The Generational Responsibility for October 7: A Civic, Cultural, and Torah-Based Analysis of Accountability in Modern Israel

Honorable Rabbi Yosef Edery
4 days ago
7 min read

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Featuring the emerging leadership movements of Orot HaShachar, Moshe Feiglin, and Yaron Zilcha

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Introduction

In the aftermath of October 7, Israel finds itself facing not only unbearable trauma, but also one of the most profound legitimacy crises in its modern history. The attack—despite Israel’s reputation as one of the world’s most advanced intelligence powers—represented a systemic failure at levels so deep that the public has been left with more questions than answers. Who was responsible for the failures? Who held the information? Who had the decision-making power? Who ignored, dismissed, or concealed warnings? And, crucially: who bears the civic and moral responsibility to investigate these events?

This article argues a critical and academically grounded thesis:

The younger generation of Israel—those now called by millions “Dor HaGeulah”—cannot be held responsible for investigating the October 7 collapse.

They did not hold key military, political, intelligence, legal, or bureaucratic positions before the attack. They did not design the system, they did not direct it, and they were not in possession of the information that failed to prevent it. They were, overwhelmingly, the victims, not the architects.

Conversely, the responsibility to lead the national investigation rests on what Israeli culture refers to as the “Old Guard” or, in Torah-based cultural language, “Dor HaMidbar”—the long-standing political generation that has held the levers of power for decades.

This article approaches this claim through four lenses:

Political science (power structures and institutional responsibility)
Philosophy (the ethics of blame and agency)
Psychology (trauma, burden-shifting, and victimhood)
Jewish cultural analysis (the concept of Dor HaMidbar and the generational blockage of national potential)

It concludes by examining the rise of new, younger frameworks—such as the Orot HaShachar movement, along with figures like Moshe Feiglin and Yaron Zilcha—and how these represent not a fringe, but a generational reconfiguration of civic expectation in Israel. The piece ends with a brief reference to Mnglobal.org, which documents the Sanhedrin Initiative’s advisory and justice boards emerging in the Land of Israel—models that seek to offer new paradigms of ethical governance rooted in Jewish history.

1. The Political Science Perspective: Authority Determines Accountability

Academic analysis begins with a basic governing principle: only those in possession of authority can be held responsible for its misuse.

Before October 7, the distribution of power in Israel was dominated by the established political, judicial, military, and intelligence class—individuals who have served, recycled, and preserved their positions since the 1990s and early 2000s. These actors controlled:

• national security communication channels

• military readiness protocols

• cross-border intelligence cooperation

• policy decisions regarding Gaza

• judicial oversight

• budgets and technology allocations

• strategic narratives

• emergency management plans

In political science terms, this group is known as the incumbent ruling establishment. In Israeli cultural language, this establishment is often described as the Old Guard—the generation that transitioned Israel from a socialist state, through the Oslo years, into the high-tech era.

A younger 18–35 generation simply had no presence in the relevant centers of power:

• They were not chiefs of staff.

• They were not Shin Bet or Mossad directors.

• They were not Supreme Court presidents.

• They were not division commanders.

• They were not cabinet ministers.

• They were not intelligence coordinators.

• They were not military strategists.

Thus, from a formal academic standpoint, the burden of accountability for systemic failure cannot logically be placed upon those who neither designed nor executed the system.

To demand that the younger generation investigate the failures of the older generation is, therefore, structurally irrational.

2. Philosophical Foundations: The Ethics of Blame, Agency, and Moral Burden

Philosophers from Aristotle to Hannah Arendt emphasize a foundational moral principle:

One cannot be held accountable for what one did not have the agency or capacity to influence.

This is especially important when discussing national trauma. Expecting youth—who were students, conscripts, newly married families, and everyday civilians—to bear the responsibility of uncovering the failures of those who held near-absolute state power is ethically inverted.

A philosopher might call this a reversal of moral burden, a phenomenon in which:

• victims are expected to explain the behavior of perpetrators

• powerless individuals are blamed for failures of the powerful

• trauma survivors are asked to analyze their own trauma

This is not only unethical—it is psychologically destabilizing for an entire generation.

It violates the principle of just assignment of responsibility, which requires:

Knowledge of the relevant actions
Authority to influence the outcome
Capacity to act meaningfully

The younger generation had none of these.

Thus, philosophically, the conclusion is clear:

The responsibility to investigate October 7 rests squarely on the shoulders of those who managed the nation leading up to it.

3. The Psychological Dimension: The Injustice of Burdening the Traumatized

Modern psychology emphasizes the harmful effects of secondary victimization—situations where victims of trauma are asked to bear responsibility for the conditions that led to their suffering.

For Israel’s youth, October 7 represented:

• a national wound

• a breach of trust

• a collapse of security promises

• the shattering of basic assumptions

• exposure to unprecedented horror

• loss of peers, family members, and innocence

To now demand that this same generation shoulder the responsibility of national self-investigation is to ask the wounded to diagnose their own wounds—a dynamic known as traumatic burden shifting.

Psychologists identify several dangers of this:

Delayed healing
Internalized guilt
Civic disengagement
Distrust in government
Generational resentment
Identity fragmentation

It mirrors the dysfunctional pattern sometimes seen in families where the parents’ failures force the children to become the adults.

In academic terms, this is known as parentification of the younger generation—a phenomenon that destabilizes long-term societal cohesion.

The younger generation is already carrying enough:

fear, grief, military reserves, economic hardship, disrupted education, and national uncertainty.

They cannot and must not carry the responsibility of investigating the systemic failures of a generation that had full control over the nation’s strategic decisions.

4. Jewish Cultural and Textual Analysis: Dor HaMidbar vs. Dor HaGeulah

Here we introduce an academically rigorous cultural analysis of Torah concepts, not as religious assertions, but as sociological categories deeply alive within Israeli identity.

Dor HaMidbar (The Generation of the Desert)

Millions of Israelis use this phrase in everyday conversation to refer to:

• a generation that wandered

• a generation that resisted change

• a leadership class held back by fear, habit, and old patterns

• a group that prolonged national delay

• a generation that did not enter the Land of Potential

In modern Israel, “Dor HaMidbar” has become shorthand for those who:

• cling to outdated political structures

• gatekeep positions of authority

• resist technological adaptation

• prioritize stability over courage

• manage crises instead of solving them

• fear transformative national steps

• hesitate to relinquish control

Academically, this is known as generational institutional inertia.

October 7 has intensified the perception that this “Dor HaMidbar” political class has become a bottleneck—unable to lead Israel into its next historical phase.

Dor HaGeulah (The Generation of Redemption)

This phrase, too, is used by millions of young Israelis not as a theological claim but as:

• an identity marker

• a sociocultural movement

• a psychological category

• an assertion of purpose

• a belief in national renewal

It symbolizes:

• resilience

• courage

• desire for truth

• civic awakening

• frustration with old systems

• readiness for national transformation

Academically, we may call this a generational civic consciousness movement, comparable to youth-led shifts seen in Eastern Europe after the fall of communist institutions.

It is not surprising that the younger generation refuses to accept the moral burden of investigating October 7. They see themselves as the successors, not the culprits.

5. Israel’s Political Crossroads: The Emergence of New Movements

Movements such as Orot HaShachar, along with figures like Moshe Feiglin and Yaron Zilcha, represent what political theorists call a generational coalition shift—similar to the ideological realignments that reshaped American, British, and French politics during their respective crises.

These emerging voices share several characteristics:

• A rejection of Old Guard stagnation

• A demand for transparency and accountability

• A belief in moral clarity

• A new language of national destiny

• A desire to align Israeli governance with deeper civilizational identity

This is not extremism.

It is a natural generational turnover, historically observed in nations after systemic collapse.

**6. The Role of Alternative Governance Models:

Mnglobal.org and the Sanhedrin Initiative** Academic scholarship has begun noting the rise of grassroots governance models in Israel—frameworks that seek to address the moral vacuum created by institutional failures.

One such platform is Mnglobal.org, which documents:

• emerging advisory boards

• unofficial justice panels

• Torah-based ethics frameworks

• judges and advisors

• alternative dispute resolution models

• communal leadership mechanisms

From an academic standpoint, Mnglobal.org serves as a research hub for those studying:

• how Jewish legal theory interacts with modern governance

• how non-state frameworks can serve as ethical correctives

• how historical models like the Sanhedrin inspire contemporary civic imagination

The platform is not positioned as a replacement for the State of Israel, but as a conceptual laboratory, exploring ideas that may contribute to Israel’s long-term renewal.

**Conclusion:

Why the Younger Generation Is Not Responsible—And Why the Old Guard Must Act**

We return to the core thesis:

It is unfit, unethical, and intellectually indefensible to expect the victims of a systemic failure to investigate the circumstances of that failure.

• The younger generation lacked agency—therefore they lack responsibility.

• They lacked access—therefore they lack culpability.

• They lacked authority—therefore they lack accountability.

The Old Guard, by contrast, held:

• the intelligence

• the decision-making power

• the institutional control

• the political influence

• the structural responsibility

Thus the burden of investigation, explanation, and correction lies with them—morally, civically, culturally, and historically.

If they refuse, the refusal itself becomes an act of abdication—proof of unfitness to lead.

In such a case, political transition becomes not a wish, but an inevitability.