The world changed on October 7, 2023.  Heinous acts of violence that had been rejected by civilization for centuries were performed by Hamas in a surprise attack on Israel. It wasn't just the attack that was the surprise. The rapes, executions, kidnapping, and torture were at a level that has been inconceivable in the modern world. It was devastating, not just to Israel nor to every Jew, but to every civilized person on the planet. It created a level of shock and trauma that was beyond anything anyone alive could remember, being even more shocking than the pains of September 11th. The few people I have spoken with who are old enough to remember Pearl Harbor Day have placed it on or even beyond the tragedies and shock of that day over 80 years ago.

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As a rabbi in America, it hit me especially hard. The pain and shock were overwhelming, and as I started to converse with congregants and friends I found that they felt the same. Not only did they not know how to respond or integrate the horrors of that day, most Jews in the diaspora were not even aware of how to get accurate information. They felt disconnected from Israel. They sought to know more, but didn't know where to get accurate information. They were lost in a sea of pain without any compass to guide them through the trauma.

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And so, I started to write daily emails to our community, which were then passed around to thousands of people outside of our community. Although most Jewish institutions and synagogues reached out for the first week or two after October 7 to their community members, most of these same institutions stopped sending out information to their community members by the beginning of November. I became inundated with calls and emails asking about what was actually happening in Israel and in the world. These daily emails (with the exception of Shabbats and Festivals) typically were written at two or three in the morning, as Israel is 10 hours ahead of us and it was the only way to know what was going on each morning in Israel so that I could share it with the community. Each night, I culled through different websites and social media to find the most accurate and up to the moment information to share.

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As the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, I realized the importance of continuing this practice. It is human nature to forget even the most painful moments as time goes on, and I found that the majority of diaspora Jews had put the horrors of October 7th out of their consciousness. As time went on, more and more people outside of Israel had sanitized that terrible day and the events that sprung from it. These daily emails became a testament to what was happening each day; to the increases in anti-Semitism; and to what was going on in the Middle East.

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What follows is that testament. It is a collection of the daily emails that were sent out to the Temple Ner Simcha community each day from October 7, 2023 to the end of Hanukkah and the beginning of the new year on January 1, 2025. Almost 15 full months of daily missives detailing the ups and downs, the triumphs and tragedies that have been experienced in the world through the lens of a Diaspora Jew.

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There is one main purpose in presenting all of these documents in one collection. It is supremely important that we all always remember. It is too easy to forget the emotional roller coaster of these 15 months. It is too simple to put it in the history books as something in the past. But we must always remember this journey. We can never, never allow ourselves to forget what has happened since that terrible day. We must never let what happened during this time to be relegated to history and sanitized for convenience. Each person who died; each person who was wounded; each person who was affected in any way by this conflict that has spread around the world had parents who now miss them. They had children who now must grow up without a mother or father. All too often when we read about a war we forget the pain of the individuals. We forget the horrors and evil.

We must never forget.  And we must not allow the world to forget.

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In the following pages you will be taken on a journey through these almost 15 months. A journey that starts with the shocking attacks of October 7th. But it continues through the worldwide riots and protests; the Jew-hatred and violence against Jews and Jewish organizations; the murder of a local Jew who was killed by a pro-Hamas activist; the college campuses and the terrorizing of Jewish students; and the anti-Israel actions of the United Nations as well as international governments. These pages contain the hopes and frustrations as hostages were killed or released or rescued; the pain as we learned and experienced some of the darkest moments of human behavior; the triumphs as against all odds, Israel survived and started to create a new potential reality in the Middle East.

But most of all, this collection of writings is about faith. Faith that God will always take care of the State of Israel, the land of Israel, and the people of Israel. A faith that is not blind, but is based upon 3,700 years of history in which, no matter how dark it got for the Jewish people, there was always a redemption.. and a faith that we will be redeemed again and there will be a time of peace in that region of the world.

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May that time not be distant, and may we all live to see a time of lasting peace for Israel, for the Middle East, and for the world. May we all experience in our time the promise of the prophet who said, “ Nation shall not lift up sword against Nation, nor shall they learn war anymore”.

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These pages could not have been produced without the support of Temple Ner Simcha in Westlake Village, CA.  Most especially, gratitude is due to Orlando Salas, Michael Neymit, and Luba Neymit who assembled the emails into a unified form. My wife Allison, and sons Benjamin and Jonathan have tolerated my commitment to writing this; and I pray that we leave a better and more peaceful world for my sons and their generation. And I thank God for allowing me to write, think, and especially feel the multiplicity of emotions during these challenging times.

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Am Yisrael Chai!  The people of Israel live, and will usher in that time of peace.

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Rabbi Michael Barclay

January 1, 2025

1st of Tevet, 5785