TO REMEMBER IN RUINS: FROM OCTOBER 7 TO TISHA B’AV By Rabbi Josh Weinberg
In a letter I received from my daughter at camp, she asked: “Abba, I was just wondering, what would we talk about if there were no October 7?”
She is spending 7 weeks as a participant in the Chalutzim program, the Hebrew immersive program at URJ Olin Sang Ruby Union Institute. The program’s Israeli counselors see the world through the lenses of a post-October 7th reality. Many of them have spent the past 22 months in the army, and all of them have been deeply affected by the current war and have lost close friends in battle.
Her question pierced deeper than she may have intended. In the wake of October 7, 2023—a date that has seared itself into the consciousness of Israel and the Jewish people—there is a before and after. Her question echoed not only the innocence lost that day, but also the broader rupture we experienced: a breach of time, of trust, of illusion. A straightforward question caused me to suddenly realize how much our world had changed, how many of our conversations, prayers, fears, and rituals had been drawn into the gravity of that day.
For centuries, Jews have marked time in relation to destruction: the year the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed, the year we were expelled from the Land of Israel, and the time many of the wars began. We are a people who remember in terms of ruins. And so, it is not surprising that as we commemorate another Tisha B’Av this coming Saturday night (the second since October 7), many have begun to draw parallels between the Hamas massacre on Simchat Torah and the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem.
Both were moments of unimaginable devastation. Both were preceded by complacency, division, hubris, and zealousness. Both forced a reckoning: who are we, what binds us, and how do we survive?
In 586 BCE, the Babylonians breached Jerusalem’s walls, burned the First Temple, decimated the city, and exiled its inhabitants. In 70 CE, the Romans conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple, ushering in two thousand years of Diaspora. Each destruction was physical and spiritual. More than just buildings were razed. Worlds collapsed, sacrifices and the ritual order under the auspices of the priestly class were discontinued, the political hierarchy of Jewish life changed, and our people’s divine connection was called into question. The trauma was not only in what was lost, but in the terrifying uncertainty of what would come next.
For so many, October 7 felt like a significant inflection point in our long Jewish history and experience. More than 1,200 Israelis were murdered in their homes, in bomb shelters, at a music festival. Families were taken hostage. The border was breached not just militarily, but psychologically. For many Israelis, especially in the south, the sense that the State of Israel would protect its citizens was shattered. As in ancient times, the attack did not just destroy lives; it destabilized the spiritual and civic infrastructure of Israel that gave life meaning.
Tisha B’Av, (the 9th of Av), commemorates the destruction of both Temples and a string of other calamities. It is a day of fasting, lamentation, and mourning—a ritualized descent into collective grief. Since October 7, there have been calls to mark a new day on the calendar, to fix this moment in time as we did with Tisha B’Av, so that future generations will remember what happened. Perhaps this is not a new destruction, but a contemporary echo. Perhaps, we are meant to hear in this tragedy the same themes the rabbis heard in theirs: baseless hatred, internal division, a people’s need for spiritual and ethical reconstruction, and not only a fear of what could happen to us, but of who we might become.
The rabbis of the Talmud did something radical after the two Jerusalem Temples fell. They reinvented Judaism. Sacrifice gave way to study. Pilgrimage gave way to prayer. A localized God became omnipresent, dwelling among us in words and deeds. Their response to destruction was not despair, but creative resilience and redefinition.
The question for us now is: what will we build from our brokenness?
The kinah—the elegy/dirge—of October 7 is still being written (see here for examples of such Kinnot). It is written in funerals and vigils, in the field of Nova, in the rooms where hostages are still missing, in the eyes of children who ran for their lives. It is written, too, in the politics that followed, in the reckoning with military and governmental failure, and the polarized arguments about vengeance, justice, and restraint. But perhaps most powerfully, it is written in the profound theological and emotional destabilization that followed—how could this happen to us, now, again?
October 7 must be remembered, but not only for its horror. It must become the beginning of a new chapter distinguished by moral clarity, Jewish solidarity, and courageous leadership. Like the destruction of the Temples, this moment demands reflection—but also reimagining. What does Jewish security mean in a world where our army is focused on ridding the world of our sworn enemies and yet, at the same time, causing great destruction and devastation to others and making of the Jewish state an international pariah?
This moment should also come with the rejection of the zealous and extremist ideology that led us in the past, and leads us now on a path of continued destruction, of isolation, and of more loss of life.
Tisha B’Av should be a clarion call to reject those Ministers of the Government who call for the flattening of Gaza City.
What does Jewish peoplehood mean when we are fractured by politics and ideology? What should Jewish education look like in a world where so many are questioning the morality and legitimacy of the Jewish state?
My daughter’s question lingers: If the massacre of October 7th had not taken place and altered our reality and consciousness from that moment on, what would we still have to work on, discuss, and strive for?
Before the 7th, we talked about justice, freedom, peace, and Tikvah—hope. We talked about democracy and the importance of its preservation. We must talk about them again, now more than ever, because while we are a people who remember the ruins in our history, we are also people who rebuild from them.
The Temples fell, but Judaism endured. October 7 shattered us, but it need not define us. Just like the destruction of the Temples realigned our priorities and emphasized our values, morals, and the ethics of our tradition. The memory of the Temple became a pervasive topic permeating every aspect of Judaism, and in many ways kept us going as a people. For centuries, we remembered the Temple in our mourning rituals and liturgy, saying: If I forget thee, O Jerusalem…—a vow to never normalize rupture. And just like after the Temple’s destruction, there is also a danger in over-identifying with victimhood. Since the Temple’s destruction, we have seen our fair share of false messiahs. Today, some see this moment as an opportunity to advance their messianic agenda of taking over land, annexation, and circumventing the rule of law. Just this week, Yinon Levi, a sanctioned settler from the Meitar Farms, murdered a Palestinian activist, Awda Hathaleen, in cold blood in the middle of the day. He is facing minimal charges and conveyed his satisfaction with the killing.
So, when my daughter asks, “What would we talk about if there were no October 7?”— I realize that the question is not about conversation, but about identity, about what shapes us. And like the Jews who lived after the Temple’s fall, we too will shape a new Judaism after this rupture—one that remembers the horror, honors the dead, demands accountability, and refuses to let fear and vengeance define us.
If there were no October 7, maybe we would still be asleep. Now we are awake—grieving, angry, uncertain—but also alive to the responsibility of rebuilding. That is what we must talk about. Out of devastation, the work of reconstruction begins—not just of homes and borders, but of spirit and purpose.