The release of the Israeli hostages, to supposedly end the Gaza war, is pegged to be on the same day that began events, the last day of Sukkot – in the Hebrew calendar. But there is more.
It's been two years since the shock and horror of the atrocities of October 7 that killed over twelve hundred, with more than thousand soldiers and first responders killed in the fighting since.
We might have strong confidence that even if things are not fully understood, that the Creator and Author of the Bible though silent for nearly 2,000 years has given us patterns of faith – that reach from the past to today. There will be reasons why someone older might survive, by miracle, extraordinary horror and yet a child die. Why were some protected by miracle and others not? We cannot see as Yahweh Elohim sees.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down.. So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please (Isaiah 55:9-11)
Rain on Green Grass - to Shepherds
On the last day of Sukkot, the day of October 7 of that festival, Jews pray for rain – most relevant in Israel. Think on this 'word as rain' on the grass for a moment. Why did some notable people such as Thunberg and Wong shift from being 'Green' to 'fight' God's weather to fight for Hamas Islamic Green? Hamas (meaning confusion/violence in Hebrew) attacks on the day the Jews pray for rain. Islam's colour is green, as it was written of them,
There came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. (Revelation 9:3-4)
So we know these locusts arbeh in Hebrew is the Arabs. Locusts normally eat all the green. Arab lands lack green due to overgrazing. If Locusts = Arbeh come and take the green, those affected are not protected by God. We do know that Israel was not to give land given to them by God with their own blood. And peace, like rain, only comes from God.
We know the end of the 'F'ilistinian:
Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea coast, the nation of the Cherethites! the word of the LORD is against you; O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. And the sea coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks. And the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah; they shall feed thereupon: in the houses of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the evening: for the LORD their God shall visit them, and turn away their captivity. (Zephaniah 2:5-7)
Those Arabs, Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians (Edomites), Egyptians, Africans and flotsam and jetsam of the Ottoman Empire are seen in a stream to go back to Gaza. Gaza was once a city of Jewish mysticism. It was lost, it was taken, it was won and given away again for 'peace', but the end is that Gaza's sea coast is for Judah, Jews.
Not without cause
And they shall comfort you, when ye see their ways and their doings: and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 14:23)
There has been a change. Israeli's, Jews and others most affected by the events on October 7 seemed to be those most wanting peace by giving Gaza and more. Jews overnight changed their opinion - 79% of Israeli Jews reported being “not so troubled” or “not troubled at all” by reports of famine and humanitarian suffering in Gaza. reformjudaism.org
And now Israel knows the two state solution is dead.
I am a Strong Proponent for a Two-State Solution. But External Forces Have Compelled Me to Abandon the Idea. ..the atrocities of 7/10 revealed just a sliver of what Hamas wants to perpetrate to Jews, leaving deep scars that cannot be forgotten nor forgiven. Furthermore, creating peace with them seems unthinkable, as their goals are genocidal. In addition, security concerns must be raised in withdrawing from the West Bank. The events following the departure from Gush Katif highlighted the risks involved.
The nations may seek to put pressure on Israel to make a two state solution, but Jews have no confidence in it at all, any more. Not even the secular, who are now diminishing in number, as the hardships and miracles of the war helps many find faith. The religious political parties are more likely to grow.
"G‑d, I speak to you now," the father of Sergeant Yisrael Natan Rosenfeld, said at his funeral. "People who know me know my doubts.. gas chambers We lost six million.. It is hard.. to say ?Yes, there is a G‑d and I believe and I'm convinced.' But I'm standing here at the moment where I have to make a decision, and my decision is: G‑d, you?re above us, it all has a purpose, a much bigger purpose than we know about."Israpundit
Most would go to synagogue on the 2nd anniversary of 7 October and they take out the Torah scrolls and read – in their own language, in Israel- of women ravished!
Sukkot - Zechariah 14 'ravished women'
Islam has just affirmed the truth of the Hebrew Bible. On that day October 7, 2025 on the 2nd anniversary every observant Jew over the world was reading Zechariah 14, of the women ravished.
2025 -Tuesday, October 7—Tishrei 15 1st day of Sukkot
I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to wage war; and the city shall be captured, and the houses shall be plundered, and the women shall be ravished, and half the city shall go forth into exile-and the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. chabad
All nations were gathered, Hamas knew they had the backing of all, and sought the backing of all as they called the October 7 genocidal invasion to Jerusalem..'Al-Aqsa Flood’
Hamas named the operation ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ after the victory mosque formerly planted by Muslim invaders on the site of the Jewish Temple. That’s why Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh began his Oct 7 invasion speech with complaints about Jewish presence prayers at the Temple site near the Al-Aqsa mosque. That’s why the Hamas emblem features the Al-Aqsa mosque between two crossed swords. Israeli soldiers who served in Gaza reported seeing those same images in homes around Gaza after the Islamic Jihadist group had spent a generation riling up the Muslim population to launch a holy war to conquer Jerusalem. israpundit
Sukkot is one of the feasts where Jews are to go to Jerusalem, to the Temple, which is missing. Jews prayed for rain, Islam sought to send out a destroying flood. Now we understand why the world is so upset, that the goal of removing Jews from Jerusalem retreated so fast?! So fast, that the nations are are struggling to keep even some area of Gaza, for their 'two state' (when they despised Gaza as their 2nd state before!). Many are even more determined that the manufactured people as perpetual refugees do not leave the Gaza strip to find homes among the nations, even though all refugees, otherwise, are welcome?!
But consider as Jews worldwide read of the feast of the tabernacles as written in Zechariah, they know what evil will come first. It has come. It has been. You can't make it up. The enemy that hates the truth of the Bible, showed its truth – on the day. Other invaders in Europe, leave the women and girls alone, not the Islamic invaders of October 7. But, may there be great comfort in that the end is defeat of every enemy –
And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles Sukkot. (Zecharaiah 14:16)
All those left of those hateful nations, those nations who saw such Jew hatred- no, not anti-Semitism, but Jew hatred. Nobody ever is going to forget the rapes of October 7 – with shame, those of the nations who observed, shall forever be forced to rejoice – as Jews. On pain of not receiving rain!
The word goes forth, even the absolute evil of those with a violent hatred of the God of Bible are constrained to prove the Jewish Bible true.-
But there is more, on the 5th day of Sukkot Jews read Ezekiel 38.
21 I will call the sword against him upon all My mountains, says the Lord God: every man's sword shall be against his brother. (as Arabs from Ishmael cp. Gen 16:12) 22 And I will judge against him with pestilence and with blood, and rain bringing floods, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone will I rain down upon him and upon his hordes and upon the many peoples that are with him.
It was written long before, you Isalm wish to bring floods against my Holy Place to remove all Jews? Jews witness in their liturgy of a thousand years, their God brings floods of fire and brimstone. It's so clear a defeat that the Arab world, is telling Hamas to give up. Can't make it up!
And the end, the last day? That is given to the triumph of the Jewish God. We can rejoice, now, even in the age of death and sorrow, only because we know that end of Sukkot.
Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. (John 4:22)
Asking how to be joyful in that sorrow?
No other nation on earth has a festival that asks them to rejoice, as a commandment, even if they feel sad.
On the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, Israelis grappled with how to mark the date, which overlapped with the first day of Sukkot, when Jewish tradition requires festivity.“
The whole country is mourning.” “I can’t separate from the fact that it happened on Shabbat and also such a joyous festival — Simhat Torah... took that from us forever.”
On March 18, 2024, the nation chose to put aside very natural human emotions, and put God's requirement to rejoice first, then afterwards to remember and mourn.
Israel establishes an annual commemoration of the Oct. 7 attack — but not on Oct. 7
the date of October 7 has instantly evoked images of horror in the minds of Israelis as the bloodiest day in the country’s history and the deadliest for Jews since the Holocaust.
But when Israel’s governing coalition convened on Sunday to set an annual memorial day to commemorate the tragedy, it didn’t choose October 7 or any date on the Gregorian calendar.
Instead, the 24th of Tishrei, which falls later this year on October 26 and next year on October 16.
The October 7 attack presented another complication because it occurred on a Jewish holiday, Shemini Atzeret-Simchat Torah, which falls on 22 Tishrei, and which meant the annual commemoration had to be held on a different date. The following day, 23 Tishrei..is still a Jewish holiday outside of Israel. The 24 Tishrei, is the day after that. Choosing October 7 as the annual commemoration would have come with problems — early October often falls in the middle of the Jewish holiday season. In 2025, for example, October 7 will be the first day of the festival of Sukkot, which is known in the Jewish liturgy as “the time of our happiness.”
Yet when people rightly remember, did nobody ever before put aside sorrow on Sukkot? Yes, surely. Was there no precedent? Yes, there was.
Consider 5786/2025, when it will fall on the first day of Sukkot, “the season of our joy,” or 5789/2028, when October 7th will coincide with Shabbat Chol haMo’ed? Can we possibly recall the Nova Massacre on the very day on which we chant, “enjoy yourself while you are young, let your heart lead you to enjoyment in the days of your youth” (Kohelet 11:9)?
An alternate approach would have us proceed on the basis of the Hebrew date, 22 Tishrei. This, too, is difficult, for it would mean that the final day of the chagim in Israel, and their penultimate day in the diaspora, would forever be marred by mourning over last year’s attacks. (To be sure, we have faced a similar problem with Yom Kippur since the 1973 war. Yet the serious and character of this day of days lends itself readily to the recollection and/or commemoration of the war that began on it.)
Tzom Gedaliah is particularly relevant, for the institution of, say, a Tzom haDarom on 24 Tishrei would create a striking parallel between a fast recalling internecine Jewish violence (Gedaliah was felled by a band of fellow Judeans) at the beginning of the holiday season and another in memory of the invasion of our sovereign state at its close. Since it was precisely the destruction of ancient Judea that formed the background for the internal divisions on display in Gedaliah’s demise and because many would say that recent internal divisions in Israel helped render Hamas’s horrors possible, the two commemorations could reinforce one another in stimulating and powerful ways. (As it happens, Tzom Gedaliah and October 7th will do so this year, since the fast will be pushed back a day because of Shabbat to 4 Tishrei, i.e. Sunday, October 6!) timesofisrael
The point of the command to rejoice, is that in this age of dying unto death, we won't naturally do so. On any given day, there maybe sorrow, yea, even great sorrow. For a week in a year to put aside all sorrow and rejoice?! That is, even in Solomon's wise-hearted house of Mourning (Eccl 7), we rejoice.
In fact, always, there was sense of being in a house of mourning.
In the Wilderness
This year, Jews think more soberly, on serious matters, triviality stripped. One writes
This year, I cannot look forward to Simchat Torah. It is the yahrzeit of over 1,200 men, women, and children massacred…
On Simchat Torah, we finish reading the Five Books of Moses and begin anew. Deuteronomy ends with Moses’ death — “his eyes were undimmed and his vigor unabated” (Deut. 33:7). Genesis begins with the creation of humanity in God’s image. The Hallel we recite on Sukkot includes these chilling words: “The dead cannot praise the LORD, nor any who go down into silence” (Psalm 115:17).Usually sung joyfully, these words now bring to mind the dead..
At the end of Deuteronomy, God shows Moses the Land of Israel and says: I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross over there (Deut. 34:4).
The stark Hebrew: “ve-shama lo ta’avor.”
Cruel, isn’t it? Sforno (Italy, 16th c.) offers a metaphysical rationale: Moses’ exclusion preserves the sanctity of the people’s future resurrection. HaKetav VehaKabbalah (Mecklenburg, 19th century) is less apologetic: God did not mean to hurt Moses. Perhaps Moses had already seen enough — not needing to go further. timesofisrael
The very point of sitting in a Sukkot is to remember being in the wilderness, and being cared for under the Clouds of Glory by Elohim, day to day, being led toward the Promised Land. Israel were to remember this even once in the land. Why? To remember the final rest that was promised!
For if Jesus (note Joshua in context, same name in Hebrew) had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. (Hebrews 4:8-9)
The Last Day: Rain
October 7 was the first day of Sukkot 2025, but the last day of Sukkot in 2023.
On the 22nd Simchat Torah: The joy of Torah and the prayer for rain
Simchat Torah, falls on the last day of Sukkot. As its name suggests, Simchat Torah means the joy of the Torah.
All the Torah scrolls are removed from the Holy Ark and there is a joyful procession with them around the synagogue. This circling of the synagogue with the Torah scrolls is called hakafot, and it is necessary to make seven circuits. It is a mystical imitation of a wedding, symbolizing the marriage of Israel to the Law...possibly to prevent the assault of evil spirits.
Tishrei, the seventh month, is linked to the start of Israel’s winter rains, and crops will fail without them. We plead for rain in the merit of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses, Aaron, and the 12 tribes.... “For a blessing and not a curse; for life and not for death; for plenty and not for famine.”
The Mishna tells us that “the world is judged through water.” To this day, we recite a prayer for rain on the last day of Sukkot, as rain is Israel’s life blood.
Linked to the prayer for rain is another Sukkot ceremony emphasizing the value of water. It is known as Simchat Beit Hashoeva, the joy of the drawing of the waters... It was mentioned in the Book of Isaiah. Beginning on the second evening of Sukkot, it lasted for six nights. Jerusalemites and pilgrims flocked to the outer court of the Temple. An enormous golden candelabra was fed with vessels of oil by young priests until flames leaped toward the sky.
The most pious men led a torch dance, and the Levites led the people in chanting hymns and psalms to the music of flutes, harps, and cymbals. They danced and sang until dawn, when the long procession wended its way to the Pool of Shiloah. This pool was formed by the overflow of water in Hezekiah’s tunnel, which led from the Gihon Spring into the city.
At the pool, a golden ewer was filled with water and brought to the Temple, where the high priest poured it over the altar. Today there is no Temple, no altar, and no water in the Shiloah Pool, but the drawing of the waters is symbolically recaptured every year with singing, dancing, and rejoicing in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, near the Pool of Shiloah at the base of the City of David.
Nowadays on Simchat Torah, Jews all over the world remember Israel’s need for rain on the last day of the festival. The prayer for rain concludes with the reader chanting, and the congregation responding: “For Thou art the Lord our God, who causest the wind to blow and the rain to fall. For a blessing and not for a curse. Amen. For life and not for death. Amen. For plenty and not for famine.”timesofisrael
In deed, Yahweh Elohim the God of Israel brings rains, and only He controls the climate. How arrogant to think otherwise. But, the rain that matters, the blessing, the life, is the Messiah and the Kingdom of God – the blessing to the Fathers of eternal life in the Promised land..
The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. (2Samuel 23:3-4)
A Psalm for Solomon. Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son. He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations. He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. (Psalm 72:1-6)
