, official end.
Which means, this past Hoshana Rabba was the first anniversary of those hostages’ release; And for our generation and for our time, the hostages’ return will forever be enfolded into this day. Hosha Na! Redeem us! The lived response to this prayer added a new valence to the already poignant poetry-prayers and holy day.
Which in turn means that this past Simchat Torah, the holiday on which the hostages were taken into captivity, was, for a group of those hostages, their very first Simchat Torah in freedom.
A commemoration ceremony near Nova, in Re’im, showed Bar Kuperstein and Evyatar David — whom we saw on released Hamas footage looking like a Holocaust musselman, forced to dig his own grave in the narrow straits of his captivity tunnel — this year euphorically dancing on the shoulders of friends or loved ones, hugging a Torah scroll to their chest.
Yet, Simchat Torah has also become a mass yahrzeit date for the hundreds of Israeli Jews and others who were slaughtered on that horrific day three years ago.
Which is marked on Oct. 7, too.
It’s such an almost palpable roller coaster of emotions you could feel here as the scale of the massacre is remembered.
Yahrzeit. Commemoration. Release from captivity. Celebration.
Tears.
Of trauma.
Of profound loss.
And tears of joy.
Then, add into this emotional oscillation the euphoric twist of this Sukkot holiday’s simply unreal layer-upon-layer of miracles on the FlyDubai flight — indescribably uplifting.
Contemplating the “what if,” had the miracles of the flight not occurred, highlighted how razor close we were to another national attack and national tragedy.
With Oct. 7 still so fresh, it brought an added understanding of what had just narrowly averted.
With three years having passed since Oct. 7, the date doesn’t quite feel like a commemoration at this point. Nor does it quite feel like a memory, like a scar. While thankfully, on a national collective level at least (personal bereavement of Oct. 7-related losses is entirely different), it is not a raw, seeping wound, but it very far from a healed scar. Parts of Oct. 7 are still being processed and coped with, in what feels like its infancy.
As I pen this column, the date, Oct. 7, is still pending. It hasn’t quite arrived yet. But in Israel and Israeli programming, the upcoming anniversary is already all consuming.
The new Oct. 7 literary genre that has emerged has showcased two new books. Through The Ground by Avinatan Or is meant to be an outstanding memoir and recounting of his solitary captivity, and Omer Shemtov’s Meeting Myself in Hell is said to be mesmerizing. The two latest books join previous masterpieces centered around Oct. 7, such as Hostage by Eli Sharabi and When We See You Again by Rachel Goldberg-Polin — and many others.
Interviews of all kinds. With a bereaved parent who is an Orthodox rabbi, Rabbi Granot, who, along with bereaved Rabbi Doron Peretz, has emerged as a spiritual and religious voice of leadership, navigating personal tragedy through a prism of faith
The interview with Rabbi Granot touches on how he reconciles his tragedy with his belief in a compassionate and moral G-d, as his world as he knew it collapsed.
The endless, haunting, final, recorded conversations between parents and their young-adult soldier or civilian children. You can almost hear a silent yet audible gap or shift when the conversation takes a turn, as the parent and the son or daughter no longer inhabit the same reality or dimension.
It’s almost like a role reversal. Those parents, as any good parent would, are cheerfully encouraging their children, clueless as to the gory and utterly terrifying situation and reality that their kids on the other end of the line have already crossed into.
You can hear the kids’ silent realization that their parents just don’t get it. The kids don’t bother explaining, suddenly they just shift to their farewell. They know their minutes are numbered. The parents are left continuously trying to encourage and verbally build strength in their child.
The kids at the end of those calls. They are all dead.
There was no Heavenly voice thundering from the sky, calling for these young adults to be spared.
The Heavens were silent, absent a bat kol, that day.
And Simchat Torah, and Oct. 7, became their yahrzeit.
Then the grandparents. The interviews with the grandparents who are raising their orphaned grandchildren. Children robbed of their parents and their childhoods of innocence.
There is the endless void and isolation of grief. There are the empty chairs. There are those drowning in silence. There are remarriages of young widows. And new births.
There are those who were still mentally locked in Oct. 7, who couldn’t make it out. There are new, rearranged beginnings. There are those whose lives are still suspended in abeyance. And many seemingly ordinary people around us who suffered the unspeakable, yet somehow, like on that FlyDubai flight, with that signature Israeli fortitude and grit, are strongly rebuilding, metaphorically safely soaring through new skies into new safe landings.
It’s all part of the weight of the lead up to Oct. 7 this year.
Which at once feels like both the present and the past.
May the memory of all those precious souls who were murdered on this agonizing day — and all that it triggered — be forever remembered for a blessing.
© IJN 2026
