It’s been said that “history does not really repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” Those of us who can’t help but think of the massacre of October 7 as a repetition of the Holocaust or of the pogroms forget to take into account how our military struck back with ferocity on October 8.
That response, which is ongoing, changes any and every historical context that one can possibly lend to October 7. Jewish blood, which was once so cheap, including a special liquidation sale 80 years ago, has now proven to be the most expensive commodity in the world.
Last week, I saw a New York Times video op-ed by Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha from Gaza. For five minutes, Abu Toha shares his story of woe and loss due to the war in Gaza but never, not once, is there a moment of introspection about what blame, if any, the Palestinians bear for the situation and the subsequent violence being inflicted upon him and his family. It is the absence of this self-interrogation that is endemic to the Palestinian people and, in my opinion, it is one of the main reasons they do not have a state.
I also believe that it has been the fact that we asked ourselves that question when we suffered the losses of our states millennia ago, that has helped bring us home.
When the rabbis asked what brought about the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian Exile, they did not blame the Babylonians; they blamed themselves. They saw Nebuchadnezzar as the servant of God carrying out their just punishment.
When the Second Temple fell, six centuries later, the rabbis did not compare and contrast the various military strategies and tactics of the Roman legions and the Jewish rebels. Nor did they attribute the Roman victory to its superior army.
The rabbis once again took the blame and concluded that the cause of our defeat was the senseless hatred among ourselves.
This doctrine of mipnei hataeinu, “because of our sins,” has since become a dogma of Jewish belief. Taking both the blame and the responsibility was not only absolutely necessary for our redemption but continues to be necessary for the preservation of our state today.
Israel: God's greatest gift to the Jews since the Torah
This state, the State of Israel, is the greatest gift we have gotten since the Torah itself.
It has allowed us for the first time in 2,000 years to be true Jews in the “fullest, freest and boldest” sense of the word. Israel, said Ben-Gurion, “makes everything that is human, Jewish, and everything that is Jewish, human.”
Israel has allowed us to take our Judaism out of our synagogues and kitchens and apply it to the world entire.
The rabbis have told us that after the destruction of the Temple, God has been exiled to the ‘“four amot [cubits] of Halacha.” The founding of the State of Israel was therefore not just the redemption of the Jewish people but the redemption of God Himself. Here we are not limited to asking if our chickens are kosher. We ask if our social welfare programs are “kosher.” Are our military tactics kosher? Are our employee and employer relationships kosher?
We were able to do this because Israel was not founded ex nihilo but from a very deep wellspring that had been consistently nurtured during our exile.
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik once explained an interesting point about the upcoming holiday of Tu Bishvat. As you may know, trees in the Land of Israel are subject to special religious laws, and their fruit carries a special holiness. The rabbis ask: What if a tree was planted in the Land of Israel but its branches and fruit hung over the border into a neighboring country? What would be the status of such fruit? The rabbis answer that such fruit would be considered the produce of the Land of Israel. And thus, explains Soloveichik, in Judaism everything goes according to its roots.
The roots of the Jewish people are and continue to be in the Land of Israel.
And thus, the last 2,000 years of Jewish productivity, even in foreign and hostile lands, are rooted in Israel. Our ability to come back to the Land of Israel and rebuild our state was made possible because we were an indigenous people replanting in our land an indigenous culture. And only because we were indigenous were we able to take root, once again, so firmly and so quickly.
The war that is raging now isn’t limited to the brutal and vicious October 7 attack by Hamas on innocent Israelis. It is about the very right of the Jewish people to be in this land.
What is amazing to me is that most Israelis, at least before October 7, when asked if the Arabs in the Land of Israel have a right to be here, would answer in the absolute affirmative. There was no consensus on how that would or should be expressed. Should there be a full Palestinian state, or a demilitarized one? Should the Palestinians have autonomy, or citizenship in Israel? What borders?
Most people who were against a two-state solution weren’t against the idea itself but only the viability of such a solution as an absolute end to the conflict. What was lacking was not the conviction of the Israelis that the Arabs had rights to the Land of Israel but that the Arabs would be satisfied with a state on only part of that land.
But that is not the amazing part. The amazing part is that there was no parallel voice on the Palestinian side that believed there should be any Jewish state in the Land of Israel. Meaning, that they were not debating the dimensions of such a Jewish state but rejected the very notion of one. How can it be that the majority of Jews are willing to make painful sacrifices to accommodate the Arab population, but not even a minority of Palestinians are willing to accept our right to any of it?
It is their willful blindness to the legitimate rights of the Jews here in Israel, along with their absolute inability for introspection regarding their own mistakes and misdeeds, that have led us to this point.
This denial, along with the brutality of October 7, have convinced us that it is now either us or them.
There cannot be a two-state solution, which is perhaps the biggest tragedy, as it now condemns us both to a zero-sum war. It is a war that I have no doubt we will win, but it is so tragic because of the blood that has been and will be spilled on both sides.
So yes, history rhymes instead of repeating itself. And yet, while this war for our very right to exist here is a familiar one, it is also very different, as we Jews are now different. We now have one of the strongest armies and best economies in the world. But more importantly, we have a newly found confidence that Zionism has given us – and to put it bluntly, we have the God of Israel on our side. After thousands of years of hiding Himself, He has now come out in full force. “The Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps” anymore.
With His help, we will win this war and continue to plant ourselves firmly in our land. ■
The writer has a doctorate in Jewish philosophy and teaches in post-high school yeshivot and midrashot in Jerusalem.