From the Ashes of October 7th, Life Still Grows

It began like a birth.

The first morning in our new home – the family home we had dreamed of for years. We planned to unpack the boxes, connect the dishwasher, and begin our new life. Then the messages started coming in. Something terrible was happening.

The quiet ground beneath our new home began to tremble – as if the earth itself knew.

Images appeared of terrorists driving freely through Israeli towns, hunting innocent people. Civilians whispered live on the radio, begging for help that wasn’t coming. Friends cried for rescue in WhatsApp groups that turned helpless before our eyes.

Just before I got into my car to head south for reserve duty, I gave my wife my last words:

“If I don’t come back – take the kids, and leave this place.”

I hugged her, and drove off.

What we saw was evil in its purest form – cruelty that no human soul can contain.

We came to save.

We came to repair.

We were pulled, one by one, from our studies, our jobs, our families, our dreams, our lives.

Those we loved lost us, and in losing us, lost a part of themselves.

Our families were never the same again.

Our partners, left behind, guarded with their bodies what was left, trying desperately to keep alive what was already gone.

We came face to face with death.

We lost our friends, our families, and ourselves.

We died – and began again.

And now, in every change, we meet him once more.

He looks at us from between the moments, reminding us that he is always here.

Every moment that was – no longer is.

Every moment is death and rebirth.

We fear losing our jobs – or fear wasting our lives in them.

We fear losing our relationships – or fear the cost of keeping them.

We fear that what changes will end, that what ends will take us with it.

So we cling to life, building deeper foundations in the ground that once shook.

We place heavy bricks, hoping the big bad wolf will never blow them away again.

But the ground has already trembled.

The wolf has already broken through the wall.

Death has already come.

And yet, within death, there is also release – the quiet understanding that it is the very force that moves life forward.

Without death, there is no change.

And without change, there is no life.

If the flower never withered, the new one could never bloom.

If the forest never burned, it could never grow again.

So we are left with one task – to grow.

To receive the light of change, the light of life that shines through us.

To rise from the ashes.

This is not another death.

This is life itself.

Like a forest reborn after fire, we, too, can blossom among the embers – breathing, living, and carrying the light forward.

Because this, perhaps, is the secret that binds us as a people, and as human beings:

We do not live instead of death.

We live through it.

We rise, again and again – and in doing so, we remind the world that even after everything burns, life will still insist on growing.

We died on October 7, 2023 – but we are learning, slowly, to live again.

As the hostages return and the light begins to break, we rise from the ashes – not the same as before, but alive.

Tomorrow is coming.

And we are waking up.