October 16, 2025|כ"ד תשרי ה' אלפים תשפ"ו Atzeret: A Pause for Miracles By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

Baruch she’hechiyanu v’kiymanu v’higianu lazman hazeh.

What a difference two years makes. I remember standing here on Shmini Atzeret two years ago, delivering a drasha after hearing that there was an attack in Israel without yet grasping the full horror that had descended upon our people. What a difference two years makes. And what a difference two weeks makes. I never imagined that all living remaining hostages would be reunited with their families in time to celebrate Shmini Atzeret.

The images we saw yesterday were overwhelming — Bar Kupershtein’s mother handing him a hat that read “tamid b’yadayim shel Borei Olam,” Guy Gilboa-Dalal’s mother leaping with joy, Yosef Chaim Ohana’s father crying “Shema Yisrael” and reciting shehechiyanu as he embraced his son, Avinatan Or holding his girlfriend and former hostage Noa Argamani, Ziv and Gali Berman finally together after two years apart as hostages, Omri Miran speaking to his four and two year old daughters on a tablet at the Re’im base. So much to absorb. So much emotion. So much for Atzeret.

Shmini Atzeret — literally, the “eighth day of stopping.” Rashi and Ibn Ezra explain atzor as “to pause,” to hold back from returning to ordinary life. The Midrash adds that God pleads: “Stay with Me one more day. Don’t rush away.” It’s not a pause of fatigue, but of love — a day when God says: linger with Me a little longer.

But why pause? The Torah calls only two days Atzeret — one at the end of Pesach and one at the end of Sukkot. Pesach’s Atzeret reflects on freedom; Shmini Atzeret reflects on relationship. It doesn’t just end Sukkot — it gathers the entire month of Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur and Sukkot, into one deep breath.

Normally it’s a pause to absorb spiritual intensity. But this year, the pause feels different. We are held back not only from work, but by emotion — by awe, by tears, by the weight and wonder of this moment. As hostages return, as families embrace, as our nation holds its breath, we sense the holiness of being stopped in time.

Maybe that is what Atzeret means this year. God is saying: Don’t rush forward. Stop. Look around. Feel what’s happening. See My hand in this fragile, miraculous moment. To be held back is to linger in holiness — and this year, that holiness feels raw and real. We have seen death and devastation, but also courage, faith, and reunion. So we stop — to give thanks, to breathe, to remember who we are: Am Yisrael — together, alive, and grateful.

And today, we reflect on this latest miracle as part of a chain of miracles since October 7th. We’ve witnessed the beeper-walkie-talkie attack that turned Hezbollah’s own devices against them; the decimation of Hezbollah’s leadership at the very hour the Prime Minister addressed the UN; the downfall of the Assad regime; the assassination of Haniyeh deep in Iran; the crippling of Iran’s missile systems; and the strike that set back Iran’s nuclear program. And Hamas now lies shattered and diminished.

Each of these moments was extraordinary. But for me, this one, the one on Hoshana Rabba — the release of the remaining living hostages while Israel still controls half of Gaza — feels most miraculous. I never believed this was possible. I always thought it was binary: either Hamas is destroyed and the hostages perish, or the hostages return and Hamas remains in power. That Hamas would release them while under Israeli pressure seemed unimaginable. Yet here we are — witnessing the impossible.

This is not only a military miracle, but a miracle of providence. The leader of the most powerful country in the world Donald Trump standing firmly with Israel, even as other Western nations like Canada and France and England waver; Qatar and Turkey compelled to join pressure on Hamas — these, too, are miracles in our time.

As devastated as I was on October 7th, I cannot help but see the yad Hashem in all that has followed. I sense the slow, painful, yet unmistakable unfolding of geulah — not yet complete, but real. Yes, Hamas still exists. There is danger ahead. But perhaps we are witnessing not only the end of a hostage crisis, but the dawn of a new Middle East — one in which Israel stands strong and her enemies falter.

We all long for geulah to come quickly. But geulah is rarely instant. It is a process — deliberate, patient, divine. And part of our spiritual challenge is to learn to appreciate that process, to recognize the holiness in its gradual unfolding. The Torah itself distinguishes between a redemption of chipazon — haste and urgency, like the Exodus — and the slower, more enduring redemptions that take time to mature. Rav Kook writes in Olat Re’iyah that the Exodus had to occur b’chipazon because we were spiritually unready; had it been gradual, we would have been too deeply shaped by Egyptian impurity to ever leave. But that very haste came at a cost. As the Sfat Emet explains, because our ancestors were not yet prepared inwardly, their redemption could not be fully internalized. It took forty-nine days to climb spiritually to Sinai, and even then, they stumbled — the Golden Calf, the spies, Korach — echoes of a redemption that came too fast for their souls to absorb.

A redemption that is entirely Divine can happen in an instant. But a redemption that involves human beings — our choices, our unity, our faith — must be slow and steady. It must be earned, internalized, lived. That kind of geulah lasts.

And perhaps that is our message this year. If God can perform miracles as great as these — if He can return our hostages from the depths of Gaza — then surely there is hope for the greatest miracle of all: the miracle of unity. But like geulah itself, unity cannot come b’chipazon. It must be built patiently — through compassion, through faith, through learning to see the Divine spark in one another.

On October 6th, we were not ready for a quick geulah. Perhaps we still aren’t. We speak endlessly about “the day after” in Gaza — but what about “the day after” for Am Yisrael? For our own moral renewal, our own unity? At times, our divisions seem so deep that only a miracle could heal them. But maybe that miracle has already begun — not just military ones, but spiritual ones: soldiers wrapping tefillin before battle, Israelis reciting Modeh Ani on the beach while doing yoga, families lighting Shabbat candles for the first time, strangers singing together “Hashem oheiv oti v’yihiyeh rak tov.”

These quiet moments — these glimpses of faith and unity — are signs of geulah too. They give me hope that our redemption is not only military but spiritual — not born of haste, but of patience, love, and the steady hand of Hashem.

And yet, our feelings of hope are mingled with deep sadness. The final living hostages have returned, and there is so much joy, but the pain of the families of those who were killed on October 7th, and of the hundreds of IDF soldiers who gave their lives in this two-year war, is immense. We pray that the return of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas bring them some measure of closure.

The Torah teaches us, in the eighth-to-last verse, “Vayamat sham Moshe eved Hashem” — “And Moshe, the servant of God, died there.” Moshe could not write the final verses of the Torah without tears. He brought the people to the threshold of the Promised Land but did not enter. The Talmud teaches that those last verses were written b’dema — in tears. Even the greatest leaders, even the most faithful servants, sometimes do not complete the work they begin.

And yet, we celebrate. Every Simchat Torah, we rejoice even as we read about Moshe’s tears. Because we know the story continues. Moshe’s work lived on through the people he led. His tears watered the ground for the next generation’s triumph.

So too with our soldiers. They may not have seen the final victory, but their courage and sacrifice have shaped the unfolding miracle. Like Moshe, they gave everything, and their unfinished work is sacred.

And now, as we prepare for Yizkor, we carry their memory with us. Yizkor is an opportunity to remember — to hold close those who are no longer with us: our loved ones, the victims of October 7th, the soldiers who gave their lives in the war that followed. 

May the memory of those we have lost be a blessing. May the generosity of our community bring comfort and strength. And may we, in this sacred pause of Shmini Atzeret, feel the presence of God — in the miracles of our time, in the unity we strive to build, and in the hope that continues to sustain Am Yisrael.