October 7th shattered us, but it also awakened something beautiful.

The aftermath of this unprecedented massacre was an important reminder that Judaism isn’t just a religion; it’s a revolution of the spirit.

photo: Shraga Kopstein/Unsplash

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This is an edited excerpt from the new book, “Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Jew: Learning to Love the Lessons of Jew-Hatred” — written by Raphael Shore, an acclaimed filmmaker and author.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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October 7th and its aftermath have been a horror for Jews, but I’ve come to realize that it also revealed something very positive.

Forced to confront a painful new reality, Jews responded with deep awareness of being family.

From all over the world and from very different backgrounds, Jews touched an intuitive inner sense that many did not even know that they had and discovered a profound sense of connection with their people. Overnight, in the face of evil and the world’s unmistakable double standards against the Jewish People, Jewish identity increased.

The Jewish community rallied together in an overwhelming expression of shock, unity, and generosity. Jews gathered in Israel and all over the world with love and energy to volunteer, organize, and provide for those in need in Israel, whether it be emotional or material support. While it is sad that it took bloodshed and suffering to generate such Jewish brotherhood, it has been a beautiful development.

This return home was not new. The Jewish People’s enduring commitment to both our covenantal kinship and our mission inspired our forebears, nourished them, and made them amazingly resilient. That is why you are here as a Jew today. This resilience is strongest not among those who fit in, but those who don’t.

It is gritty Jews who carry on after a civilization collapses rather than sifting through the ashes and mourning the German culture of the Weimar era, the flowering of Spain’s golden age, or the glory days among the gardens and temples of Greece and Rome. These are the Jews who keep going because they remember who they are, why they are here, and what their mission is.

The Jewish mission is not limited to any single culture or time period; it is for all of humanity and transcends civilizations. That is why Jews have the strength to journey across civilizations. French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau wondered at Jewish toughness:

“What must be the strength of legislation capable of working such wonders, capable of braving conquests, dispersions, revolutions, exiles, capable of surviving the customs, laws, empire of all the nations, and which finally promises them, by these trials, that it is going to continue to sustain them all, to conquer the vicissitudes of all things, human, and to last as long as the world?”

Jews endure because they have always been animated by a grand mission that is about a deep, spiritual tikkun olam and being a light to the nations that includes but goes beyond the social justice, technology, or politics of any particular time or place. Civilizations rise and fall, mores and movements change, and the Jewish mission keeps its vision fixed on the eternal.

The Jewish People are arguably the most persecuted and hence the least privileged nation on the planet. But we are privileged to have a special destiny and so have never mired ourselves in victimhood. Our strength is derived from remaining steadfast in our identity as privileged to be alive, as members of a great family, and for being granted an opportunity and responsibility to play a meaningful role in history.

The scope of our mission is almost unimaginable, and so are the challenges we have undergone. The existence of the Jews after all these thousands of years is a miracle, but it is a miracle born of a higher plan and purpose.

Many people will bristle at some of these ideas, but this is the Jewish legacy and mission — a worldview that our ancestors understood, owned, lived, and died for — for more than 120 generations. It continues to animate Jewish life today.

The Jewish mission has been forgotten by many today, and as bitter a pill it may be for some to swallow, it is even more loathed by the Hitlers, Hamans, and Hamas terrorists who recognize it as a threat. That’s the bitter truth that we learned, not only under Communism or Nazism, or the ugly moments of history going back to Babylon, Persia, and Rome, but now also in our comfortable cities and campuses in America and Europe.

We are left with the astonishing yet indisputable reality that antisemites cannot defeat us and, as a people, we cannot disappear.

And so we are here, Am Yisrael Chai — the Jewish People live.

We may as well own it.

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This revolution is our story. The struggle is all humanity’s story. It is the playing field of every human life, the drama of human existence.

The civilizational gifts of the Jews come in two varieties: There are the gifts of science, innovation, social change, and culture; and there are the spiritual gifts that have transformed the world.

The intellectual, technological, and scientific impact of the Jews is truly remarkable, but these are all really just the fumes of the deeper impact that began more than 3,300 years ago.

Zionist visionary Rav Kook clarified that the greatest Jewish gifts are those of the spirit — the knowledge of God, wisdom, and moral truths that transcend technology and politics: “Israel also has a richness of physical and technological resources, in line with other nations, but the knowledge of God is our specialty.”

Judaism’s ultimate vision of Tikkun Olam is the perfection of the world that comes when all people connect to their souls and to God, violence and oppression end, war ceases, and a world of love and peace becomes possible.

Our story has been the hidden Jewish mission of building a spiritual empire in exile that was not seen but it could not be broken. And now, in the closing chapters of our story, the Jewish People are meant to return to their Land and create a holy national home based on that spiritual mission.

We are just getting started on this, and admittedly have made mistakes and have a long way to go, but the vision is clear: Through the vehicle of a nation-state, with morality imbued in all of its national structures (government, legal system, economic model, army, social structures, and so on), our society will serve humanity as a symbol of love, peace, and spirituality.

Being Jewish is not just about feeling proud of a country or celebrating a family member’s achievements. It’s more than a religion; it’s a family and a way of life that encompasses peoplehood, nationhood, morality, ethics, spirituality, and purpose. It’s who we are.

There are many ways to express a deep connection with being Jewish — through learning Torah, commitment to Israel, doing mitzvot (commandments), believing in or struggling with God, community involvement, and many other ways we will explore in the next chapter. It’s not an all-or-nothing proposition.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that everyone has to adopt all of these things to take their place among our people. Each person can find their unique way to connect and grow within our shared heritage.

As author Ze’ev Maghen wrote in his classic, “John Lennon and The Jews”:

“Being a connected Jew has always meant being on fire. Sometimes we simmer softly over a low flame, other times we are all but consumed by a roaring conflagration. But we always burn. How could it be otherwise?”

“Each generation imbibes thirstily from its predecessor, drinking down the bitter with the sweet — we have accumulated over the ages fuel reserves so vast they make those of Saudi Arabia look like a grease stain. Each century that elapses in our fathomless history, every event we experience, ordeal we endure ... feed(s) our ner tamid, the eternal flame of Jewish Passion in the present.”

We can die in a land of physical or spiritual exile or be reborn in the promised land of our ancestors and our descendants.

Let’s stop defining ourselves by the haters; let’s stop defensively reacting with “never again” and focusing on mere survival, and instead learn about and love what makes us strong, what makes us great, and what our unique particular-universal mission is.

Today is an opportunity to step out of the shadows, get off the fence, and to step into your role as messenger with courage and conviction. I promise that, in doing so, you can help heal the wounds of our collective past and chart a course toward a personal, Jewish, and human future brimming with hope, unity, and purpose.

I invite you to embrace your identity fully and joyously and to unlock the profound sense of meaning, purpose, and pleasure that comes with understanding your unique place in the world.

Jewish history shows us that our enemies can destroy countless Jewish bodies, but, just as the letters in the famous Talmudist Rabbi Hanina’s burning Torah scroll flew to heaven, the Jewish People and the Jewish spirit will prevail.

The Jewish People have traveled most of their journey, and the destination is in sight. The choice is in front of each of us, as Ze’ev Maghen exhorted:

“We have to make the conscious and collective decision to gird our creative loins, to recover the guts and the confidence, the romance and the idealism ... If we revive the fire and the fascination, the study and the practice, the passion and the love; if we come home to our people with the world in our backpacks and combine what we’ve learned with all that we are; then the Jews will again shine their light...”

Find yourself in the Jewish Story, discover the collective power of your community, engage more deeply with your heritage, and let it be your shield against adversity, empowering you to carry forward the torch of your people with pride and purpose.

The late, great Rabbi Lord Sacks left this core teaching for his family, the Jewish People:

“This then, is our story, our gift to the next generation. I received it from my parents and they from theirs across great expanses of space and time. There is nothing quite like it ... it still challenges the moral imagination of mankind. I want to say to my children: Take it, cherish it, learn to understand and love it. Carry it, and it will carry you. And may you, in turn, pass it on to your children. For you are a member of an eternal people, a letter in their scroll. Let their eternity live on in you.”

As for me, I simply love being part of a tiny world-changing family; I am so fortunate that I know my life matters and I can make a difference in our people’s wild adventure through history.

I am also fortunate that I have been able to flip antisemitism on its head and filter out the negative noise that can easily weaken Jewish pride. What remains is the pure inspiration of being part of an incredible, warm, loving, caring, creative, and idealistic people.

We are the most tenacious and resilient people who never lost hope in the optimistic plot line delivered to them 3,500 years ago.

We never felt ourselves victims, and through it all, we have stayed resolute and happy, knowing that it’s going to get really good, soon.

We Jews are compared to olives because sometimes the best of us come out when we’re being crushed.

So, I want to thank our enemies for helping to keep us sharp, on our toes, and unified; for reminding us who we are when we sometimes forget; for forcing us to develop solutions to the challenges they throw at us, propelling us into a start-up nation; and for allowing us a pivotal role in cleaning up the world from evil.

It is a privilege to face and fight evil because decreasing darkness increases light. Even if we would prefer to spend our energies on our more natural inclination to seek wisdom and spread love, we know this is part of our mission too.

I love being Jewish. I am grateful for my privilege and remain humbled by the responsibility.

And, this is your story too.

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