For Jews, the End Is Never the End

This past weekend Jews celebrated Shmini Atseret—the Eighth Day of Assembly—which concludes the weeks-long season of sacred days. According to an oft-cited parable explaining this holiday’s meaning, it represents God’s request that the Jewish people stay one extra day before “departing” from their extended “holiday visit.” Chaim Steinmetz subjects this parable to some scrutiny:

[H]ow will staying one more day make it easier to say goodbye? The problem of saying goodbye will come back the next day! [Rather], I think this Midrash is making a different point. By staying one more day beyond the end, we have demonstrated a significant truth: the end is not the end. With an extra day, the last day of Sukkot is no longer the last day of Sukkot. Shmini Atseret is actually an attack on the very notion of endings.

And Jews don’t believe in endings. Our notion of time is founded on the understanding that a timeless Being created the world; therefore, a concept of time with rigid beginnings and ends is impossible. For those whose greatest aspiration is to have an experience of the infinite, the constraints of time, with its beginnings and ends have a very different meaning.

In the Diaspora, Shmini Atseret is a two-day holiday; the second day, known as Simḥat Torah (Rejoicing of the Torah), also connects to the holiday’s significance, according to Steinmetz:

On Simḥat Torah we will be concluding our yearly reading of the Torah; yet immediately, almost compulsively, we must start reading the first book of the Torah, the book of Genesis, again. The Torah might have a final chapter but it has no end. We will return, and return again and again, to the Torah.

Jewish history also has no end. Jews have refused to accept the dignified burial that so many demanded of us. We have managed to survive, revive, and thrive, to the confusion of the pundits and the frustration of our enemies. Every time it looked like there was an end to Jewish history, there was a new beginning, even more remarkable than the previous one.

Read more at Happiness Warrior

More about: Jewish holidays, Judaism, Simhat Torah, Sukkot

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF