If someone from the future had traveled back in time to 6 a.m. on Saturday, October 7, they would have encountered people with no idea of the horror about to unfold. You could have told them that an alien spaceship would soon land in the Kibbutz Re’im parking lot, and eight-armed creatures would emerge from it – and they would have been more likely to believe that.
Soldiers at their posts, partygoers at a festival, parents in the border communities, worshippers heading to the synagogue in nearby cities, and Israelis in more distant places where sirens would soon pierce the morning air – all of their realities would soon turn into a science fiction nightmare. And who could have believed it until it actually happened? What was about to occur would end the lives of some and change the lives of everyone else. From this moment on, every day is a footnote to October 7, 2023.
If such a time machine existed and someone traveled back to warn about what was to come, to give just one more moment to escape, defend, or prepare – they would have failed. It was beyond the limits of belief. Aside from the loss of life, this is the greatest damage from Hamas’ surprise attack: The shattering of the "it can't happen" wall that a person builds over a lifetime. This wall is made of bricks that allow for normalcy in an abnormal place, a mental framework where bad things can happen, but certain things simply won’t. That is the core of the unspoken agreement between Israelis and life in Israel, between them and the state, enabling their survival here.
From this moment on, every day is a footnote to October 7, 2023
That thousands of terrorists would cross the border, that the IDF wouldn’t respond for hours, that battles would continue inside Israeli territory even 72 hours later – that "can’t happen." It's not a failure to imagine these events, but rather an inability to do so. And it’s not negligence. It’s good that people couldn’t fathom it.
But now, after what happened, belief in anything has been shattered, trust in everything has evaporated, and suddenly, one can imagine anything. This erosion of security is something no strike in Lebanon or Tehran can fix. No bomb is big enough, no bunker deep enough, to make a person forget how thin the layer of protection truly is.
Has time healed? Why should it? To pin responsibility on time is unfair. Time can only pass; it is people, through their actions – or inaction – that give it meaning. Time cannot turn back, and it cannot bring the hostages home. From now on, time’s only role is to serve as a reminder, periodically, on certain anniversaries, of what was – and as a consequence, what will never be.
Even time itself has changed. For all its apparent absoluteness, time has lost its certainty. People will age, years will pass, but within each of us, there remains a fragment, a place where time can no longer reach, where it forever stands still. In that place, October 7, 2023, will never fade.
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