When I entered the synagogue on the morning of October 7th, I slowly learned what had happened in Israel on that fateful day of Simchat Tora. While the guys from security were explaining to me with tears in their eyes what was happening, I asked them a crucial question: “Where did the attack come from?” And they told me: From Gaza. I asked them: “Have you heard if there is any other open front? Is Israel also being attacked from the north or Judea and Samaria?” They told me “no”.
Previously, I had heard an interview with retired Israeli general Isaac Brick. His terrifying prediction about a possible multi-front war against Israel suddenly crossed my mind. I thought about this worst-case scenario and was terrified of what could happen in the coming days. As time went by, I realized that that terrible massacre of October 7th could have been much worse. And when I think about what happened in light of what could have happened, I believe we witnessed “a miracle”, somehow similar to Hanukka.
ANTIOCHUS’ IMPATIENCE
In the year 200 BCE, the Jewish people were on the brink of extinction. The Greek Empire had triumphed militarily and effectively spread its religion and culture throughout its territory, including the land of Israel. They did so not by force but through persuasion. The Greek strategy worked perfectly by opening the doors of their civilization to all. The wave of assimilation also affected the Jews. Those outside of Israel had already adopted Hellenism and were practicing a religion that was increasingly more Greek and less Jewish. In Israel, Jews living in the cities also willingly submitted to the imposing Greek culture and became Hellenized. There were a few loyal Jews in the fields and rural areas who resisted assimilation. But, according to historians, it was only a matter of time, one or two more generations, for these Jews to “normalize” assimilation and lose their Jewish identity by inertia, even without realizing it.
But then something happened that no one had planned for. In the year 170 BCE, ANTIOCHUS LOST HIS PATIENCE WITH THE JEWS FAITHFUL TO THE TORA. He abandoned his advisors’ plan (to leave the Jews alone so they could continue assimilating on their own) and imposed a ban on Jewish practice, sentencing all those who followed Tora to death. It was a terrible time of persecution, death, hopelessness, terror, and darkness. But in the end, with the help of Bore Olam and the extraordinary courage and ingenuity of Jewish soldiers, we fought and won. And today, over 2,000 years later, we celebrate this triumph.
The million-dollar question is: why didn’t Antiochus wait if he knew that assimilation would have occurred naturally in one or two generations?
No one knows precisely why. But everyone admits that Antiochus’s impatience caused an opposite effect. Antiochus unintentionally woke us up. He forced us to organize ourselves. He forced us to fight. And what’s more, he managed to bring many assimilated Jews back to embrace the Judaism they had left behind.
RABBI MELAMED’S HYPOTHESIS
A rabbi living in Israel, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, wrote an idea that deeply moved me a few years ago in his book Penine Halakha. He said the following: The assimilation of Jews into Hellenic culture was inevitable. The disappearance of Judaism through natural means was only a matter of time. But Antiochus wanted to accelerate this process. And it backfired on him: his decrees had the opposite effect. He reversed assimilation and, ironically, “saved us from self-destruction.” Antiochus’s impatience, Rabbi Melamed said, was the result of divine intervention. God hardened his heart, as He did in Egypt with Pharaoh, and thus, the Greek monarch – against all logic and advice – made a decision that, in the short term, was devastating for our people but, in the long run, saved us from something infinitely worse.
GREECE AND GAZA
Last October 7th, we Jews suffered a devastating terrorist attack of “Shoah” proportions. The number of Jews who died and the way they died has no other qualification. The Hamas murderers were worse than the Nazis, as seen by the sadism of filming themselves and the way they “enjoyed” torture, mutilation, and the shedding of Jewish blood.
But there is a part of the story of this attack that, for now, is less appreciated. No one ignores that Hamas is one of the executing arms of Iran, the new Amaleq. Iran is an octopus whose head is in Tehran, but its tentacles expand throughout the Middle East to achieve its primary objective: to destroy Israel.
According to retired Israeli general Isaac Brick (See here ), Iran has been preparing for 20 years a master plan to destroy Israel. Iran’s plan is a surprise simultaneous massive attack from five different fronts: from Lebanon in the north, through Hezbollah, which has more than 200,000 rockets in its possession. A bit further east, in Syria, with its pro-Iranian militias, which are stationed, awaiting the order to attack the Jewish State. Between Israel and Jordan is the third front: about two and a half million Arabs who live in Judea and Samaria, very close to the Jewish settlements with half a million Israelis. These Arabs are armed and mostly radicalized. The fourth front, from the south of Israel, is Hamas, which only has to cross the border, and we already know what it is capable of doing. The fifth front, and according to Brick, the most devastating, would be that of the Arabs who already live inside Israel, in Yafo, Haifa, Lod, Jerusalem, etc. , about two million Arabs, with about 400,000 weapons, and many of them (most?) radicalized who would voluntarily join a massive attack on Israel.
In that interview he gave on the Hidabberut channel on July 10th, 2023, that is: 3 MONTHS BEFORE OCTOBER 7th, Brick explains at length and agonizingly that this could be an apocalyptic scenario for Israel. The Jewish State is not militarily prepared to face some 3,000 rockets a day (sic.) coming from the north, attacking the entire Israeli territory, something that Israel has never experienced in the past. Israel is not prepared to face a massive invasion of hundreds of thousands of Arabs armed to the teeth and with the bloodlust that Hamas demonstrated. A surprise attack of this nature could mean a genocide, a second Shoah, in the land of Israel itself.
In this video, Brick explains Iran’s plan in detail (unfortunately, it is only in Hebrew and has no subtitles)
Was Brick right? Was he too alarmist?
The events of October 7th – the surprise attack by Hamas that was NOT detected or repelled by the Israeli army for about ten hours – proved Brick right. Israel WAS not prepared even for a single-front surprise attack! (The reason for this lack of preparation is a topic that would go beyond the limits of this article).
Now, Why did Hamas attack Israel alone, and why did its murderous leaders not wait for Iran to coordinate its attack with Hezbollah, the Iranian militias, and the Arabs of Israel?
THE ANGER OF IRAN
I want to make it clear that this lack of coordination between Hamas and Iran, this daring of Hamas to do things “solo”, perhaps hoping that its allies would join in later, made Iran very angry, and for that reason, explains professor Mordechai Kedar, Hezbollah and the pro-Iranian militias are attacking Israel “softly”, limiting themselves to a demonstration of solidarity with Hamas, but without getting fully involved in the war. Iran, says Kedar, is furious with Hamas, because Hamas “ruined its master plan”: the multi-front surprise attack that Israel’s enemies have been planning for so many years!
The million-dollar question is why Hamas didn’t wait in order to attack, knowing that they were ruining Iran’s plan.
Nobody knows precisely why.
There are many opinions. Some say that Hamas assassins could not resist the temptation to attack a concert attended by 4,000 – 5,000 young Israelis who were sitting ducks. Others say that Hamas saw that Israel was divided, that many Israelis had threatened to abandon the army in a time of war, etc.
But, in reality, none of these reasons can account for why Hamas chose to act independently rather than waiting for Iran’s initiative.
PHARAOH, ANTIOCHUS, AND SINWAR
If we look at this question from Rabbi Melamed’s perspective, HAMAS’ IMPATIENCE was providential and miraculous. The great tragedy that occurred on October 7th could have been infinitely worse. It’s hard to see it this way now, in the present. But remember that when the Maccabees fought against the Greeks in 165 BCE, they did not know they were writing a story with a happy ending. They saw thousands of their Jewish brothers murdered and tortured by the enemy just for being Jews, as in the case of Hanah and her seven children. Jews thought that the future that awaited them was dark, sad, and irreversibly lost. It took decades to understand that this suffering had led to triumph and celebration.
Going back to October 7th, having been attacked from a single front, the Israeli army—after a week or two of preparation and training, which it would not have had in the case of a simultaneous multi-front attack—was able to reorganize. The Jews of Israel woke up, recovered, became more robust, and united again. Maybe more than ever. The army of Israel, the Maccabees of the 21st century, is now ready to confront and defeat, with God’s help, our enemies on other fronts as well.
Hamas’s lone attack, in a way, prevented an apocalyptic scenario indescribably worse for the State of Israel and the Jewish people.
THIS POTENTIAL SHOAH, God forbid, WAS AVOIDED BY THE MIRACULOUS IMPATIENCE OF HAMAS.
We may need a few years to understand this better.
May God protect Medinat Israel.
May the Creator grant our heroic soldiers final victory.
May God grant our political leaders the wisdom, temperance, and courage to make the best possible decisions.
Rabbi Yosef Bitton
