Dear Friends,
The miracle of 1948 was repeated in 1967, again in 1973 - and we continue to pray for it to be repeated once more, half a century later, following October 7, 2023.
It is the miracle of the G-d of Israel saving the People of Israel from the hands of those who, time and again, declare their intent to destroy her. One of the most haunting images of October 7 is of Shiri clutching her children with all her might. Another face etched into our collective memory is that of Noa Argamani, torn from her partner at the Nova Festival, clinging to the back of a motorcycle.
Last week, Noa was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2025. She is a global beacon of strength and resilience. Just days after her rescue, she was seen dancing with her father at a party. It raised eyebrows, but in that moment, she became the living embodiment of “we will dance again.” Despite 246 days in captivity, the loss of her mother, and her partner still in captivity, Noa knew the power of letting go and pushing towards a better future.
These two opposite images—one of holding on with all your might, and one of letting go with all your heart—tell the story of the Jewish people. We are a people who have held on—for dear life—through exile, loss, and pain. And yet, we are also a people who have learned, when necessary, to let go, to move forward, to rebuild, and to hope again.
Letting go is hard. Sometimes harder than holding on.
Letting go is never easy, but we come to learn how to do it throughout life.
We are also a people who know how to hold on—to our history, our traditions, and to hope. Yehuda Halevi called us “asirei tikvah”—prisoners of hope. The only prison we Jews are proud to be in.
Hope, is one thing we never let go of. The Jewish people have clung to it through centuries of exile, persecution, and heartbreak. We’ve imagined redemption again and again. And we still do. Despite being exiled to every corner of the globe.
This Shabbat, let’s do what we do best as a community, keep imagining, keep hoping, and know that together, we will all dance again
We pray for G-d’s continued protection and deliverance of the Jewish people from those who seek our harm.
But we also recommit.
We recommit to living more Jewishly. To shining more brightly. To giving the world the light that it so desperately needs - the light for which Hashem created the Jewish people and sent every soul, into this world: to illuminate it.
Rabbi Fishel & Ettie Zaklos