Three years later- October 7th

Three years ago, a few weeks after October 7th, I wrote an article called "In the Midst of Horror, The Best We Can Do Is Struggle".

I went back and read it today. It feels strange to read something I wrote when we were still trying to understand and process what had happened and had absolutely no idea what the next three years would bring.

At the time, I wrote about the horror of October 7th, the hostages, the grief and trauma, and the images we would never unsee. I wrote about the shock of watching people justifying what had happened almost immediately, the betrayal so many of us felt from people and institutions we trusted, and the fear of realizing that being Jewish in the world felt very different, in a bad way.

What we didn't know was how much more there would be to process and fight.

We didn't know how long this war would last or how many more people we would lose. We didn't know what would happen on college campuses or how quickly antisemitism would become something so many of us would encounter in places we once felt safe. We didn't know how many friendships and professional relationships would be changed or lost, how many institutions would disappoint us, or how often we would find ourselves arguing for the basic humanity of Jews and Israelis.

We didn't know how exhausting it would become to watch complicated human suffering flattened into slogans and social media posts, or how often Jewish grief would be minimized, explained away or treated as though it required the right political disclaimer before it could be acknowledged.

I certainly didn't know that I would spend so much of the next three years writing about all of it. But I also couldn't have known how much these years would teach me about us as a people.

I have watched Jewish communities mobilize almost instantly when people needed help. I have watched people give their money, homes, time and energy, travel across the world, show up at rallies, advocate for strangers, support soldiers and their families, comfort grieving families and refuse to let hostages be forgotten. I have watched people who barely knew one another recognize each other as family simply because another Jew needed something. I have seen people lean into Jewish community and discover a sense of Jewish pride and connection they hadn't felt before October 7th.

That doesn't erase any of what we have lost or make these years somehow worth it. October 7th never should have happened. But three years later, I understand more deeply than I did when I wrote that first article how much we need each other.

And maybe that is part of how we are learning to live in this forever changed world.

We are still figuring out how to hold grief and fear without allowing them to consume us, how to stay informed without drowning in it, how to fight for what matters without fighting all day, how to experience joy without feeling guilty for it, and how to continue raising our children, celebrating holidays, going to work, making dinner, laughing with friends and living ordinary lives while living in a world that no longer feels ordinary at all.

There is a before October 7th and an after. I don't think any of us understood three years ago just how true that would be.

We will never be the same, and the world we are living in will never feel quite the same either. But we are learning how to live in it.

And I hope we never forget that one of the ways we have made it through is by leaning into each other.