Remembering October 7 - Praying to End Depravity

Three years ago today, ordinary people woke up to an ordinary Shabbat morning. Families were at their tables. Young people were dancing at a music festival under an open sky. Before the day was over, about 1,200 people had been murdered and roughly 250 more dragged across the border as hostages.

Today I mourn the families who were slaughtered on October 7, and I find myself asking a question I can't put down: what could lead a human being to do this?

What was done

A UN investigation found reasonable grounds to believe that women were raped, and that some hostages were sexually abused in captivity. Entire families were burned in their homes or shot in their safe rooms. Children were killed in front of their parents. At the Nova festival, young people ran through fields while being hunted. A baby named Kfir, only nine months old, was taken from his home with his mother and his brother Ariel, and the three of them never came back alive.

(Image conceptually designed to represent the grief of stolen childhoods and families. This image is AI-generated for illustrative purposes.)

None of this happened in the heat of battle. People went door to door looking for civilians. Many of the killers filmed themselves as they did it and posted the videos online, proud of what they had done. That is not the behaviour of soldiers. It is depravity, and they wanted the world to watch.

The question of depravity

I remember where I was on September 11, 2001, when nearly three thousand innocent people died on an ordinary morning and the world stopped. We asked then how someone could look at a stranger who had done them no harm and see only something to destroy. We have to ask that same question now.

Politics alone doesn't answer it. History and grievance can explain a lot, but they can't explain why someone would choose to burn a home with a baby inside.

Not against flesh and blood

Shaul wrote in Ephesians 6:12

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the worldly forces of this darkness, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

— Ephesians 6:12 TLV

When hatred is taught, rewarded and celebrated, and a people is taught to see another as less than human, something is at work beyond any one person. I don't say that to excuse anyone. Each person answers for what they chose to do. I say it so we can name this evil honestly and not explain it away.

Praying even for persecutors

Yeshua told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44). This is the hardest sentence in the Scriptures for me to live out this week. Praying for them isn't excusing them or asking for no justice. It is asking that the lie behind the hatred be broken and that their hearts be turned. It is also refusing to let hatred have the last word in me.

Looking away

What grieves me almost as much as the day itself is how quickly some looked away from it. Within hours, some who should have mourned began to excuse, minimize or celebrate. Around the world, antisemitism has surged, and Jewish people far from any battlefield have been harassed, attacked and made to feel unsafe. Criticizing a government is one thing. Hating a people is another, and a nation fighting to bring its own people home should never become a reason to persecute Jews everywhere.

If you've been scrolling past it, I'm asking you to stop and look at their faces and read their names. They were someone's child, someone's friend.

Comfort, comfort

Isaiah 40:1 begins with a command: “Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God.” That is what I want to leave you with.

As you go through your day and look at your family and friends, stop for a moment. Think about the many lives that were shattered that day. Then pray, and ask Our Father to show you how you might bring even a little comfort to the families who are still grieving.

If it's within your ability to help financially, please consider giving to Atufim B'Ahava, which supports children who lost one or both parents on October 7.

A prayer

Avinu, our Father, we bring You the families who were slaughtered and the children who now grow up without their parents. Comfort them, as You promised, and be near to everyone still grieving.

Adonai, take note of the threats being made against Your people today. Do what the believers asked in Acts 4:29: give us, Your servants, boldness to speak Your word. Keep us from looking away, and make us unafraid to speak the truth about what happened. Guard us from hatred in our own hearts, and teach us to pray even for those who persecute us.

Open the eyes of those who refuse to see, and bring Your light into every place that darkness has taught people to call holy.

In the name of Yeshua, Amen.

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(Scriptures from Tree of Life Version YouVersion Bible App)

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