The day our world was shattered, October 7, was not simply another event, but the breaking of our most intimate inner pillars: security, home, humanity. As in the dawn of creation, everything returned to chaos.

וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ — “And the earth was chaos and confusion.” (Genesis 1:2)

And precisely from that chaos, from that dark night, a new and profound conversation began to take shape: about belonging, boundaries, and the light that emerges even from brokenness.

Two years have passed. Neither time nor the changing of seasons has brought healing, nor has forgetfulness. Yet, in many places, seeds have sprouted: the pain has not disappeared. We carry it with us, like a scar that cannot be erased, like a wound we have learned to dress each morning. Sometimes it burns; sometimes it hides. But it is always there. And yet, in the midst of that weight that accompanies every step, other seeds have also grown, of embrace, of strength, of listening. Each person has carried a different pain, but also a different response toward life, toward hope, toward the struggle for dignity in a wounded world.

ה׳ קָרוֹב לְנִשְׁבְּרֵי לֵב, וְאֶת־דַּכְּאֵי רוּחַ יוֹשִׁיעַ — “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalms 34:19)

Precisely when it seems that God is absent, that is when He is closest. Not in lofty words, nor in theological explanations, but in closeness itself: in the embrace, in presence, in staying with the one who is broken.

The Ramban, in his commentary on the Passover Haggadah, teaches that God reveals Himself precisely in moments of suffering, that exile and redemption dwell within one another. And the Midrash Shemot Rabbah (6) adds, in poetic imagery: נתן לי נקודה אחת — ואני אקים עולם""  - “Give me but a single drop — and I will create a world.” In other words: one point of pain is enough to generate hope.

So it is also with October 7. We do not only remember, we build. A memory that does not look toward tomorrow remains only as lament. But pain that gives birth to repair — that is already prayer.

Those who were murdered have names. They have faces, dreams, laughter, plans for the next day. Remembrance is not merely a list, it is the human preservation of what once was.

כִּי־בְאַפְּךָ נִסְתַּרְנוּ, בִּרְגֶזְךָ חָלַפְנו — “For in Your anger You hid us; in Your wrath You changed us.” (Psalms 90:7)

But we do not accept that change should be the final word. We insist on remembering on speaking names, on prayer, on commemorative plaques, on Torah study as elevation of their souls so that they remain with us, not only as an absent presence but as inspiration.

A community is not merely a group of members or neighbors. It is a space where one can fall and someone will lift them up. It is the place that, as the Mishnah teaches:

הֱוֵי מְקַבֵּל אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם בְּסֵבֶר פָּנִים יָפוֹת — “Receive every person with a cheerful countenance.” (Avot 1:15)

After October 7, we saw communities that were shattered by loneliness, by anxiety, by silence. But we also saw others rebuilt in circles of song, in honest conversations about trauma, in joint prayer, in action calling for the release of the hostages and the end of the war.

And the heart has not forgotten those who have still not returned. The kidnapped, our loved ones beyond the border, with no answer to this day. For them we raise a serene yet steadfast prayer:

רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם, אֵל נָא רְפָא נָא לָהֶם — “Master of the Universe, God of mercy, please heal their bodies, strengthen their spirits, and bring them back to us alive, with light and tenderness.”

And for their families, comfort that does not forget, hope that dares to pray even when there is no certainty. For as long as they have not returned our hearts are not whole.

We are not speaking here of naïve peace, but of wholeness of the soul, of the struggle for justice, of recognizing the pain of the other even when they are not “one of ours.”

ְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ — “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18)

To pray is not to escape. It is to commit. Whoever prays for peace must act for peace through education, through dialogue, through human initiatives that understand there is no future in inaction.

In these two years, we have learned that there is no path back. But there is a path forward, a path of living memory, of community that breathes, of human faith that still deserves to exist.

The earth still trembles in silence,

but the heart does not fade.

From the shadows, a step is born —

toward life, toward light.

May it be Your will that we learn to love life without forgetting the dead. That we endure the fracture without sinking into it. That we embrace those who still suffer in body, in soul, in memory. And that we always insist on believing in the human being even when believing in humanity is hard.

With love, with remembrance, with hope.

Rabbi Mauricio Balter