Exactly a year ago, on Simchat Torah, I stood at the threshold of a new reality. It was a peak moment of new beginnings and fulfilling dreams. Now, a year later, I can't believe I'm standing here talking to you.
Sometimes I can't even believe that I made it back. A year ago, on Simchat Torah, on Saturday, October 7th, I was at the Nova Festival, with my new shop and what I hoped would be a fresh start on my journey. At 6:29 in the morning, my entire reality was turned upside down.
The first two times the terrorists found me, hiding among bushes and trees with a broken leg, terrified, I somehow managed to convince them to let me go. The third time, I realized it was happening. They put me in a car and abducted me to Gaza.
As human beings, we don't even think about basic things like showering, washing our face and hands, getting up off a mattress, and walking five steps across a room. There, in captivity, you don't have that option. A person has no ability to exist. No ability to show emotion, to express themselves, to feel pain, or to cry—the most basic and human needs.
Recently, we celebrated the beginning of a new Hebrew year, another door that was supposed to open with hope. But that door isn't wide open. The lock is still sealed, waiting for the key.
When I came back, they called me a "survivor"—a survivor of captivity, a survivor of the massacre, a survivor of the Nova Festival. I am not a survivor, I am healing.
I can tell you that those who returned may be in a process of rehabilitation—but the rehabilitation can't start, and certainly can't end, while they are still there. Those still there, in the tunnels and in the abandoned houses, they are the survivors. Every day they survive more hunger, more cold, more terror. Their days are made of fragmented moments, each one for which we must give thanks that they survived.
I am surrounded by many of you—citizens who have grieved, who have experienced, who have mourned the best of our sons and daughters. I am surrounded by people who survived the inferno, who found great inner strength, and who every day continue to show courage and self-sacrifice.
On October 7th, we all went through a shock, and we continue to experience it. Don't let what we went through, and what we are still going through, be for nothing—because only together can we continue as one society, united, tolerant, and loving.
I call on you, the people of our wonderful nation, to keep fighting together, to choose goodness and humanity. I ask you to take responsibility for this struggle, our shared struggle. There are still 101 hostages in Hamas captivity in Gaza, waiting for us to fight for them, to fight for us and for the future we want to build here. For the world we want to leave for our children.
On Rosh Hashanah, we wish for "May the year end with its curses, and may the new year begin with its blessings." On Simchat Torah, we turn a new page and begin the book anew. With all my heart, I hope we can make this wish come true—that we can bring the northern residents back to their homes, that we can return and rebuild your home, our home, in the communities of the south, that we can embrace our loved ones who are now fighting on the frontlines. And above all—that we can bring our hostages home, those who are alive to be rehabilitated with their families, and the murdered to be buried in their homeland.
May next year's Simchat Torah be celebrated in a different reality. May we learn how to rise from the ruins. May we heal, mourn, and rebuild. I hope the door will be wide open.
