Spiritual Leadership in Israel after October 7
Avi Dabush
Translated by Levi MorrowAvi Dabush is the Executive Director of Rabbis for Human Rights and a survivor of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Kibbutz Nirim. He was ordained by the Shalom Hartman Institute Beit Midrash for Israeli Rabbis.
Levi Morrow is a teacher, writer, and translator living in Jerusalem, where he is a PhD candidate in the Jewish Philosophy Department at the Hebrew University. He is a research fellow at both the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center and the Shalom Hartman Institute.
Credit: Courtesy of Rabbis for Human Rights
“For the non-believer, living this year is quite difficult.”
–Leah Goldberg
An eternity passed between 6:29 a.m. on Simchat Torah, October 7, 2023, and the day of the funerals, August 21, 2024, when we buried Yagev Buchstab and Nadav and Roi Popplewell in Nirim, after the bodies of these hostages were returned from Gaza. An eternity passed between those 32 hours we spent in the shelters, as Hamas’s Nukhba forces hunted us, trying to kill and capture us, and the moment we stood with yellow-ribboned Israeli flags, paying our final respects to these fallen hostages of Nir Oz and Nirim.
An eternity passed, yet it was the very same day. The Passover piyyut, Vayehi bachatzi halaila, pleads, “draw near the day that is neither day nor night,” referring to the day of redemption. October 7 is an unending day, a day that is neither day nor night. In many ways, it is still not over. Not until the hostages are returned, the fighting ceases, and the bloodshed of Israelis, Gazans, and Lebanese comes to an end. Not until the Israeli government takes responsibility, establishes a national inquiry commission, and agrees on a near-term election date. Until then, the wounds, some of which may never heal, will continue to reopen and bleed. Leadership in times of disaster and destruction is measured by its ability to point toward a better future.
Faith also has a crucial role to play in the leadership we need today. The vision of “By your sword you shall live” is the curse of Esau and the legacy of Sparta. It marks the end of both the Zionist dream and the liberal-democratic vision for the State of Israel. For those who have faith—whether in God or humanity—it has been incredibly hard to live through this year. Without faith, it is impossible.
Faith is what drove me from the terrible danger and long hours I spent in the shelter to lead rallies for the families of the hostages in Eilat during our months of evacuation there, and to return to the protests in Be’er Sheva when we relocated there. The pro-democracy protest movement, which we built, and which led to the largest protests the Negev has ever seen, has become a fight for the return of the hostages and a call for both elections and the establishment of a national inquiry commission. At the same time, there is an enormous amount of work to do within our communities. I am supporting the families of the fallen, from Nir Oz and beyond, including the guests who were killed at our kibbutz and the soldiers who died defending us, and helping to develop and promote a language of spiritual and communal care for all those affected.
***
Below, I will attempt to outline the beginnings of a path toward spiritual healing and restoration for the devastated communities of the Gaza border region and the North—as well as for Israeli society more broadly. My perspective draws on my 16 years of living in the Gaza border communities, including my experience of displacement and loss of home since October 7. It draws on my community and activist work over the years and on my learning. Using the head and heart I’ve been given, I am trying to make my way wisely every day amid this great rupture.
I will begin with a sense of uncertainty. Modern culture, particularly the scientific revolution, emerged from a worldview that, for the first time in human history, dared to say: “We do not know.” This self-aware ignorance became the foundation for observation and inquiry. Until that point, the world’s major cultures and religions sought to provide absolute answers to all questions—how the world was created, what our purpose as humans is, what was and what will be.
In 1940, Berl Katznelson, one of the most prominent leaders of Israel’s Labor Movement, delivered a speech at a youth leadership seminar. He sharply criticized the way they rejected any question or doubt and how they demanded absolute loyalty to answers handed down “from above.” During the first months after our evacuation, while staying in a hotel in Eilat, I could not understand how the Israeli media could continue its ritual of holding open studio panel discussions with an endless parade of military experts, most of whom were the same generals who had confidently delivered false predictions prior to and immediately after October 7.
I want to suggest that a state of uncertainty could serve as a foundation for reconnecting the disparate parts of Israeli society. When the violent messianic right operates without any hesitation, causing harm to Palestinians and promoting renewed settlement in Gaza and even southern Lebanon, they are tearing Israeli society apart with their destructive, forceful vision. They are like the man drilling a hole in the boat in Vayikra Rabbah, bringing us all down into the abyss (4:6). They are akin to the Zealots in the Talmudic story, who burned the food reserves of the besieged in Jerusalem during the Great Revolt, leading to the total destruction of the Temple and the city’s inhabitants (bGittin 56a). Our collective Jewish memory is still living with the trauma of these events. It seems we have not learned the lesson, however, and in every generation, we must learn it anew. This is a call for Israel—as well as the entire Jewish people—to find a new orientation.
Building on a foundation of uncertainty enables real conversation and dialogue. It creates space for educational growth. Today, in Israel and elsewhere, humanistic education is under attack, making it difficult to question things deemed “patriotic,” like war or the Jewish character of the state. We must stand with our educators in this matter. Embracing uncertainty is essential for us to remain politically engaged and to recognize that we do not have a monopoly on justice and righteousness. This mindset also allows us to see those who are in the dark. As Midrash Tanhuma says, “One who is in the light cannot see what is in the dark” (Tetzaveh 8). Our role is to see the unseen in society—the poor, the refugees, Arabs, women, Mizrachim; people from the periphery, and all those who escape our attention. It is a difficult and demanding task, but it is a key virtue that new leadership must adopt. It is something I try to force myself to do in my community leadership and in my leadership role in Rabbis for Human Rights.
Since 2014, we have shouted that the status quo in the Gaza Envelope cannot continue. We founded the Movement for the Future of the Western Negev, which proposed a political solution. In 2018, we stood at Yad Mordechai Junction, calling for the rehabilitation of Gaza and the creation of regional agreements to ensure peace and reduce military tension. Unfortunately, we were ignored, by Israeli society as a whole and especially by its leadership.
The Israeli, and human, tendency to turn a blind eye is understandable. It’s very hard to live without peace of mind, and achieving peace of mind often requires closing your eyes and believing that “things will be fine.” Yitzhak Rabin was famous for critiquing this mindset among the leadership. He said that we cannot let our blind faith lead us into passivity and failure to take practical responsibility. Even if we don’t like the reality before us, we must face it head on and act accordingly.
Looking back, it is clear that on the eve of October 7, a culture of turning a blind eye prevailed in the military. The failure and disaster were even worse than what happened exactly 50 years earlier, on October 6, 1973. The catastrophe was much more devastating this time because it was not merely an attack on military areas but an attack on, and the murder and kidnapping of, over one thousand civilians.
To deal with this reality, we must also look at the history that shaped Gaza into Israel’s bitter enemy. We have to understand that we, too, bear responsibility. There is nothing, in my eyes, that can justify the horrific massacre of October 7, but that does not mean we played no role at all in creating the reality that made it possible. In many ways, we played a very central role—we created Gaza as it is today: In 1948 and immediately afterward, Israel expelled many thousands of Palestinians from the Negev and other parts of the state into Gaza; in 1956 and 1967, we occupied Gaza; in our response to the First Intifada, we nurtured Hamas; in 1993, we signed the first Oslo Agreement; in 2005, we withdrew from Gaza; and in 2006, we made the agreement that allowed Hamas to expel Fatah from Gaza and violently take control as an extremist party ruling by force.
The attempt to depict the situation as though evil aliens arrived from outer space on October 7—as if we are in an action movie where we have to hunt them all down, kill them, and return as victorious heroes who saved the world—distorts reality in a way that harms all of us. It prevents us from seeing what is actually happening in Gaza and our responsibility for the deaths of many thousands of children and civilians. It hampers our ability to understand where we are headed and what our interests are. It harms our capacity to envision and strive for a better future for the children of both Sderot and Gaza.
In the life of any serious and responsible person, there comes a moment when they move from an “external locus of agency,” blaming everyone around them and “the world” for the things that happen to them, to an “internal locus of agency,” asking, “What is my role in creating my reality, and how can I take responsibility for improving and correcting the situation?” What we all understand on a personal, interpersonal, and communal level is also true of society as a whole. The Israeli victim narrative, based on a painful history of persecution, ultimately harms us. We are neither helpless nor powerless, and we have the ability to change our reality. The whole world is not against us, and not all criticism of Israel is antisemitism. In her poem “When I Drown,” Tali Versano Eisman writes:
When I drown
I don’t need someone to describe the water for me
Neither its color nor its depth
I can feel it up to my neck.
I have just one request
Don’t stop telling me
How it looks
On dry land.
Armed with principles that compel us to question familiar truths and open our eyes, as much as possible, to the reality around us, we can move forward.
When people ask me what has changed in my worldview since October 7, I say: The roadmap may have changed, but the goals and values remain the same. In fact, they have only grown stronger.
***
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In my mind, there’s a debate between two close friends. One of them is quite well-known and outspoken. He lost his parents on October 7. Let’s call him “the believer.” He notes that Rabbi Jonathan Sacks distinguished between optimism and hope. Optimism is an encouraging feeling, while hope is an engagement in the construction of a better future. My friend argues that we must cultivate hope. He believes that there will be a better future, and he is working on a plan that will bring about that future, a future of peace and security for all people from the river to the sea.
My other friend, and frequent collaborator, is an Orthodox Jew of British origin. He doesn’t believe things will get better, certainly not in the foreseeable future. In fact, he believes things will get worse. And yet, he clings to the path, to the values. The only thing we can do is insist on human rights, justice, equality, and freedom. In May 1940, Winston Churchill promised his people “blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” The British Prime Minister kept his promise, and after five very difficult years, he brought his people to safe shores. He managed to prepare his people for the difficult road ahead of them and, fortunately for us all, he reached the summit.
I identify more with the first friend, but I listen to both. I know that the battle for our values and our “way” is even more important than the battle against our external enemy. One way or another, I am committed to these values and to selecting goals that are both important and attainable.
In the year since October 7, I have returned to posting on Facebook. I sign every post, “I believe.” I have heard from many people, in Israel and abroad, who have been inspired by these two words. On the one hand, as the singer-songwriter Meir Ariel wrote, “A person cries out for what they lack.” Believing is hard for me, and I despair three times a day, but I regain my faith at least four times. On the other hand, I truly believe. I feel like I know that, one way or another, we will learn to live together between the river and the sea. The question is how much time and blood it will take. The role of leadership is to shorten this path and bring it to a good conclusion.
***
On Tuesday, October 10, 2023, I was in our hotel room in Eilat. We had arrived there as a community straight from the hellscape in Nirim. We were shocked and broken. We managed very quickly to set up frameworks for the children and the elderly, and we tried to adjust to the new lives into which we had been thrust against our will. This was the seventh time since 2014 that Kibbutz Nirim had been evacuated. This time, of course, it was much harder—under fire, with the dead and the kidnapped and dozens of homes destroyed. But we still felt a sense of community. The next Monday, we gathered in the hotel’s synagogue, and the men and women tearfully recited birkat hagomel, the blessing of gratitude said after surviving danger. We were, and still are, broken but strong.
On that Tuesday, a friend, a leader from the Beit Midrash for Israeli Rabbis, scheduled a conversation with me. She asked, “How can we help?” and after only a second of thought, I answered, “Come.”
By Thursday, a delegation of rabbinical students and Israeli rabbis arrived. They started by meeting with the Nirim community, a meeting that I organized; they continued, with and without me, to meet with the communities of Nir Oz, Ein Hashlosha, Kerem Shalom, Kfar Aza, Sderot, and others. It was incredible and deeply important for me and for many others.
During the first meeting, one of the participants reminded me of the poem, “When I Drown,” by Tali Versano Eisman. I had read the poem previously, and I immediately adopted it for that moment. After all, this was exactly what we needed: to imagine the “dry land” that comes after. After what? Certainly, after the war, but not only that. Israel is at the nadir of a deep historical crisis. Some say it began in 1993. Others go back to 1967. It certainly didn’t begin on October 7, nor even on January 4, 2023, when Deputy Prime Minister Yariv Levin launched the judicial overhaul.
Our challenge runs deep. Each of these crises is a crisis of identity. Perhaps this is natural and normal. The journalist Rino Zror, who directed the 2017 film, “Jews, Third Time,” points out that during both the First and Second Temple eras, our political independence lasted around seventy years. The State of Israel is now 76 years old. Perhaps this is the moment when a nation needs to decide who it is and where it is going. Perhaps Israeli society is in a critical period of maturation. Or perhaps we are influenced by global shifts and events much more than we tend to think.
Either way, the task of leadership in Israel, both spiritual and political, is to imagine and create the “dry land” upon which we will stand—at the end of or even during the crisis—moving towards a better place for us all.
This should be the focus of the public and political debate in Israel—not the Philadelphi Corridor or Netzarim, but the region’s future political blueprint. We should be talking not about Ben-Gvir’s latest video, but about the power that Netanyahu’s successive governments have given to the forces of the far right.
***
When I was in the army, I learned that if you lose your way while navigating, the best thing to do is to return to the last place where you knew where you were. What are the last places we knew where we were together?
One such place is undoubtedly the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel, signed on the 5th of Iyar, 5708. The declaration was signed in an atmosphere of immediate, existential danger to the newborn state. Golda Meir, one of the signatories and later Prime Minister, wrote in her memoirs, “The declaration we were about to sign that afternoon would be rushed after the ceremony to the basement of the Anglo-Palestine Bank, to be preserved at least for future generations, even if the state and we ourselves would not last long.” In this tense atmosphere, just before the Arab armies invaded the newly born state, the declaration states: “We call—amidst the bloodshed being waged against us for months—upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to maintain peace and take part in building the state on the basis of full and equal citizenship.”
Today, we are dealing with enflamed Jewish-Arab relations within Israel and Zionist-Palestinian relations in the region; we hear persistently from our Druze and Arab citizens of the state about the anger and insult they feel over the Nation-State Law; and there are ministers in the government with the power to threaten a second Nakba.
We must take this opportunity to return to the prophetic vision that implores us “to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home” (Is. 58:7). The prophets repeatedly point to social and economic injustice and societal oppression of the weak as the spiritual and political cause of the kingdoms of Israel’s collapse and destruction. Fractures in Israeli society are also ruptures in our ability to promote mutual prosperity and flourishing; we engage instead in political and economic zero-sum games and destructive competition between communities.
We should also embrace the biblical vision of human liberation and mutual responsibility—towards the stranger, the orphan, and the widow; for the poor, the Arab, the woman, and the refugees from the south and the north. The Torah mentions caring for the stranger (ger) 36 times. This may not necessarily be the most important or exalted commandment, but it is the one that appears again and again, likely because of it is so difficult to fulfill. This is our true test: How do we use power? The foundational Jewish myth of the exodus, where the Hebrew people transformed from an oppressed nation of slaves into a sovereign nation in the land of Canaan, is precisely the myth that instructs us to use power to break the cycle of enslavement and oppression.
We have a deep cultural and religious heritage from which we can draw direction, a compass, and a conscience for the road ahead. The question is: do we have the interest, the will, and the determination to lead Israeli society in that direction?
***
Early, early in the morning we set off
We set off, quiet and in shock.
Traces of the storm were everywhere\
Like large shadows, like silent witnesses.
Early, early in the morning we set off
Words that we didn't say struck us in silence.
Traces of the storm were everywhere
We knew we still had a long road ahead.
Later the sun rose before our tired eyes
And lit up the cold and loneliness with a new light,
And all who were there could see
A few warm signs of friendship.
Later we walked together under the rising sun
That lit each person’s world in a new light.
We promised ourselves to relearn, from the start,
The meaning of good and bad, impure and sacred.
Early, early in the morning we set off,
barefaced in the cold wind.
Traces of the storm were everywhere
Like a burning emblem, like a bitter shout.
Later the sun shone on our prone siblings
Casting our exposed wounds in a new light.
Bit by bit we learned to notice once again
the amazing power of life.
Later the sun shone softly and mercifully,
and cast in a new light the horror and the hope.
All who were there sought comfort
in grace and devotion, forgiveness and love.
–Rachel Shapira, “Early, Early in the Morning”
I have a fundamental disagreement with one of the heads of our beit midrash regarding the the question of whether or not rabbis and spiritual leaders should express opinions on political issues publicly. He argues that our role is to connect groups and communities and to contribute spiritually. What advantage do we have, really, over any other opinion in the crowd? When we express a political opinion, we make it harder for ourselves to connect our audience with rituals and texts.
I deeply respect this argument. However, on the matter of speaking out politically, I follow the path of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and his partner, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. King said that there are times when it is impossible to sit on the fence. Perhaps there are times when one can rest a bit on the fence, and perhaps there have been such times in Israeli history. But today, any attempt to escape from the public-political arena just allows the forces of violence to claim it for themselves.
Surely, there is also room for spirit, for depth of soul, and for comfort. Rachel Shapira wrote her poem, “Early, Early in the Morning,” after the Yom Kippur War. It reminds us of the power of time and the power of comfort. It will take a very long time before we feel fully comforted. But even now, in the midst of the terror of war and fear, with thousands of Israeli families mourning and torn apart, with the death and destruction in Gaza and the surrounding areas, even now we can feel the wondrous power of life. It carries us; it enables us to see and to extend a helping hand to those around us who are in need and struggling even more than we are. There is always such a person, and it is always a blessing to respond to them.
I wish us all good news, salvation, and comfort. I believe.
