Rabbi Dunner reflects on the profound challenge of celebrating Simchat Torah on the first anniversary of the October 7th massacre. Drawing from his mother’s remarkable experience of Simchat Torah in post-Holocaust Rotterdam, he explores how Jewish joy has always coexisted with grief. He reminds us that even in the darkest times, dancing on Simchat Torah is an act of defiance and hope—an enduring declaration that the Jewish people, no matter the adversity, are still here.
