* Translation by Yehoshua Siskin
Three years have passed. Here is a special symbolic story.
On Yom Kippur, we were at Kibbutz Gevim, adjacent to Sderot. Shlomi Davidovitch, a beloved member of the kibbutz, was murdered on October 7. In his memory, a synagogue opened on the kibbutz for the first time and it was named after him.
After the Musaf prayer on Yom Kippur, Gil Schwartzman, a member of the kibbutz, excitedly told us about one of the bullets fired by the terrorists at the kibbutz gate in their failed attempt to break through. The bullet struck the gate and exited through the other side, creating a remarkable shape, that of a Magen David (Star of David). The kibbutz decided not to close this opening, but to place a sign beside it.
At the end of Yom Kippur, upon leaving the kibbutz, we stopped the car and got out for an inspection of the gate. It was just a few minutes after the end of a moving Ne'ilah service, during which everyone had proclaimed “Shema Yisrael,” and sung “Next year in rebuilt Jerusalem.” I could still hear their voices in my mind when I saw on the kibbutz gate the symbol that seemed to tell the entire story: The enemy wanted to hurt us, to destroy us, but instead — he created a Magen David. He strengthened our identity. Through the wound he inflicted, he reminded us of who we are and that our story continues.
May we merit, out of this great pain, to strengthen our connection to God and unite as never before.
