The Connection Between October 7 and the Flight from Dubai

Today I am going to write something that will not be popular in a week like this.

I went over what was written yesterday about October 7. Almost everywhere it was the same: Hamas is to blame, the world is to blame, the antisemites are to blame. I am not arguing with that. It is as obvious as the fact that we need to fight them.

Perhaps this year we will ask not only what they did to us, but also what we have not yet done.

But just a week ago, on a flight to Israel, a pilot stabbed his captain and tried to bring down a plane full of people, yet the plane still landed. We called it a miracle. When I place this miracle alongside the disaster of three years ago, I understand how narrow the window is through which we look. A person lives for two or three generations, and every generation finds its culprit: the Arabs, the Germans, the Romans.

Whoever looks across thousands of years sees a pattern. There is a force that does not allow this people to disappear and, with the same hand, pushes them—sometimes through blows—in a certain direction. And our sages said something uncomfortable: that it depends on us, because we still do not understand what we are here for.

If only they are to blame, there is nothing for us to do but wait for the next blow. Whoever looks for the cause, and not only the culprit, is already beginning to change.

So perhaps this year we will ask not only what they did to us, but also what we have not yet done?