*Finally, October 8 | Maya Tevet Dayan | 6 Minutes on Friday | October 17, 2025*
In the end, after the films and the photos, the peaks of emotion and sorrow we went through this week, the cries of the families and the unbearable beauty of the kisses, my heart twisted once more when I came across a piece of graffiti sprayed on a wall on October 13: “Finally, finally October 8 has arrived.”
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And suddenly I realized this: the longest day we had ever lived had come to an end.
The terrible date had changed.
Finally, time was realigned.
Finally, October 8 had arrived.
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Of course, nothing has gone back to what it was, nor will it ever. None of us are who we were before, nor will we ever be like our former selves again. There is still no peace agreement, and it’s unclear where we are headed. But the open ends of one day, unraveled on October 7, have finally closed. After a single day that lasted two years, the date has changed. A new day has begun.
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This week I remembered a film I used to show my students when I taught Indian philosophy: Groundhog Day. It’s a 1993 American film in which a local TV weatherman is sent to cover “Groundhog Day”—a small-town event he despises, meant to predict when winter will end. He behaves with sarcasm and contempt toward everyone around him, counting the minutes until this dreary day will be over.
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Except that after he falls asleep waiting for tomorrow, he wakes up again to the same morning: it’s “Groundhog Day” all over again. The same time, the same song on the clock radio, the same hotel, the same breakfast, the same irritating ceremony he has to cover once more. The day keeps repeating itself endlessly. Even when the weatherman tries to kill himself in every possible way, he cannot escape the loop of waking up again and again. Even when he hurts others, nothing changes. He wakes each morning to the same reality, powerless to break it.
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In the past two years I have felt, more than ever, what it means to be trapped in an endless day.
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When I taught this film at the university, I used it to demonstrate basic ideas in Indian thought. For instance, what karma is—how the actions we make generate the circumstances of our lives later on. What samsara is—the futile cycle of births we are all born into again and again. What dukkha is—the unease from which we must free ourselves. What compassion is—we see it in the film when the weatherman shifts his perception and, after who knows how many repeated days, finds meaning in life and learns to love every moment and every person within the day he is forced to live.
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And finally, we learned what nirvana is—liberation. That it is within our reach to stop waking up to the same day again and again. One morning, the weatherman wakes up and the day has finally changed. That is the Hindu idea of liberation: it happens in our world, not in any heaven. You simply wake up as a new person to a new day.
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One of my greatest teachers, Professor Shlomo Biderman, used to explain that in Hindu philosophy, liberation is never “liberation to.” There is no heaven or hell, and Indian thought does not ask where we are liberated to, what the new morning will look like, what this October 8 that has finally come will bring.
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What do we know? We know what we have been liberated from. It is a “liberation from.” Liberation from all that has been until now. From whatever we had to free ourselves from. The only promise is that what was will no longer be. We will not be who we were. The next morning will not look like the one before.
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So this week I thought about the long, dark day we have just been released from. How unbelievable it is that it even happened to us. That we lived inside it for so long. So many hostages. And also that this is life—it brings us such dark days along the way: loss, sorrow, fear. And I wanted to remember, going forward, that even within the darkness, there was movement. Things happened. There was grace, courage, and beauty. And I remembered a beautiful Talmudic idea that asks: in a very dark night, how do we know when the darkness will end and the day will begin? The Talmud gives three signs that the world is slowly awakening from stillness into life: in the first watch of the night, the donkey brays; in the second, the dogs bark; in the third, a baby nurses. Signs that remind us that even when the night seems frozen—time is not standing still.
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In other words: every darkness is a slow process of awakening toward the light of morning.
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And this idea already exists at the very beginning of the Jewish story, when it is said: “And there was evening, and there was morning—day one.” We learn that creation begins in the evening, not in light but in darkness. Out of chaos, fear, sorrow, and destruction, new creation emerges. That is why our holidays begin in the evening and not in the morning. The new year begins at night, too.
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Because every morning is born out of the night. And so the new day does not forget all those who paid with their lives, the families who will forever carry the burden, our heroes—men and women—and the stories whose details we can only now begin to absorb, to mourn. The new day is born out of all that, and thanks to all of them.
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What will we do with this opportunity—with the dawn of a new day? Surely we will have to think many great and important thoughts about vision and future, courage and leadership. But for now, I confess, I long for small, unheroic things: taking my dog for a long walk without hurrying back to be near a shelter. Going to bed without knowing where the shoes are lined up by the door. To sleep and wake without fear. I miss that privilege of tending to trivial things, choosing a color for a dresser, arguing with my friend Iris about nonsense, immersing myself in a new recipe for gluten-free bread.
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To give life’s stage back to the small things again. Not heroic. Not terrible. Not immense. I wish us all that—to live small, simple lives. To mourn quietly and lovingly everyone who is gone. To give thanks for every new day that dawns. And again, to thank all those who paid the heavy price that made it possible. I’ll be content with that.
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Wishing us all Shabbat Shalom,
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*Maya Tevet Dayan*