This past Wednesday, we marked the third anniversary of October 7, 2023, one of the darkest days in Israel’s history. It has been three years since Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, murdering approximately 1,200 people, taking 251 hostage, and shattering countless lives.
Three years later, the wounds remain profound. Families continue to mourn. Survivors carry memories that will never disappear. Entire communities are struggling to rebuild. Beyond Israel, Jewish communities face an alarming resurgence of antisemitism, fueled by rhetoric that distorts history, minimizes Jewish suffering, and increasingly normalizes hostility, intimidation, and violence against Jews.
Yet amid this grief and uncertainty, something extraordinary endures: the determination of Israelis and Jews throughout the world not to allow tragedy and hatred to define our future.
We see that resilience in Israelis returning to devastated communities, in survivors finding the courage to embrace life despite unimaginable loss, and in Jewish communities that continue to gather, celebrate, educate their children, and affirm their identities, even when doing so requires greater vigilance and courage.
Resilience does not mean that suffering has ended or that wounds have healed. It means refusing to surrender the possibility of a future to the devastation of the past.
This week, as we begin reading the Torah anew with Parashat B’reishit, we encounter a remarkable insight into the nature of hope. The Torah opens not with a world of beauty and perfection, but with darkness and chaos:
“The earth was unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water.” (Genesis 1:2).
Then God speaks:
יְהִי אוֹר. וַיְהִי אוֹר. Y’hi or. Vay’hi or. “Let there be light. And there was light.” (Genesis 1:3).
Creation begins in darkness. God does not eliminate the darkness, but separates the light from it, allowing both to become part of the created world. Perhaps there is a profound lesson here: the presence of darkness does not negate the possibility of light. Grief and hope can coexist. We need not wait for suffering to end before finding the courage to create something meaningful in its midst.
This is one of the most important lessons of B’reishit. Hope is not the naïve expectation that suffering will somehow be undone or that tomorrow will necessarily be better than today. Hope requires something far more demanding. It asks us to acknowledge the world as it is, with all its brokenness, and still believe that we have a responsibility to shape what it might become.
Our Jewish history bears witness to that conviction. Across centuries of persecution, displacement, and destruction, our ancestors did more than survive. They created communities, built institutions, preserved learning, nurtured families, lived life fully and completely while passing their traditions and values from one generation to the next. Their hope was expressed not simply in what they believed, but in what they continued to build.
Today, that same spirit is evident throughout Israel and the Jewish world. Survivors of October 7 are finding the courage to move forward, families are rebuilding their communities, and Jews throughout the world continue to embrace their identities openly and proudly, even in the face of growing hostility. They refuse to allow fear and hatred to determine how they live their lives.
They are creating light while darkness still exists.
We cannot undo October 7 or restore the lives that were stolen. Nor should we allow the suffering of others to diminish our own grief, or our grief to diminish our concern for the humanity of others.
What we can do is refuse to become indifferent. We can confront hatred, challenge falsehoods, strengthen our communities, and ensure that our words and actions reflect the values we seek to preserve.
The message of B’reishit is that creation is not simply an event in the distant past. It is a sacred responsibility entrusted to each of us. Three years after October 7, the future of the Jewish people will be shaped not only by what we have endured, but by what we choose to create in its aftermath.
The courage of the Jewish people has never rested on the certainty that darkness will disappear, but on our determination to create light even when darkness remains.
Y’hi or. Let there be light.
May we have the courage to follow God’s example, becoming creators of light even in the midst of darkness.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Sharon L. Sobel