Oct. 7 altered Israeli society's expectations of its military's performance fundamentally. Prior to the massacre, the measure of success for any round of fighting between Israel and terrorist organizations was the quality and duration of the ensuing quiet. If the calm was prolonged and substantial, the operation was deemed successful. If not, it was considered a failure.

Post-Oct. 7, the metric has shifted. A violent engagement is no longer gauged by the peace it generates but by the initiative it enables. A successful military operation is one that enhances the IDF's freedom of action and allows for more effective engagement with the enemy.

The IDF's massive ground operation didn't eradicate Hamas, but it did fracture the terror organization. It transformed a hierarchical, coordinated, and organized army into a collection of uncoordinated and disorganized terrorist cells. As a result, the Gaza Strip hasn't become a Hamas-free zone but rather an area accessible to the IDF.

The model for Operation Iron Swords mirrors the successful model of Operation Defensive Shield from about 20 years ago: boldly maneuvering into the terrorist organizations' centers of gravity, destabilizing their equilibrium, and gaining operational freedom throughout the entire area. Subsequently, in the second phase, this operational freedom is used to repeatedly raid the territory, damage the enemy's capabilities, and ultimately lead to its attrition, dilution, and neutralization. The first phase is inherently more massive but shorter, while the second phase requires fewer forces but extends over a longer period. Unlike the maneuver that broke Hamas's army and took about a year, the hunt for its cells will continue for many more years.

Had a hostage deal been achieved before the entry into Khan Younis or before the maneuver in Rafah, it could have jeopardized the completion of phase one, preventing the transformation of the entire Gaza Strip into an accessible area for the military. At that time, a large-scale deal could have led to the realization of one war objective – freeing the hostages – at the expense of another - defeating Hamas. However, today, when a deal would not halt the maneuver, as it has already been completed, the strategic cost of the deal is much lower. The price is a slowdown and delay in the long and difficult phase of eroding and diluting the remaining capabilities. At this juncture, a deal allows for the achievement of all war objectives.

The path to healing

The war has an additional goal, not recorded in the Cabinet decision protocols, but etched in the hearts of reserve soldiers, bereaved families, and wounded IDF personnel: to heal the rifts tearing Israeli society apart from within. The path to healing is long and difficult, but it cannot be embarked upon without the knowledge that the State of Israel has done everything to bring its sons and daughters back from Hamas's hell.

If the collective memory is tainted by the knowledge that our brothers and sisters did not return home due to Israeli refusal, we will not be able to rebuild trust and promote internal reconciliation in society.

The two war objectives can be translated into two moral and Jewish aspirations: to dismantle Hamas and to unite Israel. Without the maneuver, we would not have succeeded in shattering Hamas into isolated cells, but without a deal and the return of the hostages, we will not be able to reconnect the painful pieces that make up Israeli society.

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Galileo Galilei was persecuted because he thought forbidden thoughts; Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake because he held dangerous beliefs. In 17th-century Europe, free thinkers faced persecution. Scientists, philosophers, and religious dissenters risked their reputations, freedom, and even lives to challenge accepted norms. Many saw no future in the world they knew and sought escape to a new world across the Atlantic – America.

It's tempting to depict the journey from the Old World to the New World as a passage from darkness to light. But many migrants felt not that they were abandoning the past, but rather reenacting it. To them, Europe was Egypt, America the Land of Canaan, and crossing the Atlantic, their personal Exodus. This consciousness animated not just the early American settlers but the nation's founders over a century later. Many saw King George III as the embodiment of King Pharaoh, and Benjamin Franklin even proposed the crossing of the Red Sea for the Great Seal of the United States.

The Americans were not alone. When battling for national liberation, the Dutch saw themselves as the new Israelites, the modern-day Exodus story. The English shared similar sentiments, and as the philosopher Michael Walzer showed, many Western peoples struggling for freedom cast themselves as Hebrews defying their Egyptian oppressors.

Notably, when Martin Luther King Jr. demanded full civil rights for all Americans regardless of race, he appealed to the American establishment with Moses' cry: "Let my people go." The metaphor had flipped; the American system, founded by those who saw themselves as breaking free from Egypt, was now perceived as the Egypt from which liberation was needed.

What happened? Here's what didn't – this was not about freedom-seeking leaders and activists reading, studying, analyzing, and interpreting the Exodus story. Rather, they were reliving it.

Every few years, the question resurfaces – "Is Exodus a story true?" That is, does the narrative we tell reflect actual historical events? Among archaeologists and historians, there is no consensus. Perhaps we should rephrase the query. We do not know if the Exodus story is real, but we know that historical events in the West have tried to mirror the Exodus story. Great stories are not measured by how accurately they depict the past, but by how they shape the future.

Two perspectives

The Exodus story, a spectacle of "blood, fire, and pillars of smoke," is a tale of wielding extraordinary power. But perhaps the greater drama is not of the story of power, but of the power of the story – its ability to magnetize human history and seduce those who encounter it into becoming consumed by it, ceasing to merely observe the story and beginning to be the story.

The proven power of the Exodus story is a significant component of the cultural patriotism Zionism sought to cultivate. The Bible is a national book, created by the Jewish people and tells their story, yet this very book shaped the consciousness of vast swaths of humanity. The opening passage of Israel's Declaration of Independence sees the Bible's universal influence as the Jewish people's greatest historical achievement: "In the land of Israel, the Jewish people came into being. Here their spiritual, religious, and political identity was shaped. Here they achieved sovereignty and created cultural assets for all humankind and gave the world the eternal Book of Books." 

In other words, we have a story, and all peoples are invited not only to study it, but to live it. 

Here are two perspectives on the Exodus story: one from within the story, and one on the story itself. From within, it depicts the ancient Hebrews enslaved in Egypt, rebelling, liberating themselves, and marching to freedom – a story of a solitary people navigating a world that seeks to subjugate and, at times, annihilate it. The second perspective is the inverse: The world draws inspiration from the Jewish people, and in moments when nations seek emancipation from their oppressors, they reenact the ancient Hebrew narrative.

It is almost impossible to reconcile these two perspectives: human reality is replete with base, violent impulses directed at Jews that we must defend against and insulate ourselves from. Yet simultaneously, human reality brims with the influence of Jewish ideas, and we have an ancient, biblical mandate to engage with the world and contribute to its repair. Can we hold both views concurrently?

An optical illusion

Not all can hold these two perspectives at the same time. On the far-Right, there are hyper-nationalistic Israelis who seek to withdraw from the world; on the far-Left, there are highly universalistic Israelis who seek to dissolve into it. These two groups are homogeneous; their value systems are built on a single foundational tenet – unbridled nationalism devoid of universal humanism on the extreme Right; universal humanism untempered by nationalism on the post-Zionist Left. Most Israelis are not homogeneous, but rather, hybrids – humanistic and nationalistic concurrently.

One of the profound processes unfolding in Israeli society in recent months is the shared realization of the great optical illusion to which we had fallen victim. We thought Israel was divided in two – nationalists versus universalists; the Right is nationalist, the Left is universalist, and the tension between them is tearing Israel apart. But this is an optical illusion. Throughout months of war, we keep rediscovering that Israel is not divided into two, but three: the mainstream of Israeli society is hybrid.

When we believe the optical illusion that Israel is divided into two, the hybrid Israelis perceive themselves as the moderate, compromising fringe of one of the two groups. But when divided into three, the hybrid Israelis understand that they are not the fringe of either group, but rather, a group unto themselves – not just Israel's largest, but one capable of uniting and leading it.

The paradox of Passover

The emerging Israeli hybridity amidst the harsh war we are embroiled in is also one of the great hopes arising from it. Israeli hybridity is, in essence, Jewish hybridity, which we encounter in the paradox of Passover. On the Seder night, we recount the story of solitary people in a hostile world, one of whose messages is that in every generation, there are those who rise to destroy us – a story that cultivates suspicion of the world and the inclination to withdraw from it. Yet it is this very story that has been embraced by the world and become a universal tale. The paradox of Passover is the paradox of Israel.

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Oct. 7, 2023, the day of the murderous Hamas attack, was one of the darkest days in Israeli history. For a day, the area known as the Gaza periphery was not part of Israel. There was no intelligence to provide warning, no security forces to provide protection, and no state to fulfill its duties.

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Technically speaking the massacre occurred within the borders of Israel, but Israel was not there. Technically speaking, the massacre occurred after 1948, when the Jews had a safe haven, but on that day – they were in exile.

Video: Volunteer describes horrific aftermath of Hamas onslaught / Credit: ZAKA Search and Rescue

That dark day changed us. We are no longer the same people, no longer the same country. That day changed us because we experienced Jewish history firsthand.

Jewish history repeating itself

For almost two millennia, the Jewish people did not have a state or the independent ability to protect themselves. The Zionist movement was founded by individuals who realized that the world was an unfriendly place for the Jews.

In 1903, Ze'ev Jabotinsky visited Chișinău after the bloody pogrom that shocked and terrified worldwide Jewry and became synonymous with the worst horrors of Diaspora persecution.

Jabotinsky later described that while walking the streets of the city where Jews had been murdered and raped and their synagogues destroyed he found a parchment of a Torah scroll that survived with the word "foreign land" inscribed.

In a poem written after the visit, Jabotinsky said that within those two words hid all the murderous pogroms of history.

The same is true of the Worms and Mainz massacres, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Khmelnytsky riots – they all boil down to two words: "foreign land". When the Jews have no power, they are slaughtered.

This insight laid the foundation of Zionism. This simple understanding – that the alternative to Jewish sovereignty is Chișinău – was engraved in the consciousness of the generation that founded the State of Israel.

A miracle state

The generation of the founding fathers lived in two eras: the one before the Jews had a state and the one after. That is why they knew they could not take the existence of Israel for granted, and understood that it could disappear, which is why they invested in it, nurtured it, and devoted themselves to it.

This appreciation decreased somewhat when the second generation came along, although it still considered the existence of a national home for the Jewish people a miracle that must be appreciated.

The third generation began to forget the miracle. It was born in a reality where Israel was a given and it could not even imagine a word without a Jewish state in it. Time took its toll.

As for the current, fourth generation, the Jewish state is a given and seems stable, strong, and eternal.

Perhaps it's a fourth-generation characteristic. That is what happened during the First Temple period in the days of King Solomon and King David when sovereignty began to disintegrate in the eighth decade by the fourth generation. The same is true of the Second Temple Period, during the Hasmonean rule, when sovereignty began to disintegrate in the eighth decade by the fourth generation.

Miracles are forgotten in the fourth generation when everything becomes a given. That is when we tend to quarrel, fight, and dismantle it all from within. This is one of the deep paradoxes of human existence: When we believe that reality is stable – it falls apart; when we are aware that reality can at any moment fall apart – it remains stable.

Jewish history sent a message on Oct. 7. On that day, we were in a "foreign land." We all experienced that dark day: we were in exile, we were in a reality where there was no Jewish state, and we were reminded that the alternative to a Jewish state was Chișinău.

Now we are different people. We have acquired the perspective of the first generation. The founders witnessed the reality where there was no state, so they knew how to appreciate its existence. And just like them, we – Israelis who live on the other side of the Oct. 7 massacre – also witnessed the reality in which we don't have a country. In other words, we, the members of the fourth generation, now look at reality through the lenses of the first generation.

And perhaps it's not just a metaphor. Maybe we haven't just acquired the perspective of the founders, but are the founders. It wasn't just one concept that shattered on Oct. 7, it was many. And after all the things we had taken for granted were shaken and all our paradigms collapsed, a new humility will now begin to emerge in the minds of many Israelis. The understanding that we do not understand. It's a humility that will only increase. We are entering a war that Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz so aptly described as "the realm of uncertainty."

We went through, and we continue to go through, an earthquake that shatters all our beliefs and all our governing paradigms. The meaning of this mental earthquake is dramatic: After the war, everything is on the table – from the state's contract with the ultra-Orthodox community through the state's welfare mechanisms to the drafting of a constitution.

Next to the growing modesty, there is another sentiment that appears in full force. The feeling that this country belongs to us, to its citizens. When you look around and see the thousands of volunteers and the hundreds of initiatives that are popping up to make up for the weakness of the state mechanisms – what are you actually looking at?

You are witnessing a phenomenon that is rare and extraordinarily powerful. You are witnessing that the Israeli people feel a sense of responsibility and ownership of the state.

And what happens when you combine the two? What happens when the humility that comes from the perceptual earthquake merges with the citizens' sense of responsibility and a sense of shared responsibility for their country? They signal to us that after the war we will receive from history an unrepeatable opportunity: the opportunity to re-establish the State of Israel.

Thanks to this new-found humility, we have the opportunity to say goodbye to what was. Thanks to the sense of shared responsibility, we have the opportunity to re-establish what will be.

We must not forget that on Oct. 7, we met not only the absolute evil that came from Gaza but also the absolute good: of the police officers, the commanders, and the soldiers – each and every one of them heroes of Israel.

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We must not forget that along with the pure evil of Hamas, we also saw the pure goodness of the volunteers and the tremendous strength of the citizens. When we rebuild the state, it will be a state that will succeed in doing what the current state fails to do: succeed in reflecting our strengths on the surface and the goodness of Israeli society at the core.

The Torah says that the world was created twice: the first time in six days and the second time after the flood. The tablets, too, were given twice: the first set, which Moses shattered, and the second set when the Jewish people were forgiven.

Future historians will say that Israel was built twice as well: the first time in 1948 and the second time, after the flood on Oct. 7 when all assumptions and tablets were broken.

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