One People, One Heart: The Day After One Year Later

One People, One Heart: The Day After One Year Later
Rabbi Menachem Creditor

[Note: Today’s Torah is dedicated to the UJA-Federation of New York

family. I’m always proud of the work we do, but yesterday, on the one-year anniversary of the October 7th attacks, I felt an even more overwhelming sense of pride. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers gathered in Central Park, in indoor events, and online. Fifty rabbis gathered to say Kaddish. High School choirs, David Broza, Eden Golan, and Regina Spektor sang. Survivors of the Nova massacre, parents of Hostages, and family members of those murdered one year ago shared their stories. New York’s political leadership stood in solidarity. UJA’s CEO, my beloved friend Eric Goldstein, stood at the very heart of our collective wound in Israel. He spoke with tenderness and power at the site of the Nova Music Festival about being “Lev Echad, Am Echad - One Heart, One People,” united around the world through this pain and in this healing. In this spirit, I thank the staff, donors, and volunteer leaders of UJA-Federation New York for being such a beautiful army of angels helping our whole world.]

Yesterday’s history is the Torah we live through; today’s Torah is the one we write with our lives, with our fierce determination to keep going.

The Global Jewish People has been there through every major chapter of Jewish history in the last century—helping birth the State of Israel, supporting Jews arriving in America, lifting up communities through the pandemic, and showing up on the ground for Ukraine. And now, post-October 7th, we continue to be there for Israel, over and over again.

But yesterday, watching my friend Eric Goldstein standing at Nova at Kibbutz Re’im—where our hearts were torn open—it struck me deeply. We are survivors, all of us. The dancers, the singers, the leaders—they are our rabbis today. Their survival is sacred. No, it’s not the same as those who survived the Shoah, but the reverence we give them is profoundly resonant.

Friends, as we look forward to Yom Kippur, we remember how to count our days. "Teach us to number our days, so we may attain a heart of wisdom. (Ps. 90:12)" These days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are so much more than days of repentance—they are days of repair, days of return, days of rising higher and higher.

Yesterday, I saw a community alive, even in the face of deep grief. I saw the strength of New York’s Jewish community, the love that was on full display, the beauty of interfaith unity, and the music of our youth, from high school students to college a cappella groups, lifting us all. And I was reminded again that we know how to mark time. We know how to cherish every minute.

Are we ready to make every day count? Are we ready to fight for our dignity, our bodies, and our family in Israel? Our history has taught us that the fight never truly ends. But every day, we have a choice to rise, to act, to love, to make a difference.

Let this be a year of rebuilding, of health, of strength, and of hope. Let us pray for it, and then let’s do everything in our power to make it so. Together, let’s send our hearts eastward, to Israel, where we are Lev Echad, Am Echad - One People, with One Heart.

Deep breath. Let’s begin again.