One of the secular newspapers wondered why the chareidi media did not commemorate the 7th of October, as did all the other media. That awful day will be remembered as one of the for the Jewish people. All of the media were full of special supplements, interviews, and never ending articles discussing that day and the past year. The chareidi media had nothing about it.
The reason is not all the complicated or subtle. To us the disastrous day was Simchas Torah 5784. The Jewish calendar sets the days for the Jewish community and not the Gregorian calendar instituted just about 500 years ago and still less accurate than ours. Most of the world uses that calendar but we use the Jewish calendar that dates back to Creation.
There was an interview with the father of one of the soldiers who was killed last Simchas Torah. The interviewer asked him how he felt on this year's October 7. He answered that to him it was just 5 Tishrei. The first yahrtzeit of his son will be on Simchas Torah.
October 7 has become a familiar phrase. But that is fixing the date by the non-Jewish calendar. The Jewish people have their own calendar, and that is what we use.
Hamas attacked the State of Israel in order to murder Jews. The murderous Moslem organizations see Jews as the source of all evil in the world and they want to wipe us out. They want to wipe out the Jewish state because they see it as representing Jews. Actually the State does define itself as Jewish in its Independence Scroll. Thus it seems only proper to define the date as Jews define it.
Simchas Torah was the date of the attack, the day when Jews celebrate our ties to the Torah. In addition to the many horrors of the day, there was also clear evidence of chesed Hashem as Shabbos protected many potential victims, and also the vicious attack of Hamas was not joined by Hezbollah which had been preparing to do the same thing in the northern parts of Israel. If, chas vesholom, Hezbollah had also attacked, the final result would have been much worse.
We were attacked just because we are Jewish. And it is thus most appropriate to memorialize it from a Jewish perspective.
