(RNS) — Yesterday — October 7, 2023 — was the worst day in Jewish history since 1945.

Yesterday morning, on Shabbat, the terrorist group Hamas launched a three-pronged attack on Israel — by air, sea and land. They came on foot, and on motorcycles and by para-glider.

I will not mince words. I will not be civil. I will not be nice.

These are murderers. They did not go after military targets. Hardly. They have taken hostages — children; elderly people, including a Holocaust survivor who uses a wheelchair; and a few soldiers.

At this time, we do not know how many have been taken — but we are seeing their images on Facebook, with the plaintive pleas of “if anyone knows the whereabouts of ….”

• They were shot at a music festival.
• They were rounded up and shot in the streets; where have we seen this before? (It’s called the Einsatzgruppen).
• Hamas dragged hostages through the streets of Gaza. Hamas publicly mutilated corpses.
• Hamas pulled hostages from cars, screaming “Allah hu akhbar!”
• Hamas has called on their people to use all weapons. Including axes.
• They are screaming, in apocalyptic tones: “Today the most glorious and honorable history begins.”

Today (Sunday), I type these words with shaking hands. At least 600 Israelis have been killed — the equivalent, in American terms, of several 9/11s. Every Israeli knows someone who knows someone who was killed. More than 2,000 Israelis have been injured. 

Last evening, traditional Jews in the Diaspora marked the festival of Simchat Torah, which simultaneously ended and re-started the annual cycle of the reading of the Torah. It is typically a joyous, and even raucous, celebration, complete with dancing with the Torah scrolls.

Some communities cancelled their planned services. While I understand and empathize with the emotions that accompanied those decisions, I preferred what I experienced, from afar: watching services at B’nai Jeshurun in New York City, with music and mood appropriately subdued.

Because we are all in mourning.

This moment calls for a history lesson and a mini-course in historical parallels.

Let’s talk about some years.

This is another 1973, many have said. True. It happened on the exact 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. This attack, happening when it did, is hardly a coincidence. It was planned.

In 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish year.

In 2023, Hamas attacked Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish week, and at the end of the festival of Sukkot, which simultaneously celebrates the harvest and the shakiness and vulnerability of our earthly dwellings.

But, already, in its sheer impact, this is worse than the Yom Kippur War.

This is because of 1967, some will say. It must be because of the occupation, and settlements, and the failure of the two-state solution, and because radical right wingers ascended the Temple Mount. That is what Palestinian activists and spokespersons, and their enablers and supporters, are saying. Speaking on CNN on Sunday morning, Palestinian spokesperson Omar Barghouti would not even admit that the hostages were civilians, claiming that they were military personnel.

Talk about victim-blaming. You have heard of “micro-aggressions?” These are not “micro.” These are macro.

This is a continuation of 1948, I say.  Here is why.

The Palestinians should have had a state in 1948. The 1947 UN partition plan called for the creation of that state. The Arabs rejected that plan and invaded the nascent state of Israel and condemned the Palestinians to exile and suffering.

Ever since then, there have been attempts to turn back the calendar and to get a do-over. To be clear, I care about the pain of Palestinians. As a Jew, I empathize with them, and I have consistently supported efforts at co-existence.

But, let’s be clear. Hamas doesn’t give a plate of warm hummus about Palestinian rights. They don’t really want a two-state solution. Neither are they in sympathy with Israeli activists and others who want a Jewish state that lives up more closely to the ideals in its founding document, Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

Alon Confino has written one of the most important books that I have ever read on the origins of the Holocaust: “A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination From Persecution to Genocide.” He makes it clear that this, and nothing less than this, was the Nazi goal — a world cleansed of Jews.

Hamas invaded Israel to capture and kill Jews. Hamas, their allies, their sympathizers, their interpreters and their apologists. Hamas invaded Israel because they are committed to the destruction of the “Zionist entity.”

They want a world cleansed of a Jewish state.

This is pure, unadulterated evil. The world knows it, and the world recognizes it; witness the blue and white flag of Israel adorning the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, and in other places.

Let us be clear about what is about to happen. Please be prepared.

As Israel launches its counter attacks in Gaza, going after Hamas, prepare yourselves to hear the ubiquitous term “disproportionate.”

As if it was “proportionate” for Hamas to attack Israel because pious Jews went up to the Temple Mount (“They desecrate our sacred space, so we desecrate their sacred days, and we desecrate, massively and willfully and gleefully, the very image of God”).

As if it was “proportionate” to kidnap children. As if it was “proportionate” to use apocalyptic rhetoric. 

But, having said that, let me hasten to add this.

It is about that word “proportionate.”

Judaism believes in proportionate response in warfare. The concept is called tohar ha-neshek, the purity of arms. It is an essential part of the principles of the Israel Defense Forces. Israeli soldiers carry that code of conduct in the pockets of their uniforms.

In the words of the Israeli philosopher Moshe Halbertal, before they engage in any action, soldiers should ask themselves questions: “Are my actions necessary?” “Am I targeting only those who are combatants?” “Am I doing everything possible to avoid harming civilians?”

And, yes: “Are my actions proportionate to the danger that I (and others) am facing?”

But, what do you do when you are not fighting a “normal” war between states? What is now happening between Israel and Hamas is asymmetric warfare. Halbertal has argued that in fighting asymmetric wars (typically, wars between a professional military and resistance movements) professional combatants should err on the side of protecting noncombatants from casualties, even when they thereby increase risks to themselves or to their cause.

However, we have seen this movie. Hamas will hide themselves, mixed in with innocents, in mosques, hospitals and schools. They will hold their own people as human shields and hostages.

Yes, to quote the medieval poet and philosopher Yehuda Halevi ,”my heart is in the East, and I am in the West.” My heart is in the East, but I am totally in the West — in the safe and sanitized distance of south Florida. Therefore, I choose not to micro-manage and micro-imagine what the IDF will need to do in Gaza to wipe out Hamas.

I think of the words of the Israeli poet, Amir Gilboa, in “In The Darkness:”

If they show me a stone and I say a stone they will say a stone.

If they show me a tree and I say a tree they will say a tree.

But if they show me blood and I say blood they will say paint.

None of what we have seen, and none of what we will see, is “paint.” It is blood.

So, too, the analysis of Israeli intelligence. I will let the pundits and the analysts engage in this. Not me.

So, too: My concerns about judicial reform and Israel democratic values? Last night — Saturday night — the usual thousands of demonstrators could not go out into the streets to protest.

Not now. I am putting my distrust of Prime Minister Netanyahu on hold. Yesterday (Saturday), Merav Michaeli, the leader of Israel’s Labor Party, appeared on CNN. “We are not reacting to the Prime Minister. We are reacting to the reality . … I’ve always opposed Netanyahu and his policies. But this is not the time. Today we back our military and our people.”

Exactly right.

Not now.

Now, and today, and for the conceivable future, I am bleeding with my people. 

On Simchat Torah, we concluded the Torah with the word “Israel.” The last letter of the Torah is lamed. A breath later, we started the Torah, again, with the word “Bereshit” (In the beginning), which starts with the letter bet. Lamed plus bet creates the word “lev,” heart.

The collective heart of the Jewish people is broken.

Finally, to my non-Jewish readers.

For your Jewish friends, neighbors, colleagues and relatives, these days are beyond hard. This is weighing us down. We are more than sad. We are angry. We are scared, for our own friends and loved ones in Israel, and for Israel itself. And we are depressed.

What can you do?