This Ox Has Gored Before

Ever since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023—the deadliest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust—Jews have drawn on our biblical heritage to process the horror. Many examples have been moving and constructive, such as elegies for destroyed kibbutzim inspired by the book of Lamentations and invocations of the matriarch Rachel “weeping over her children” (Jeremiah 31:15). Others have been unacceptable, such as depictions of Palestinians as Amalekites—a people whom God commands the Israelites to annihilate. For my part, I have recently found myself thinking about the situation through a more mundane biblical image. I’ve been thinking about oxen.