A Tonic (and Warning) for a Troubled Time:

On Rabbi Yosef Benarroch’s Presentation,

“The October 8^th Jew: ‘All Israel are Responsible One for Another’”

Rabbi Benarroch’s presentation at Limmud on March 10, 2024 was, gratefully, a restorative reprieve from the desperately dispiriting current moment. The predominantly anti-Israel bias of much of the reporting on the ongoing Hamas-Israel war, and, indeed, on Hamas’ October 7, 2023 brutal pogrom that initiated the war, has been deranging and enraging. Rabbi Benarroch’s spirited and uplifting presentation was a tonic for a deeply troubled time, holding out hope where so little can be found, while also issuing a warning.

Rabbi Bennaroch, who was in Israel on October 7, discussed how the massacre of that cataclysmic day, in which 1200 innocent Israelis (women, babies, children, men, and the elderly) were slaughtered, tortured, burned alive, and raped; 5000 wounded; and 240 abducted (134 of whom still remain in captivity in horrific conditions), “changed everything,” how “none of us is the same since.” Through the lens of Megillah Esther, he spoke about the threat that Israel faced prior to October 7, but also about where hope resides following it, finding the megillah’s main message, “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh” (“All Israel are responsible one for another”), directly relevant to the present moment. The danger of being divided and the necessity of being unified is the crux of this megillah. Indeed, history has shown that Israel’s greatest enemy has always been itself when divided one against another, and its greatest strength is in being united. As Rabbi Sacks has said: “If we are united, no power on earth can prevail over us.”

The deep divisions tearing Israeli society apart before October 7 “dissipated after October 7,” once “everyone recognized the importance of being unified.” Following the “low point” of the protests, of the profound polarization and divisions defining Israeli society just prior to October 7, Israelis came together “in a way never seen before.” Rabbi Benarroch recounted the inspiring story of a group of totally secular Jews who decided to keep the fast of the Tenth of Tevet (a very minor fast that few are even aware of) for every religious Jew fighting in Gaza who is unable to keep their religion. He also spoke of other secular Jews who are keeping Shabbat for those soldiers who cannot—a “significant and powerful” change from when Israelis could not “face or talk with one another” months before.

Rabbi Benarroch then proceeded to his interpretation of Megillah Esther.  In the days of King Ahasuerus, when Haman threatened a Holocaust of all the Jews in one day, Queen Esther alone understood how the Jews could be saved. Though initially reluctant to go to the king knowing the penalty of going unsummoned was death, she changes on Mordecai’s suggesting that saving the Jews may be why she was chosen queen, that she may be called “for just this crisis” (Book of Esther 4:14).

The “turning point of the megillah” is Esther’s recognition and acceptance of her new active role; “before she was commanded, now she commands.” She orders Mordecai: “Go, assemble all the Jews . . . and fast . . . . I and my maidens will observe the same fast. Then I shall go to the king, though it is contrary to the law; and if I am to perish, I shall perish!” (4:16). Rabbi Benarroch discussed the significance of Esther’s calling the Jews to “assemble” and to “fast,” and the relationship between the two. The purpose of fasting, as Maimonides wrote in his “Laws of Fasting,” is “to arouse [their] hearts and initiate [them in] the paths of repentance”; it is an injunction to pray and to repent (5:1). Rabbi Benarroch pointed out that what the Jews needed to repent for was their being “divided and dispersed among the other people,” as Haman described them to the King Ahaseurus (Book of Esther, 3:8). He sourced both Ibn Ezra, “Divided one from their brother so much as to be bad,” and Maimonides, “A person who separates himself from the community even though he has not transgressed any sins . . .  but rather goes on his own individual path . . . does not have a portion in the world to come,” to highlight the seriousness of Jews being divided one from another. As Rabbi Benarroch claimed, being thus divided amongst themselves is “the worst possible state of affairs.”

Esther’s command to “assemble,” to gather together, is synonymous with her command to fast—to pray and repent, which also bring the Jews together. Prayer in Judaism is inherently communal, and the idea of caring for your fellow Jew through prayer became an essential principle of Jewish law. The “crux” of the megillah is, therefore, “all Jews are interconnected and responsible one for another. When united, nothing can defeat them, but divided they are vulnerable to Haman.” Interestingly, as Rabbi Benarroch pointed out, dropping the “n” in Haman and replacing it with an “s” gives us Hamas. Esther understood the importance of “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh”; hence, her command to gather the Jews together to fast before she goes to the king with her plan to prevent Haman’s genocidal plot.

And what has happened in Israel since October 7 mirrors the meaning of Megillah Esther in the astonishing “coming together” of Israelis and in their “assuming responsibility one for another.” From the ancient story of Esther to the immediate stories of Jews praying and fasting and keeping Shabbat for strangers, Rabbi Benarroch related more of the “millions” of stories he has heard (“I could write a book”) illustrating the power of the overarching statement of the megillah.

In the first, he told of a couple who ran a catering business, and when they heard of a soldier on the Lebanon border who could not get home to be married, brought the wedding feast to him and his bride, including a wedding photographer and music. They then found out which other soldiers were engaged and did the same for them. “As of two months ago, they had hosted seventy weddings at their own expense and for people they did not know.”

In another, Rabbi Benarroch recounted a bus driver’s kindness towards a female Israeli soldier on leave from fighting in Gaza. When he asked her what she would do on returning home, expecting she would say, “Hug my family”; her answer was, “Go straight to the fridge!” The driver stopped at the first restaurant, gave her money, and said, “Go eat.” Everyone on the bus waited patiently without complaint while she had her first meal in 24 hours.

In his last story, he told of a farmer from a kibbutz on the Gaza border, near where the Nova festival took place. When he heard of the infiltration of the terrorists, he got into his truck without hesitation and drove to the festival site to save as many as possible. He made twelve trips back and forth, and being familiar with the back roads, he was able to rescue 120 young people. When one of the victims he rescued asked who he was, his response was, “I’m a nobody.” He was simply doing what he was obligated to do as a Jew caring for his fellow Jews.    

According to Rabbi Benarroch, there were so many acts of hessed and bravery following October 7 because Israelis understood that “all Israel are responsible one for another”; they acted out of the truth of this statement, gathering together, as Esther would have had them do. And united in their caring for one another, they avoided “stumbl[ing] over one another as before the sword” (Vayikra 26: 37). Rabbi Benarroch referred to this source and to Rashi’s explanation—Jews “shall stumble over one another . . . by reason of the sin of the other, for all Israelites are held responsible one for another”—to emphasize the moral imperative of “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh”: “The mitzvah of today is to love each other as ourselves.”