It's Still October 7

0:00 Join Arc Plus to get ad-free access to every episode of For Heaven's Sake, and help support independent Jewish media. Join at arcmedia.org. [Instrumental music] You are listening to an Arc Media podcast. The outside world doesn't understand what October 7th did to Israelis. What we experienced on October 7th was a glimpse into the destruction of Israel. It's not just, or even primarily, about the atrocities.

0:37 It's about experiencing in the most visceral way possible what it would be like to lose this country. October 7 means different things for Israelis. October 7 is not the past, it's the present. It still defines the lens through which we understand our reality, and we want to know, how do I live? For our enemies, October 7 is a day that didn't happen, or it's a day of no significance.

1:05 But for Israel's friends who've turned critics, October 7th has become part of the past. It's a tragedy, but it's time for Israel to get over it. [Instrumental music] Since October 7th, thousands of brave men and women have gone out to defend Israel, knowing the risks. For those who never came home, I believe their last request of us would have been simple: Take care of my family.

1:36 Today, over four hundred women have lost their husbands, and over a thousand children have lost a parent in service to Israel. The IDF Widows and Orphans Organization is the one official organization standing with every one of these families from the moment of loss and throughout their lives. Through life-changing retreats, healing camps for children, empowerment programs, financial support, and an embracing community of peers who truly understand, they surround these families with support, build resilience, and create the foundations for post-traumatic growth.

2:15 Their loved ones gave everything for Israel, for us. Now it's our responsibility to stand with the families they left behind. Please join us. Visit donate.idfwo.org. Thank you. [Instrumental music] Hi, friends. This is Daniella Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi from the Shalom Hartman Institute, and this is our podcast, For Heaven's Sake, in collaboration with Arc Media.

2:48 Today is Monday, October sixth, and this podcast will drop on October seventh. And that's our theme. We entitled it, It's Still October Seventh, and the idea behind it is that for so many of us in Israel and around the world, October seventh is not part of our past. It's part of our present. It still shapes who we are. It shapes what we think.

3:18 It shapes the lens through which we understand our reality and also decide policies and make choices. So today, Yossi and I, we want to talk about October seventh as part of our present. So Yossi, let's start with you. How is October seventh still defining us? As you were talking, Daniella, I was thinking about a recurring conversation that we've had on these episodes over the last three years.

3:50 When is it going to stop being October seventh? And you remember we said when the hostages come home, you know, as long as there are hostages for whom it's still October seventh, it's still October seventh for the rest of us. You know, you're right, Yossi. And that-- You know, I've been wanting October seventh to be over a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. But part of what I have to accept is that it's not. I wish it was, and I hate some of its consequences and some of the ways that it's imprisoning Israel, but the reality is, is that it's not, and it's not psychologically and also empirically.

4:32 So today's episode is in one way Daniella admitting that I was wrong. But you know, it's interesting because in some ways it's become stronger for me. During the war, I didn't allow myself to look at the hostage clips, certainly not to look at the footage of October seventh. I've never been to the southern border. Have you? Have you been down there?

4:58 Yeah, I've been down there. You have. So I felt the only way I can cope and remain steady and do the work that I have to do, which is writing commentary about the situation, doing public speaking, doing our weekly podcast, is if I don't immerse in the atrocities and in the suffering. And now that it's eased up, I'm starting to peek, starting to look at some of the footage, and it comes up on my feed, and in the past, I would just skip over it.

5:31 And now it's coming, especially the last couple days, and it's overwhelming. It's as if it happened yesterday. That's the emotional experience, and I suspect that that's true for many people. So the question about, you know, how October seventh has impacted on us is immediate, and it's related directly to the major news event that happened in Israel this past week Which was the attempted, uh, hijacking by the Omani pilot of the, uh, the UAE plane flying to Tel Aviv, and the reports that he apparently planned to crash the plane into Ben Gurion Airport.

6:15 And of course, the hijacking was thwarted both by the incredible courage of the pilot, the wounded pilot, who with his last bit of strength opened the door. And luckily, there were Israeli passengers on the other side of that door, and they rushed in and saved the day. And I was thinking about how that is, in a very profound way, part of the October 7th Israeli reaction. You know, it wasn't this sense of, "Oh, look at us," you know?

6:53 Or Netanyahu's in his usual bombastic way, "We're a nation of lions." I didn't feel that that's what was being played out. I felt instead that there was this sense of almost desperation, and of a people that had looked into the face of mortality on October 7th and said, "We're not going to let this happen ever again."

7:17 And there's a new never again in this country. You know, the never again used to refer to the Holocaust, now never again refers to October 7th. And there it was. I felt in the determination of these passengers that they were playing out the never again of October 7th. How did this hit you? [laughs] It's interesting 'cause we're a little different. You know, that's big surprise.

7:41 Oh, really? [laughs] Big surprise. In many ways, the few minutes of the plane was October 7th and 8th condensed. For you, you're talking about October 8th or October 7th in the afternoon, how Israelis stood up and said, "We're gonna defend ourselves," and that sense of responsibility. For me, the plane is October 7.

8:08 You know, we could say we're not gonna let this happen again, but if it wasn't for the Indian pilot, it would've happened again, Yossi. Yeah. I want October 7th to stop shaping an Israeli consciousness. But we're still aware of how close the line between a successful October 7th on the part of our enemies and a success on our part.

8:33 Sometimes it's miraculous, even though I don't believe in miracles, but like this one pushes even the heretic Daniil. The story here is just-- it's insane. Just like October 7th shouldn't have happened, but it could happen again. It could happen again. Who knows where it's gonna happen again? When you have an enemy that wants to kill you, you know, they're gonna find a way. They're gonna find a hole.

8:55 They're gonna find something. And now it turns out our planes are vulnerable. Here it is. El Al, I only fly El Al. You know what? This was a free commercial. I've only flown El Al for a long time, and I love El Al. I'd only fly them for security reasons. I actually think it's just a phenomenal-- the service, the whole story. Sorry, United. But whatever that is.

9:16 But here it turns out that Arkia and Israir, the Israeli planes, the Israeli airlines, lease planes from European countries without any checks and balances. Everything could happen. Our planes are vulnerable. Do you remember it was a month ago or two months ago, they said Eilat is in danger, then we're talking about tunnels near Qalqilya. It's just how close are you when people still wanna kill you?

9:46 So while I want October 7th to be over, this plane reminded all of us, you know, it's this close. You too. In other words, you are also in some way still in October 7th. Or now I'm more aware that October 7th is not an aberration. W- how did I explain October 7th? You know, I used Yair Golan's explanation. I thought it was very profound.

10:14 He's a military historian, and he said, "Every time you build a wall, no matter who builds the wall, and every time you build a defense, no matter who builds it and no matter how strong it is, and no matter how disproportionate the strength you have to your enemies, there's gonna be a time and there's gonna be a day where everything aligns and it's gonna break."

10:33 And I said, "Okay, it happens." So the last time was the Yom Kippur War, every 50 years. But part of what we're realizing, and this is what the plane was about-- And it's not just the plane, it comes all the time. I don't know what the term in English is. We're a hairbreadth away? I don't know if that's, uh-- I'm making up a term. That's-- That is.

10:50 It's like this from it happening, and it doesn't require a breakdown of the whole system. It's just we are flawed, we are failed, and our enemy is gonna find those routes. And so for me, the plane just reinforced that October 7th is not a past. It's just part of our present. The question is how we live with it. That's a separate question. But how you live with it can't be premised on the fact that it's the past.

11:19 It wasn't the heroism that reminded me, but the fact that it, it should've happened. If he didn't open the door, doesn't matter who was on the other side, it was going to crash, and who knows where. I agree with you to some extent, but I think we need to insist on responsibility here, on government responsibility, which brings us again back to another element of October 7th. October 7th didn't just happen. Correct.

11:49 If there's a wall, somebody's going to breach it. We didn't defend the wall. The government was warned. Netanyahu was warned repeatedly, not just in the days before, but for months before. And so here again- How many times do we need to go through the experience of realizing that we are led by a government of national irresponsibility? And no one takes responsibility here.

12:22 The Minister of Transportation points to the Shin Bet, the Shabak. The Shabak is pointing to the government. Netanyahu, of course-- Netanyahu shows up at the airport to greet the heroes. You know, that's always his move. He's there for the credit and never for the failures. And how many times do we need to keep saying this?

12:43 And so here again, a direct line connecting October 7th with a barely averted tragedy that could have been close to those dimensions. Y- you know, it's again very interesting that I share with you this profound frustration, and a lot of articles and coverage in Israel- Rage, rage. Daniel, it's more than frustration. It's rage- Okay, I know...

13:08 I have to tell you. [laughs] Your, your basic experience is rage. I understand that. Your rage is my frustration. It's become-- My-- I'll tell you, my rage default mode has become a little more selective over the years. But when it's activated, it's very strong. It's very strong. Now listen, I appreciate that. I-- No, I really appreciate that.

13:28 Like, you're one of the only people who could say, "I'm raging," and then smile and laugh, so it's a little disconcerting. But in any event, see, I don't know who's responsible for the plane. I don't know if somebody should be fired. I do know that I want an investigation. This notion that we don't investigate anything anymore, nothing is investigated, so we can't learn.

13:50 This goes back to-- It's why everything could happen again. And one of the interesting things that I don't know if you noticed as they were coming off the plane, the passengers, this wasn't Entebbe. There was no celebration in the air- at the airport. Right, right. They speak about that the passengers were singing the Hasidic song, "The Whole World is But a Narrow Bridge." That's not a celebratory song.

14:14 It's a very soulful-- The tune is soulful. The words are soulful. There's a sadness to the song. We weren't celebrating. In other words, if we felt that people were responsible, that somebody is- Right... navigating. Navigating doesn't mean that you always have to resign every time you make a mistake. That's not what I'm asking from you.

14:36 But I'm asking for you to understand that with power comes at least a responsibility to ask, "What do we need to do?" And I don't know who's re- It's-- Yeah, it's interesting to compare this to Entebbe because Entebbe was an expression, the ultimate expression of national responsibility. The leadership took an enormous risk.

14:59 The army planned this to the last detail. The soldiers were ready to die to rescue the passengers. Entebbe was a story not just of success, but of responsibility. This was a story of four people who took responsibility on the plane, and thank God for them, and the rest of the system failed completely. And so you're right.

15:29 You know, Yossi, maybe this is the reason why even though it is so clear that we were victorious on October 8th, it didn't become a moment of celebration. Absolutely. And it wasn't just the catastrophe. It's because October 7th is the present. It's there. It's a living possibility that could emerge over and again, and we have to figure out how we live with it, how we live with it.

15:54 Look, the generation of the Yom Kippur War, uh, which is loosely our generation, never recovered. Fifty-plus years later, up until the next iteration of the Yom Kippur surprise, which was October 7th, the generation of Yom Kippur remained on October 6, 1973. That experience profoundly shaped Israeli consciousness politically. Uh, the settlement movement was born as an organized force, not after the Six-Day War, after the Yom Kippur War.

16:34 In other words, not after the ecstasy, but after the shattering, which is very interesting to think about what the settlement movement really represents. For all the Messianic pronouncements, the settlement movement really, in its essence, is an attempt to respond to catastrophe. And the Peace Now movement emerged in the post-Yom Kippur era.

16:58 And there too, Peace Now was an attempt-- Well, it, it was founded immediately after Sadat's-- President Anwar Sadat's visit to Israel. But it was very much an expression of we're not going to let the failure of the Yom Kippur War happen again. We have a chance for peace. This time, we're going to take it. And so politically, socially, religiously, the Labor Party fell. The Likud rose to power. The seemingly permanent reign of the Israeli right can really be dated to the Yom Kippur War.

17:34 And so I think, and it's becoming more and more clear, that October 7th is going to play a similar central role in the psyche of this generation of Israelis. That's very sobering. It's worrying. But there were also positive, uh, results of the shattering of Yom Kippur. There was a new sense of responsibility in the army, for example.

18:02 The post-Yom Kippur IDF was completely different in tone, in, in its humility from Pre '73. The fact that we had a, finally a change in government after an uninterrupted reign by the Labor Party. We were desperate for change. The empowerment of the Mizrahim. All of this were consequences of the Yom Kippur War.

18:29 So I'm wondering, you know, we can certainly see the negatives, and I, I can think offhand of two very problematic consequences of October 7th. The first is a deep, deep pessimism that has set into the Israeli persona. You know, we're a country that prided itself on always scoring high on the, uh, the happiness index of the UN that, which no other country in the world pays attention to, but we paid a lot of attention to that.

19:04 I don't see us scoring on the happiness index anytime soon. And the other consequence is something we've, we've talked about here often, is this deep sense of, uh, pessimism, I would say despair, with the possibility of peace, certainly with the Palestinians and, uh, really peace in the region as well I think has taken a, a major setback.

19:31 And, you know, I mentioned earlier looking at the clips, uh, just before we went on air, I was looking over social media and there was this clip of October 7th parading a dead Israeli young woman through the streets of Gaza, and a mass of people beating the body. And that's an image-- We talk about traumas that have shaped the Israeli psyche. Think about the seminal image that emerged from the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, and that was the lynch mob in a Palestinian police station where two Israeli reservists had been taken, and a mob broke through and literally tore them to pieces.

20:22 And the famous, the famous picture for everyone of our generation of the Second Intifada was the young Palestinian man holding up his hands, his blood-stained hands. He had dipped his hands in the blood of one of the reservists and was holding up his hands in triumph. And we now have more than one image like that to shape the consciousness of this generation.

20:50 You're making me think, Yossi [chuckles], which is a good thing. I'm wondering whether it's pessimism or it's fatalism. What, what's the difference? I think 'cause Israelis will still score high on the happiness index, and they still have. It's not that we're pessimistic. It's just we accept that things can't change, or at least we believe that they can't change, and you embrace that. And that goes-- The comparison that you had to Yom Kippur was really interesting.

21:22 The disaster of Yom Kippur did not create fatalism. It created and inspired a desire to change our country, either to bring about redemption, create security in ways that we didn't have in the past, or to ensure that the- It's a great insight. It's a great insight, and I think it's partly because we were still close enough to the Six Day War... Interesting. But maybe here, and that this is an interesting thing. That could be an explanation.

21:51 But the, even the peace now, the idea was-- You, you remember the songs, "This is gonna be the last war"? Because we came so close to losing, we said, "This is it." [foreign language] "I promise you, my little daughter, that this will be the last war." Yoram Gaon sings it, and it becomes the anthem of the Yom Kippur War.

22:15 And from the depth of despair, the Jewish response was, "Next year in Jerusalem." You know, the temple is destroyed. We say, "Next year in Jerusalem." That's a Jewish move. The Jewish move is so built around the name of our anthem, hope. We go on. We build. Here, there's no rebuilding. That's part of my frustration.

22:36 I'm waiting for people to say, "Okay, so if October 7 could continue to happen over and over again, do you have a plan? What do you wanna do?" Besides declaring that we're gonna be in perpetual war, besides declaring and watching the videos again which are telling you that all the Gazans hate us, and therefore, there's nothing, not only that you can do, there's nothing that you have to do, and all of the above.

23:00 I'm waiting for that moment, but it's interesting. Is it a different generation? You know, our generation is startup nation generation w- who wants to go back to normal life, and that's why fatalism is so different because fatalism is saying, "Maybe I wanna go back to my normal life, but I just have to take care of certain things."

23:22 And the Yom Kippur War, it was about maybe it was in the aftermath of '67 where radical change is possible. But this might also be a part of, and I wonder whether you wanna comment on this. Maybe that's the reason why Netanyahu still, he still has a chance. So what do you make of that? What do you make of the fact that here we are not just approaching October 7th, but we've just been through a second turn of the spiral with the experience of government irresponsibility in, in the play.

23:56 How is it possible that this guy is still in the running? Who are we? Maybe we're fatalists, and therefore, it doesn't matter. They think that if Eisenkot would be here, it's the same, and here's a guy who's been through it at the end of the day, and it's gonna happen anyway. It's like this is our destiny, and ultimately, you don't blame the government. It's reality You try to change your reality when you think someone was responsible for it.

24:22 But if you think, "Okay, there's the plane, but after the plane there's gonna be a tunnel, and after the tunnel there's gonna be a boat or a ship from Aqaba. There's gonna be stuff, or it'll be a missile from here or there." It's just October 7th, if it creates fatalism, then there is no impetus to change, and that's Netanyahu's greatest strength.

24:42 If it's gonna be there, you might as well let me be the pilot because at the end of the day, I get you out of this stuff. This show exists because we think that disagreement done honestly is how you actually learn something. Arc+ members make that possible. When you join, you're funding independent coverage of Israel and Jewish life across the whole Arc Media network.

25:07 You also get ad-free listening in this show and member-exclusive content on Call Me Back, Arc News Daily, and Chosen People Problems. If For Heaven's Sake has been a resource for you to understand Israel and the Jewish world, consider becoming a member. Join Arc+ at arcmedia.org. And it's so interesting, Daniel, because if we go back to our analogy to post, uh, 1973, the first protest movement that emerged immediately after the war was to bring down the government.

25:45 They were demanding- That's right... national accountability. Now, the government actually set up a commission of inquiry a few weeks after the war to investigate itself, an independent commission of inquiry headed by the Supreme Court president. Then a protest movement of reservists actually succeeds in bringing the government down. Golda Meir resigns. Four years later, we haven't succeeded in bringing this guy down, and he's still running in the election.

26:18 You know, if you think about what the Six-Day War did for the Israeli spirit, you know, the dark side of it was arrogance, and we spoke about that, I think, last week. But the positive side was we can do anything. One of the songs that came out after the Six-Day War, Machar, Tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll build 1,000 housing projects, and if not tomorrow, the next day.

26:42 Now, first of all, it's just very funny th- to think about how modest our grand expectations were. Tomorrow we're going to build 1,000 housing projects. You know? This was Israel of 1967. And yet what 1967 proved to Israelis is that our fate is really in our hands. Right. That's what we've lost. Right. That's what we've lost. It's ve- that's an unbelievable impact of October 7th.

27:08 Now, if we look at the polls, you know, and we analyze them, Netanyahu is not, doesn't have that much to celebrate. Yes. He's lost 30%. He goes down from 32 to latest polls are 20. If it's a good day, he gets 21. That's... He's lost 30%. The only reason why he's still in the running is because the far ultranationalist or Messianic right, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, together with the ultra-Orthodox, are linking themselves to him because they have no one else to link to.

27:37 They have nowhere else to go. You know [laughs] this is, it's the only ticket in town. But part of it is, and I think this is a deep impact of what you were saying, Yossi, and it explains something. Eisenkot, Bennett, Lieberman, with the exception of Golan, aren't presenting a new tomorrow in a radical sense. They're basically saying, "I'm gonna manage this fatalism better."

28:02 Their biggest claim is we're gonna draft the ultra-Orthodox. That's their high moral card. And we're gonna have a government which is responsible. But they're not presenting a vision of change of tomorrow along the Yom Kippur line, and that's part of their weakness. Why go to them? And their polls are saying, "Don't present a radical vision of tomorrow because that's not where Israelis are 'cause they don't believe that radical vision of tomorrow will happen.

28:27 So I will be a more honest, more responsible pilot of the status quo. Plus, I'll draft the ultra-Orthodox so that the price will be shared by everybody." But so what the elections are about are being shaped by October 7th in such a dramatic way, not simply- Right, right... because we want Netanyahu to be held responsible. That's fine.

28:49 It's just sort of within what you called pessimism and what I called fatalism, and I imagine it's, it must be very interesting to be an opposition leader who's trying to shape a new vision for a country which is fundamentally fatalist. What you're really saying, Daniel, is that this fatalism plays into the hands of Netanyahu. Unbelievable.

29:10 The fact that the opposition hasn't succeeded in presenting a drastic new vision coming out of the ruins of October 7th leads many people to think, "Well, you know, this is the guy we know. He's-- We can plod on with him, and we did have all this military success after October 7th." And really, again, to contrast that with the two post-Yom Kippur movements that emerged, Gush Emunim, the settlement movement, and Peace Now, both of those movements, each in its way, was trying to recapture the spirit of 1967.

29:49 That's right. And they had opposite conclusions. The conclusion of the peace camp was 1967 proves we can do anything. We can even make peace. Right. And the settlement movement said 1967 gave us this gift of defensible borders, and we're going to make sure that those borders remain a permanent part of Israel.

30:09 Now, those were two very compelling visions, and there's nothing comparable in this election, and Netanyahu is the prime minister Of a dreamless Israel. In fact, that's his calling card. He's built his political identity on being a dreamless leader. "I'm the guy who's going to deal with the hard reality of this place, and I'm telling you, it's never going to be good.

30:36 You just might as well stick with me." And therefore, it's not my fault either, 'cause it's never gonna be good. That's right. All criticism is anti-Se- every-- It's never gonna be good. So if it's never gonna be good, who do you want to be as prime minister now? He's lost a lot, but he shaped the conversation.

30:51 There's one other way I wanted to add, and I wonder what you-- how you-- your thoughts about this. How October 7th shapes not just the conversation in Israel, but how it's shaping the Israel conversation. October 7 means, I believe, different things for Israelis and Zionists, for our enemies, and for our friends who have turned critics. Each one of these three groups, October 7 means something else.

31:21 For most Israelis, as we've spent most of this podcast, and I, and I believe a lot of Zionists around the world, but not to the same degree, October 7, as I said at the beginning, is not the past, it's the present. It still defines the lens through which we understand our reality, and we wanna know, how do I live? It's not yesterday's conversation. It's not.

31:44 And maybe in a certain way outside of Israel, the criticism of Israel on October 7 is still defining what we call the campuses or the demonstrations, is still defining the way the world looks at us. So that's for Israelis and for those whose identification is very deep. It's not the past, it's the present. For our enemies, October 7 is a day that didn't happen, or it's a day of no significance.

32:12 October 7 is just part of a ongoing struggle of the colonized- Right... to free themselves from the colonizers. And I don't know if you've seen this, these demonstrations or this slogan, "Don't let the Jews take control of our... Don't let them," I let out, "Don't let them control October 7th," because there is no October 7th.

32:33 So okay, so some people died. It wasn't the worst thing in the world, and it happened, and maybe, uh, wasn't the greatest noble thing. But actually, you know, for them, October 7th is erased, and part of their agenda is to make sure that October 7th is not a date. For us, it's the present. For them, it, it's nonexistent.

32:53 But for Israel's friends who've turned critics, and they're not the same as our enemies, even though Netanyahu or fatalist stories wanna say it's all antisemitic. For our friends turned critics, October 7th has become part of the past. It's something that happened. It's a tragedy, but it's time for Israel to get over it and to stop using October 7th as a lens through which we determine our politics, our defense policies, and our military actions.

33:29 Like, October 7th is like it's a vehicle we're using to whitewash anything that we do anymore. It's something, you know, where you have a dye, you put this pill inside, and it changes the color. We wanna change reality through October 7th, and our critics, who used to be our friends, are saying, "Israel, it's part of your past." So October 7th, for Israelis, is the present.

33:52 For our friends turned critics, it's the past. And for others, their agenda is to make sure that it doesn't exist. And still therefore, October 7th, for all of us in different ways, is shaping the conversation. Okay, I'm done, Yossi. No, it's a really good insight, and I-- and the, the deep dissonance between the Israeli public and the rest of the world is actually over the calendar.

34:16 We're living in two different time zones, two different eras, really. And I think the reason for that is that the outside world doesn't understand what October 7th did to Israelis and doesn't understand what it means for Israelis. It's not just the atrocities. Yes, the atrocities have imprinted on the, the collective psyche, especially of younger Israelis, uh, how to relate to the Middle East, how to relate to the possibility of peace with the Palestinians. All true.

34:55 But October 7th goes deeper than that. What we experienced on October 7th was a glimpse into the destruction of Israel. We experienced, in the most visceral way, our vulnerability, what it would look like to have our borders overrun, the army to disappear. We've spoken about this repeatedly over the last few years, but I s- don't think the world understands.

35:27 It's not just or even primarily about the atrocities. Absolutely. It's about experiencing in the most visceral way possible what it would be like to lose this country, and that's why we can't get over October 7th. You're absolutely right. It's not the trauma of the death. I think you're absolutely right. And if I go back to something that I said before, and if it wasn't for the pilot, the plane would have crashed.

35:56 And if it wasn't for X- That's right... it could happen again. But I must tell you, if I'll confess one-- I live in two worlds. I'm an Israeli, but I also-- I'm an educator of world Jewry, and I travel a lot. And part of the Israeli in me knows-- admits that October 7th is the present. Part of me, though, I'm part of a community of people who believe that we're stuck And that we have to be careful not to use it to legitimize everything that we do. And so I go back and forth.

36:30 They're both part of me, and I have to wor- sometimes when I travel, when I come back to Israel- I appreciate that. I appreciate that... like when I get there. And I believe there's a lot of truth to both of them. It's true. We're stuck in October 7th, and as a result, we're not taking responsibility for that which we have to be responsible for.

36:48 And if I could allow myself a little bit of self-promotion, we'll put in the show notes my latest article in The Times of Israel. Which, Daniel, it is a superb article. Thank you very much. Thank you. [laughs] And I urge, I urge everyone to read it. I was waiting the whole podcast for you to reference it, et cetera. But okay, I have to do it myself. [laughs] Okay, listen. But, but I accept the compliment as dayenu.

37:10 It's enough. But, but like- Daniel, you know what? I know you as such a, a modest person- [laughs]... such a humble person, that I didn't want to embarrass you with, with the praise. Thank you. I appreciate it. But now that you brought it up, I figured, all right. My love for you knows no, no limits. But, like, I think we're stuck. It's the present. It's being used. We're not taking responsibility.

37:31 But this issue of fatalism, your connection between October 7th and the plane, there's a story here. And it really, as you said, it's not the death. It's not a mourning. If it's a mourning, it's a mourning of the loss of the hope of '67, but maybe that hope was already buried during the Second Intifada, but maybe it could have been resurrected.

37:53 But how Israelis come back, I would say it this way: October 7th is our present, and we have to learn how to live in that present with hope. Yossi, it's a pleasure as always being with you. Wonderful. Wonderful to be with you, Daniel. Thank you. Imagine a gap year that's not a detour, but a launch pad.

38:16 At the Shalom Hartman Institute's Havruta Gap Year Program, students spend a year after high school in the heart of Jerusalem, immersed in serious Beit Midrash learning with Hartman's world-class faculty, including leaders such as Daniel Hartman, Tal Becker, and Ilana Steinhorn. Blending community, leadership, and rigorous learning, Havruta pushes students from North America and Israel to grapple with the most significant questions facing the Jewish people in a Jewish and democratic Israel.

38:42 If you're looking for a gap year where you're challenged, grounded, and ready for campus and beyond, learn more and apply at shalomhartman.org/gapyear. Here are some other things that are happening at the Shalom Hartman Institute. Next week, you can learn more with Yossi Klein Halevi in a special webinar exploring Jewish storytelling at a time of extremism.

39:03 On Wednesday, October 14th, at noon Eastern Time, Yossi and journalist Yardena Schwartz will share how their own reporting, research, and personal experiences have informed their understanding of Jewish extremism in Israel today. Learn more and register at the link in the show notes. [gentle music] For Heaven's Sake is a product of the Shalom Hartman Institute and Arc Media.

39:27 It is produced by me, Daniel Goodman, with help from Miriam Jacobs, Adar Taylor Schechter, and Aviva Katneler, and studio support from Go Live Media. Our music was composed by Yuval Samona. Past episodes can be found at arcmedia.org, where you can explore more of Arc Media's podcasts. You can watch the video versions of our episodes on our YouTube channel. Follow the YouTube link in the show notes.

39:52 Also, to receive updates on new episodes, please follow the link to arcmedia.org and subscribe to Arc Media's weekly newsletter. For more ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute, visit our website at shalomhartman.org.