Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin: How Torah Gives Us Faith and Hope
October 12, 2025
AI Summary
5 min readRachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin: How Torah Gives Us Faith and Hope
On October 7, 2023, Hamas kidnapped Hersh Goldberg-Polin from the Nova Music Festival. He was held hostage in Gaza for nearly a year before being murdered. His parents, Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin, spent those months in a public role that few could imagine—speaking at the UN, meeting with world leaders, and becoming, as host David Bashevkin puts it, "translators" of an unfathomable experience for the Jewish people. In this conversation recorded for the launch of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks' new Chumash, they discuss how Torah, prayer, and Jewish tradition gave them language to hold both devastation and hope together.
The Torah of Complaining and the Valley of Dry Bones
When asked about a favorite Torah story, Rachel chose not a heroic narrative but the theme of complaining that runs through Shemot and Bamidbar. The children of Israel, freshly freed from slavery, witnessed the Nile turn to blood, manna falling from the sky, and a pillar of fire guiding them at night—yet they constantly wanted to return to Egypt. "There's something very fascinating to me about the constant lack of recognition of godliness that they were encountering," Rachel says. She sees this as a mirror for our own struggle: even when the miraculous is obvious, we fail to digest it.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Episode Introduction & Context: Simchat Torah and October 7th** - Host David Bashevkin explores the unusual history of Simchat Torah and connects it to the tragedy of October 7th, setting the stage for the interview.
- 2 (22:32) **Opening Question: Favorite Torah Story or Theme** - Rachel and Jon share their personal connections to the Torah, focusing on themes of complaining and prophecy.
- 3 (30:44) **Jewish Pride and Shame in This Era** - Jon and Rachel reflect on what brings them pride and shame about the Jewish people during the post-October 7th period.
- 4 (35:03) **What the Jewish People Need to Learn (and Unlearn)** - Jon and Rachel identify key strategic shifts for the Jewish people, moving beyond victimhood and toward a proactive future.
- 5 (41:35) **The Enduring Lesson of October 7th** - Rachel and Jon hope the unity and solidarity felt across the Jewish world will be a lasting legacy of this tragedy.
- 6 (46:01) **Finding Meaning in "Triggering" Jews** - Jon and Rachel discuss how they find connection with Jews whose worldviews are very different from their own, especially in the context of the hostage crisis.
- 7 (52:53) **Torah Verses for Strength and Hope** - Rachel and Jon share the specific prayers and verses they turn to in their darkest moments.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
In this special Simchas Torah episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we speak with Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin—parents of murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Hashem yikkom damo—about their relationship to Torah.
For two years, we’ve been struggling with the paradox of how Simchas Torah has become eternally intertwined with October 7. So, at Koren’s celebration of Rabbi Sacks’s Humash, we could think of no two better people to talk to. In this episode we discuss:
- How can we find redemption specifically within our exile?
- How can we move on when we’ve been permanently broken?
- How can we work to live our lives through the lens of Torah?
Interview was held on Sept. 8 and begins at 18:26.
References:
18Forty Podcast: “Chaim Saiman: Is Talmud the Jewish Constitution?”
“The Inverted Halakhah of Simhat Torah” by Chaim Saiman
Parshat Beha'alotcha
Ezekiel 37
Genesis 32:27
The Koren Shalem Humash
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