Yom Kippur War After 50 Years

During these ten Days of Teshuva we mark 50 years since the Yom Kippur War. TRADITION‘s most recent issue contains a cluster of articles and essays exploring the theological, national, and communal impact of that nearly calamitous episode in modern Jewish history on the State of Israel, world Jewry, and on Religious Zionism. Our Summer 2023 issue has arrived in subscribers’ hands and is available behind our paywall online with a digital subscription. We invite all friends of TRADITION to sample select open-access content as we prepare for the Yom HaDin:

Yehuda Amital זצ”ל, the late Rosh Yeshivat Har Etzion, penned an essay in the weeks following the 1973 war, presented here in a first-time English translation as “Towards the Meaning of the Yom Kippur War.” The essay, one of the earliest responses to the traumas visited upon the State and on his own yeshiva, which suffered an outsized number of fatalities among its soldier-students, aims to understand how events that impact the life of Am Yisrael given our belief in Divine Providence. R. Amital considers the ways a life of faith helps us navigate the vicissitudes of contemporary Jewish history.

Haim Sabato יבלחט”א, Rosh Yeshivat Birkat Moshe and a celebrated author of Torah scholarship and modern Hebrew literature, presents an essay tracing the arc of his own experiences — from the first days of the war as a young talmid hesderon the Golan Heights through the appearance and reception of his novel Te’um Kavvanot (Adjusting Sights). By comparing his own approach to that of his peer and comrade in arms, Rav Shagar, R. Sabato’s essay, “God Hidden in Heaven’s Vault” offers insight into the complexity of simple faith.

For TRADITION readers in and near Jerusalem: In advance of Yom Kippur, join our editor R. Jeffrey Saks at Agnon House for an exploration of R. Haim Sabato’s Adjusting Sights, called the most authentic and affecting novel of that near calamitous war. How does this important contemporary Hebrew novel serve as a lens through which we can all consider the challenges of the Day of Atonement as individuals and as a nation? Saks will discuss this in the context of TRADITION’s recent special issue on the Yom Kippur War After 50 Years. Wednesday, September 20 at 7:00 p.m. at Agnon House, 16 Klausner Street, Jerusalem. Registration here for the live in-person event.