On Oct 7th 2024, Shabtai commemorated the lives of those murdered on this horrific day, by hosting a concert titled “We Shall Dance Again” at the Anderson Mansion at Yale. The event was attended by Yale students, faculty, alumni and friends.
World renowned composer/singer Yehuda Green performed for hours as the Yale community wept and danced into the late evening.
The concert was preceded with remarks by Caroline Waxman YC ’25, Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis, Yale Law School Professor Robert Post, and Shabtai Director Toby Hecht.
The event was made possible through the generosity of Rotem and Moshe Sarfaty ’08 and Renee Edelman ’77.
Caroline Waxman YC ‘25
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Caroline Waxman: Hi everyone. Thank you so much for joining us tonight at Shabtai. My name is Caroline Waxman, and I'm a senior here at Yale. Today, October 7th, marks a year since Hamas committed the worst atrocities against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. My brother was in Tel Aviv on October 7th last year. I remember the intense fear that gripped my family here in America all day. But that fear doesn't even begin to approach the terror and pain of those in the kibbutzim surrounding the Gaza envelope and at the Nova Music Festival, and those with family and friends. I can't even begin to comprehend that pain. On the one hand, it's hard to believe a year has passed and that the world has moved on from this dark day. But on the other hand, the Jewish community has been reliving this nightmare every single day as the hostages languish in captivity and our brothers and sisters continue to fight and die in Lebanon and Gaza 365 days later. We witnessed true evil on October 7th. Meanwhile, that terror was recorded, happily broadcasted and published by terrorists. Yet there are those who still won't let us mourn for one day. The reaction worldwide since has been almost as horrifying and shocking as October 7th itself. Unfortunately, that reaction, while shocking, is not surprising. I'm the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, and in spite of warning signs, never did I fathom that I would be living in a period where Jews again would not only become targets, but would also become bereft of many of our friends and allies at our time of greatest need and sorrow.
Caroline Waxman: Like minded people with a high moral compass, those who believe in life and in decency, must come together and not just comfort one another, but fight for what is right. We must articulate a counter-narrative that exposes the falsehoods of those who seek to diminish the horrors of October 7th. Let us pray for the safety and return of all our soldiers and hostages, and for a lasting peace. I would now like to recite a prayer of Tehilim, or from the Book of Psalms in Hebrew and then in English. A song for Ascents. I turned my eyes to the mountains. From where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot give way. Your guardian will not slumber. See the guardian of Israel. Neither slumbers nor sleeps. The Lord is your guardian. The Lord is your protection at your right hand. By day the sun will not strike you. Nor the moon by night.
Caroline Waxman: The Lord will guard you from all harm. He will guard your life. The Lord will guard your going and coming, now and forever. I would now like to read a letter from Senator Richard Blumenthal, who is unable to join us today as he is in Israel. These are the words of Richard Blumenthal. As you gather for this significant solemn ceremony, I regret that I cannot be with you. I am in Israel leading a bipartisan Senate delegation with an unmistakable message to make unequivocally clear that the United States will continue to have Israel's back. We must support Israel's right to defend itself against terrorists who slaughtered our people on October 7th last year. An organizations that continue to seek destruction of Israel and death to the Jewish people. I am with you in spirit sharing this searing shock, agony and outrage that is still raw and deep. I also remember vividly the resolve and resilience that we drew from our community in Connecticut and around the country. Like many of you, I have family who live in Israel, including a cousin in the IDF. This cause is deeply personal. It is a matter of faith. It is above politics. Today, as we remember the victims of that savage, inhumane attack, we recommit to bring home all the hostages, including those who have been brutally murdered. Over the last year, I have come to know closely many of the hostage families, and I am in awe of them.
Caroline Waxman: A strong, thriving Israel is essential to America's own national security. Our military, intelligence, economic, cultural and other bonds are vital. I believe deeply this cause should unite all Americans regardless of political, party, religion or other differences. I work every day to keep it bipartisan and to seek consensus, and I will continue to fight for whatever arms and aid Israel needs to defend itself and prevail. As tensions heighten, I hope that diplomacy may achieve a cessation of fighting, leading to the return of the hostages and a path toward normalizing relations in the region, along with humanitarian aid and rebuilding. Peace. And most importantly, Israel's security is the goal. This trip is my third trip to Israel since last October 7th, and I've come to admire beyond words the courage and strength of so many I now know as personal friends, hostage families, community leaders, and our own diplomats, military and intelligence community. I thank you for this ceremony, reminding our fellow Americans and the world how that day felt sickening and frightening, and it remains heartbreaking. The people of Israel are our friends, our family, our allies have fought through years of tears and unspeakable loss. We must match their bravery and faith. We can never forget. Am Yisroel Chai. I would now like to invite Dean Pericles Lewis, Dean of Yale College, for opening remarks.
Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis
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Dean Pericles Lewis: Thanks very much. And thank you, Shmully, for having me on a solemn occasion. It's an important opportunity for me to talk with people who invite me and have an opportunity to share. And on this horrible anniversary, it's good to be here and to honor the hostages and all who have suffered in this past year. It's a painful anniversary. Many of us have been affected, whether directly or indirectly, by the terrorist attack of October 7th and the aftermath over the past year, both in Israel and also here on our own campus, particularly now at the beginning of a new year and on the eve of Yom Kippur, we seek the meaning of these events, and we hope for a better year ahead. At such a time, the mission of Shabtai seems to me particularly important. Your commitment to developing Jewish leadership, to dialogue between Jews and Gentiles, to intellectual exploration, have made you a home for some of the most important conversations at Yale, and I've been learning more about those as I meet people here today. As Senator Cory Booker has said, you've worked to unite people with love and respect. The keynote speaker today is Robert Post, former dean of the Yale Law School, someone I admire and think of as a friend. I've been particularly grateful for his writings on academic freedom, which has helped me to think about my own work as a university administrator.
Dean Pericles Lewis: I want to leave plenty of time for Professor Post's remarks, but I would like to share a couple of poems from Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, whose work I've included in an anthology that I edited. These were translated by Stephen Mitchell, Hannah Block, and Harold Schimmel. There's been a lot of discussion, by the way, about institutional politics in the past year, and I'll just say that I'm sharing these not as any kind of political statement or even as dean, but as a literary critic who finds these poems moving and apt on this occasion. Sleep in Jerusalem while a chosen people become a nation like all the nations, building its houses, paving its highways, breaking open its earth for pipes and water. We lie inside in the low house, late offspring of this old landscape. The ceiling is vaulted above us with love, and the breath of our mouth is as it was given us. And as we shall give it back. Sleep is where there are stones. In Jerusalem there is sleep. The radio brings daytime tunes from a land where there is day. And words that here are bitter like last year's almond on a tree are sung in a far country and sweet. And like a fire in the hollow trunk of an olive tree, an eternal heart is burning red. Not far from the two sleepers. The next poem is one that Amichai read at the invitation of Yitzhak Rabin, at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in 1994.
Dean Pericles Lewis: God has pity on kindergarten children. God has pity on kindergarten children. He has less pity on schoolchildren and on grownups, he has no pity at all. He leaves them alone, and sometimes they must crawl on all fours in the burning sand to reach the first aid station covered with blood. But perhaps he will watch over true lovers and have mercy on them, and shelter them like a tree over the old man sleeping on a public bench. Perhaps we too will give them the last rare coins of charity that mother handed down to us, so that their happiness may protect us now and on other days. Personally, I did not have much of a religious upbringing. I do not know Hebrew, but I read the Bible often, and when I think of the past year, I think of the passage in Genesis where Jacob wrestles with the angel and receives the name Israel. I think many of us have been wrestling or struggling with the meaning of the events of the past year. We may not understand them, but we have an opportunity to be together and to reflect on the lives lost and the lives of the hostages. I want to thank you again for inviting me to join you on this occasion. To hear from Professor Post. Thanks.
Yale Law School Professor Robert Post
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Robert Post: Thank you Pericles. And thank you, Shmully, for inviting me. This isn't my wheelhouse. Normally, I talk about things I know something about. I don't know almost anything about this, but to be frank, I was so traumatized by October 7th, a year ago. It made such an impact that I wanted a chance to put my own thoughts in order about what we have undergone, what we've been feeling about this. And I thank you for the opportunity to sort of try to put some parentheses around this, to give it some meaning for me at least. And maybe for you, it's- The what made it so traumatic was the sheer savagery of the thing, the distilled hatred right in your face. The fact that we still have hostages who are taken, who will not let the wound heal. We're bleeding constantly from this trauma which will not recede. And all of this makes it extremely hard to deal with. Makes it difficult. And I say this as someone who is a deeply secular Jew, you know, I grew up in Beverly Hills, California, and in my high school it was 95% Jewish. Never met, really, non-Jews. I went to Harvard in 1965 as a freshman, and I looked around and I saw these people with wreaths on their door at Christmas. And I thought anthropologically, how interesting is this? Who are these strange people that do this thing? And I don't think I ever myself can remember being conscious of being the subject of anti-Semitism ever.
Robert Post: And then you have this savagery full in your face, which distills the upwelling of anti-Semitism that we've seen in the last couple of years with the divisions in our country, Charlottesville. They just stopped someone on the border of coming over from Canada who wanted to kill Jews in today in Brooklyn. And so it comes full in your face. And it's the kind of thing that leaves you in despair. And it brought to mind and this is actually not planned with Pericles, but it brought to my mind one of my favorite poets, who's Yehuda, Yehuda Amichai from Israel, it turns out. And he has a poem, it's a wonderful, wonderful poem called Open, Shut, Open. And it's a very long poem, but I'm going to read you a portion of stanza 23, which is the last stanza, and it expresses, I think, the kind of despair that I felt a year ago still really, I'd say feeling a lot of that. He says this, he says, after Auschwitz, no theology. From the chimneys of the Vatican, white smoke rises, a sign that the cardinals have chosen themselves a pope. From the crematoria of Auschwitz, black smoke rises, a sign that the conclave of gods has not yet chosen the chosen people. After Auschwitz. No theology. The numbers on the forearms of the inmates of extermination are the telephone numbers of God. Numbers that do not answer and are now disconnected one by one.
Robert Post: You think about that? You know, it's one thing to read a passage like that and like Shmully believe in a God who can answer numbers, who can tear down the walls of a city if you march around it 13 times or stop the sun in its tracks if you need to win a battle. But I personally, I'm a secular Jew. I don't believe in a god like that. So if God's not going to answer those numbers, who is going to answer those numbers? Who's going to respond to the calls of the dead and the martyrs of October 7th, or of Auschwitz? Who? And I think the answer is really only one answer to that. And that's us. We have to be the people who answer those numbers when they call out and they call out in pain, and they call out to reach out to us. We are the people who have to answer those numbers. But how do we do that? How do we do that when we're here in New Haven and we're not in Israel? We're not in the IDF, we're not even in the region. What is our- what response do we have, can we have, that can answer those calls that are made to us by these people, by the people of October 7th, by the people of Auschwitz, by the people of our, of our past. And I think the way in which we do that is signified by the way Shmully invited you here.
Robert Post: He invited you as for a commemoration. And so that raises the question, what is a commemoration? If we're commemorating something, what are we doing? So I looked it up, of course, in the OED, and they tell me that to commemorate something is to celebrate it in speech or writing. I don't feel much like celebrating. I'm sorry. That's not why I'm here. That's not the thoughts I want to put together a celebration. So I want to give the idea of commemoration a different meaning. And I'm going to draw that meaning from what is, to me, the greatest commemoration in the English language, certainly in the United States. And that is the commemoration that Abraham Lincoln gave in Gettysburg. So you had the Battle of Gettysburg. You had like 55,000 casualties, unimaginable slaughter in the little town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Never been anything like it on the North American continent. Never has been anything like it on the North American. And he is invited to the cemetery to commemorate the dead. And how does he go about. What does he mean? How does he go about doing this magical trick commemorating the dead? And he does it. He says this is a passage from. I'm sure you've got it all by memory, but this is just think about it in terms of October 7th, he says. It is for us, the living, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
Robert Post: It is rather for us to be here, dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause, for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. So he's commemorating soldiers who were fighting for a cause. But the key point here is what he's saying is you commemorate by giving meaning to the death and living that meaning. We have to. What meaning do we take from this? How do we give this savage act of barbarity a meaning that can dedicate our lives so that they will not have died in vain? That to me is the meaning of commemoration. And it's it's a tough thing to think about how to do that, because they weren't soldiers. They were just living their lives. So what meaning can we give it? My mind goes to the in a few days in Yom Kippur and the Mussaf service, we're going to be reading the martyrology, right? And we're going to be reading about the Roman slaughter of the ten rabbis, Rabbi Akiba, Rabbi Shimon, etc. they pierced them with 300 lances. They burnt them, they flayed them, they decapitated them. And what sort of meaning do we give to those martyrs on Yom Kippur? We say again and again these I recall.
Robert Post: And my soul melts with sorrow. For the bitter course of our history. Tears pour from my eyes. So what's the meaning we give on Yom Kippur? The meaning is we survived. We're here to remember. The Romans are gone. They're a memory. We remember our dead. We survived. They didn't exterminate us. And why? Why do we give that meaning to it? Because the Romans had a way which came from the Punic Wars, right when they fought Carthage. The big saying was Carthage must be destroyed. Delenda est. They must destroy Carthage. And when we rebelled, the Jews must be destroyed, must be destroyed. And they could destroy a city. They couldn't destroy a people. They couldn't destroy an idea. They couldn't destroy a set of beliefs. Those things you can't destroy. And so it's a triumph to be alive, to be not destroyed, to remember them. They are now just the figments of our memory. And we survived. Is that what we want to say to the dead of October 7th that we survived? Is that enough? And I think not. Do we want to say to the dead of October 7th that we will remember you the way that the Romans remembered, the way the Romans acted, that Gaza must be destroyed like a Roman, like Carthage must be destroyed. Palestine must be destroyed. West Bank. Do we want to turn into the Romans, whom we remember badly on Yom Kippur.
Robert Post: I don't think so. I don't think that's our way. I don't think that's the meaning that we want to give to October 7th, that we are the people who exterminate others. So what meaning can we give them? And I want to give a few ideas, and I want to draw them from a Lithuanian poet who wrote in Polish, who won the Nobel Prize in literature. His name is Czeslaw Milosz . And he came of age in Eastern Europe in the days dark days of World War II. And he writes about the Holocaust. He writes about the destruction of Eastern Europe, Lithuania, Poland and so on. And he captures the the world in which we are at war with each other, and we've been pulverized and alienated. He has a wonderful poem called Child of Europe. These are some lines from that poem. He says, we from the fiery furnaces, from behind barbed wires on which the winds of endless autumn howled. We who remember battles where the wounded air roared in paroxysms of pain. We saved by our cunning and knowledge. Having the choice of our own death or that of a friend, we choose his coldly thinking. Let it be done quickly we sealed gas chamber doors. We stole bread, knowing that the next day it would be harder to bear than the day before. And the point of these lines from Milosz is that Europeans learned all the wrong lessons. Eastern Europeans, from the horrors of the Holocaust and from the destruction of the Nazis.
Robert Post: So these are his lines of lessons that people learned in Lithuania and Poland. Love no country. Country soon disappear. Love no city. Cities are soon rubble. Do not love people. People soon perish or they are wronged and they call for your help. These are the wrong lessons. And meanwhile, eventually emigrated to the United States, to Berkeley, and he began to see other lessons and ways in which he could commemorate the horrible slaughter of Eastern Europe. And he writes a poem called what I Learned from Gene Hirsch, to say what he had learned about how to commemorate these deaths, about how to make meaning out of slaughter. And it's a poem. It consists of 12 numbered propositions that he learned. But I'm going to read you three. The first I want to read you says this, that they have been wrong, who undermined our confidence in reason by enumerating the forces that want to usurp it. Class struggle, libido, will to power. The second one reads like this. It says the proper attitude toward being is respect. And the third one, which is the most puzzling, says that in our lives we should not succumb to despair, for the past is never closed down and receives the meaning we give it by our subsequent acts. The past receives the meaning that we give to it by our subsequent acts. So if I had to pick three propositions that should guide our ability to commemorate the horrible events of October 7th, these would be the three propositions.
Robert Post: So let me explain why. So the first of those is that we shouldn't abandon reason. So why shouldn't we abandon reason? Well, for one thing, Milosz is very explicit. Reason is what prevents us from being subject to our desires, our libido, our will to power. It gives us distance from our own will and our will is a very terrible thing. It can be a very terrible thing. And reason does that. But I think the more important reason that Milosz stresses reason is that reason is about the relationship between people. If I reason, I reason typically with someone, and that means I trust them to reason back and that means I have a relationship with them that is other than zero sum, other than war, other than destruction, other than anger. It's one of mutuality. If we reason together, then I have to respect your reason and you have to respect my reason. So if we are in a world of reason, we are in a world of respect and recognition. I teach at a University because I believe in reason, because I believe in expanding, extending recognition and regret to everyone that I meet. And that's quite inconsistent with Carthage must be destroyed. If you want to destroy Carthage. You don't want to reason with Carthage. You want it to disappear.
Robert Post: You want your will to triumph over Carthage. But if you commit to reason, you do not commit to Carthage must be destroyed. It's a very different attitude than that of Rome. The second proposition is that we have to use our reason to have good values and the essential value, says Milosz. The most important value is that we have to respect being. So what does it mean to respect being? On one level, it means to respect the facticity of the world. It means that the world is as it is, regardless of what we want, regardless of our fantasies of power, it means we have to have humility before the facts of the world. And one of the most important functions of reason is to allow us not to become prisoners of our own fantasized fantasies we fantasize we can destroy. Putin fantasizes he can destroy Ukraine. Or we fantasize. We can destroy Iran. These are fantasies. These are what we want. But the facts of the world are really quite different than that. And we have to respect the facts of the world. If we're going to actually live a life worth, worth living. It's art. It's the antidote to our incessant will to power. So that's on one simple level. But on a deeper level, it's important to recognize that other people also exist. They are facts in the world. Every one of you is a fact in the world. To respect being is to respect each of you and the fact of your being in the world and other people with whom you disagree, with whom you're angry, with whom you really think this person is terrible, they're nevertheless a fact.
Robert Post: And if you close your eyes and wish them away, they won't disappear in the end. You're going to have to live with all the people in the world with whom you disagree. You're going to have to respect their facticity. Other people don't disappear just because you don't want them. This is something we're going through in our democracy here. Half the people in this country can't bear the other half of the people in this country. And yet, if we're going to have a country, you have to live together. Same in a region. If you're living together in a region, you shut your eyes. The other people aren't going to disappear. They're going to stay there. They're facts that you have to respect the facticity of their being, and that means you have to deal with them. And how do you deal with them? The way in which we deal with people with whom we disagree is called politics. Politics is what people do when they disagree with each other, but have to live with each other. And politics is about not agreement, but disagreement. It's about what Hannah Arendt called plurality. She says politics is not about man, but men, different people with different ideas who disagree with each other, but have learned the art through reason and other ways of living together.
Robert Post: That's a necessity. That's what it means to respect being and the being of others. And the third and last proposition that I decided to you from Milosz has to do with the lack of despair. You should not despair in the present. I need this one because the present to me is full of causes for despair. But he gives a very interesting recipe for a set of advice for how not to despair. He says you don't despair because you change time. You change the past to live in a different present. You change the future to live in a different present. You manipulate time, not to despair in the present. That's a very odd thing to say, but it's exactly right for Jews. Because we are Time Lords. We manipulate time all the time. So consider the Passover Seder. Passover seder we begin with our ancestors. Our forefathers were slaves in Egypt. But the whole function of the Seder is to get you to change that past so that you were a slave in Egypt. We were slaves in Egypt. That's the end of the Seder. We've changed the past, so we become different in the present. We've changed ourselves. And by the end of the Seder, we've changed the future. Because the next year is in Jerusalem. Because we were slaves. We changed the past. We change the present. We change the future. We change the present.
Robert Post: By envisioning a different future, we make a different present. And that's what Milosz is, is saying. We have to keep to hope. We have to have a vision of what the future could be, and that's who that changes who we are now. That changes the structure of the problem that we have to deal with now, etc. and that says that respecting being is not a recipe for passivity. It does not demand that injustices be endured. In fact, it's quite the opposite. To respect being is to make time in such a way that you can make justice. Milosz has a wonderful poem called Faith, and it ends with these lines that says, look. See the long shadow cast by the tree, and flowers and people throw shadows on the earth. What has no shadow has no strength to live. So our strength to live is a fact of our own being. It must be respected like all facts have to be respected. We have to cast our shadow on the earth. We have to make the earth that we want to make. And we make it by hoping and envisioning a certain kind of of future. And when we make a future, we have to respect the shadows of others because we have to live with them. There's just no getting around that. We can't wish it away. And that means that when we make a future, we have to make it so that it's a future in which we actually live together.
Robert Post: We live together in peace. In some ways we can hope for that, but we live together. And because we are in a lifeboat and we're either going to sink altogether or we're going to flourish altogether, and it's very hard to imagine what's in between. And that's what Milosz is cautioning us to do when he says, imagine a different past, so that you can have a present in which you can cast your shadow on, on the earth. And I want to close by suggesting to you that this requires a certain kind of equilibrium in all of us a very fragile, a very delicate, a very unstable equilibrium between, on the one hand, our own ideals and on the other hand, respect for the alterity of others. It's a really hard balance to keep a really hard equilibrium to find. But if we can find that equilibrium, if we can maintain that equilibrium, that would be worth commemorating the slaughter of October 7th. If we can resist the urge to destroy Carthage, if we can find a way to exercise reason to respect being, to commit ourselves to a future in which all will flourish, this terrible past that we've all suffered will redeem itself, will have a meaning. And when the souls of those who are slaughtered come to us and say, what have you done for us? We can look them in the eye and said, this is the future that we create in your name.
Shabtai Director Toby Hecht
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Caroline Waxman: I'd like to now introduce the director of Shabtai, Toby Hecht, to share some closing remarks with us.
Toby Hecht: Good evening. Thank you, Caroline Waxman, Dean Lewis and Professor Post for your meaningful words. Thank you Rotem and Moshe Sarfaty of Tel Aviv and Renee Edelman for sponsoring this important event. And lastly, thank you all for being here tonight. It is written in the Holy Zohar, the book of Kabbalah, the mystical secrets of the Torah. Bchiya Takiyah Belibayi Misitra da vichedva tikiya bilibai misitra da. Weeping is lodged in one side of my heart and joy in the other. This verse has been repeated for thousands of years, with the understanding that there are times when these two opposing forces of sadness and joy can and must permeate human existence simultaneously. Today is one of those times. Am Yisroel. The Jewish people are intimately connected to this verse. We've lived it and breathed it across time and space, and it is how we have endured. But what does this mean, really? How can we translate it today to inspire, to encourage and as the code of Jewish law says Yisgaber Kaari laamod Baboker... To wake up like a lion every morning, to serve the creator in the face of terrible devastation. How do we bear witness, give testimony to our children like our grandparents and great grandparents did for us? Going all the way back to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah, our patriarchs and matriarchs. And over the millennia since.
Toby Hecht: What is our obligation here tonight to those who were murdered one year ago, and for whom we are still grieving in ways we never knew about grief? And for those who are still held in captivity. What does it mean when humanity witnesses incomprehensible evil, targeted rape, butchery and slaughter, and then claims never again. They will never forget. But then it is forgotten. And never again is now again. How can we reconcile the emotions of anger, fear and exhaustion with joy, love, charity, clarity? This well-worn verse of the Holy Zohar then explains the duality of what we have always done and what we are doing here tonight, what commemoration means. How we remember our beloved, the Kedoshim, the holy ones that died before their time in the most gruesome, barbaric fashion, and while remembering how they were murdered, how they died at the same moment, we internalize how they lived, how they danced, how they gave, how they served, how they served, how they helped, how they loved the gardeners, the artists, musicians, the peacekeepers, the caretakers, mothers, fathers, men, women, children, the elderly, the Holocaust survivors, Israeli, French, German, Americans, Bedouin, Thai, Argentinian, more. The hostages dragged across the border into dungeons. Yes, it seems like a challenging paradox, perhaps an impossible one to at once remember to see the victims of ruthless barbarity, and also see goodness in a godly world.
Toby Hecht: And yet, these moments must also be a guidepost on our journey forward, where memory of better times and a promise of our posterity ensures our tomorrow. On Rosh Hashanah, we read a passage from Yirmiyahu Jeremiah Koh Amar Hashem Kol birama Nishma Nihee bichee samrurim Rachel Mivaka Al baneha. Thus said the Lord, a voice is heard on high. Lamentations, bitter, weeping. It is our mother, Rachel. Rachel, who was buried in Bethlehem on the road to Babylon. She is watching her children go into exile, and she refuses to be consoled. And the verse continues where God tells her, keep your voice from weeping. Your eyes from tears. There is reward for your deeds, and there is hope for your future. God says. The spigot of tears and pain, heartbreak and loss must live side by side with trust, faith, practice, joy and love to lift the souls of those who perished, to give them an Aliyah, an elevation and a prayer and a promise to those still held in captivity by cruel barbarians. And for the rest of us, in spite of the trials and tribulations, to know and connect with our purpose as the Jewish people Ashreinu Mah tov chelkeinu uuma naim gorlaienu uma yafah yirushaseinu. How good is our. How lucky are we? How good is our portion? How pleasant is our lot? How beautiful is our inheritance? We say with pride and a shtaltz, steadfastness.
Toby Hecht: Laolam Vaed. now and forever. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of blessed memory, was the Moses of this generation, who led with unmatched leadership and love for humanity. In an era fractured by grief and malaise, much like today, international correspondence and visits to the Rebbe was the antidote for thousands of people, my family included. On September 20th of 1954, the Rebbe wrote a response to a group of young women in school in a small village in Israel, all survivors who were troubled and seeking a path forward in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Baruch Hashem, thank God. 22nd of Elul 5714, 1954, Brooklyn, New York. To the group of girls and such in such place. Blessings and peace. It has been some time since I received your letter, and for a variety of reasons, my response has been delayed. At the cusp of the new year, which is upon us and all the children of Israel for good and for blessing, I come to you with this response, if only briefly, since the questions related to the contents of your letter are very difficult to address in writing, and I hope that Mrs. So-and-so will explain the following points which require greater elaboration. All Israel as believers, children of believers, believe that the Blessed Creator guides the world with particular divine providence. It is therefore understood that there is nothing, no matter how small, that is meaningless.
Toby Hecht: How much more so this is true with regards to the human race, and especially so with regards to the chosen people, namely that every individual Jew has a particular mission which is not only relevant for themselves, but for the entire community as well. It is easily understood and is apparent to all that the purpose of life is not to acquire enjoyment from the pleasures of the world, of this world, but rather humans are born to toil and through one's toil in Torah and mitzvot which are eternal, one achieves spiritual contentment, especially when one also helps others. This is what we mean when we call the Torah the Torah of Life. It literally provides us with a meaningful life in this world. It is self-understood that this does not mean that one is required to spurn the physical pleasures of this world, to the extent that one engages in asceticism and self-flagellation, as it is well known and emphasized in Hasidic teachings that such practices are not encouraged. Rather, what we mean is that one needs to know what is more important and what is less so. The pleasures that you emphasize in your letter, which you are having a hard time being separated from, these are not of real importance, and you should not attribute greater importance to them than they deserve.
Toby Hecht: You yourself surely know that they are not important, even completely lacking in anything substantive. All of this is true in ordinary times. And how much more so in our generation, in which the shallowness and emptiness of so many ideologies have been made apparent to all, and that neither wealth nor physical strength will stand by a person in his time of need. In this generation, it has become easier to see the simple truth, as many false faiths which cloud the mind have been removed, and those from our are people who have remained like brands plucked from the fire of great destruction, the Holocaust. Each of us has a responsibility to see ourselves as an emissary, to fulfill not only our mission, but also the mission of those who were taken from us before their time. And just as with regards to the Jewish people in general, those who held fast to the Torah and mitzvot remained until this day, and all those groups which strayed from the path have either disappeared or remain few and dwindling. So too, with regards to the individual, through committing to a life of Torah, especially in speech and deed, one acquires his share in both the next world and in this one, and that all one's days are filled with meaning and satisfaction. The main implication of all the above is that Torah and mitzvot have shielded the Jewish people from destruction, despite their being the smallest among the nations, and having to contend in every generation with enemies who rose to destroy them.
Toby Hecht: Torah and Mitzvot are the thread which connects all Jews across history, from the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai to the present day. It is my prayer and my hope that each and every one of you will follow this path which has been made for us by our forefathers, and that each of you will thereby have a life filled with physical flourishing as a result of its spiritual flourishing. With blessings to utilize your capabilities and talents, and the spiritual heritage inherited by each of you in the battle to remain committed to the victory of the Jewish people and its Torah, and to influence your surroundings in this regard. Blessings for a sweet New Year, and the Rebbe's signature. In planning the secular anniversary of October 7th. A few days short of the upcoming Simchat Torah festival, the Hebrew date of the massacre, Shabtai decided to hold this musical evening of song. One could ask, and many have, why dance? Why sing on this tragic day? In 1994, while attending Rabbinical college, Shmully had a conversation with one of the 20th century's great Kabbalists, the Holy Hasid Reb Greenglass. Shmully asked him how the Jewish people would survive in dark times ahead.
Toby Hecht: To which Reb Greenglass, a man of few words, replied, the Nigunim, the Nigunim, the melodies, the melodies will sustain us, he whispered. My maternal grandfather, Berel Weiss, of blessed memory, last saw his parents, sister, brothers, nieces and nephews, and my namesake, his grandmother, Baba Elka, then in her 80s. In 1944, while waiting in line for selection at Auschwitz. In the ensuing chaos, his father Yonah pushed him hard to the right, which miraculously saved his life in that moment. The rest were sent to the left and immediately to the gas chambers. My grandparents, whom we call Bobby and Zeidy, dedicated their lives to practicing Torah and mitzvahs and helping others. They were successful businesspeople and world renowned Baalei Tzedakah, philanthropists from the needy brides, widows and orphans who knocked on the door of their Hancock Park home at night to friends, strangers, employees and immigrants, institutions big and small. And although they both wept for their families until the end of their lives, singing the songs from their childhood words of King David, the sages, the prophets brought them tremendous solace and joy. In Jewish homes on Friday night, we welcome three angels to the Shabbos table famously known as the Shalom Aleichem. When spending Shabbos at our home, Shmully and I and our children sing Shalom Aleichem to the tune my grandfather would sing in his house in LA.
Toby Hecht: He had learned this particular tune on the trains in between labor camps. Imagine, they were singing about angels welcoming the angels to the Sabbath table in the midst of other hell and darkness, starving and physically broken. And today my children, their great grandchildren, sing the special melody of Shalom Aleichem as a symbol of strength and perseverance. And it was Zeidy who introduced our family to Yehuda Green over 18 years ago at the wedding of my youngest sister, Raizy, Raizel named for his only sister, who was murdered alongside her young children. Yehuda, a world renowned singer and songwriter whose voice and music pierces the heavens and who, with his wonderful quintet will lead us in song tonight. As we stand on the threshold of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, and in the spirit of the holiness of the day of October 7th, I wish each of you long life with health and prosperity, and in defiance of the mayhem and hate spewing across town halls and campuses, this one included, and across the globe, we, the Jewish people, have an obligation and privilege to restore humanity to its noble cause and divine calling for a genuine peace. And may we do so and collectively know only revealed good and joy in our lives, and peace and tranquility for all mankind. We shall dance again and again and again. Thank you.
Reflections
“Hi Rabbi,
Thank you and Shabtai for hosting the recent event memorializing the atrocities of Oct. 7. The speeches were beautiful, and the feelings of the community were palpable. Although unexpected, the dancing after the speeches was the perfect ending to a day of mourning. And, for this friendly gentile, it was a wonderful peek into Jewish culture. Such vibrant life amid the sadness was truly moving.
I also want to share with you my profound gratitude for how welcome I felt at the event. I went to the campus vigil to show support for the Jewish community, and the night ended with my Jewish friends and neighbors literally extending their hands and inviting me to dance. I will treasure that memory forever. And I hope that the day soon approaches when Jewish people around the world receive the same kindness, respect, and love. It cannot come soon enough.
Have a blessed day.”
“Dear Toby and Shmully,
Patrick and I would like to thank you very much for yesterday’s commemoration.
The speeches were very meaningful, as were the candles and the wall behind the stage.
We chose to come to your commemoration over what was done in our community for many reasons.
The first one, is that we had started October 7th with you, at Shabtai, a year ago. We were in shock, the speeches then were very powerful, and they stayed with me all that time. So, a year later, I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
Also, you are our kids’ community, Shabtai has been in their life since 2015, hence, you are in ours too.
And finally, I really liked that we would dance. Sometimes, even though it’s harder to dance than not, I share the same philosophy you did yesterday - the kids on campus needed that, they have another very difficult year ahead, and they won’t forget all the words that were said yesterday, the bonds created through dancing, and the resilient spirit of the Jewish people.
So, thank you, as always. May the year ahead see the liberation of all the hostages, and may Israël, as a Country and as a People, end up stronger than when this started.
Shana tovah, wishing you a meaningful fast.”