It's not like we can ever forget what happened in Israel on October 7th, 2023. Every single person living in Israel that day was affected when Hamas attacked without any provocation or warning.
Jews, though, are the most resilient people you will ever encounter. For centuries, we have been hunted, persecuted, expelled, tortured and gassed, and yet we are still here.
Today, we remember those who lost their lives for no other reason except for the fact that they were born Jewish or that they lived in Israel. October 7th can be eerily summed up by one verse in Bereshit 4:10 (Genesis), where Cain has just murdered his brother Abel. G-d asks him where Abel is and he says, "I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper?" To which G-d responds, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground." We hear their voices and we remember.
We are all mourning today. We will never forget those taken from us brutally and without cause, those tortured, raped, mutilated, desecrated, kidnapped and murdered. We honor them by continuing to live, by bringing goodness and kindness into the world and by not allowing ourselves to languish in the devastation.
May their memories be for a blessing and may their souls be bound up in the bundle of life.
