By definition, the calendar is an everyday item. But the Jewish calendar in particular is more than just an arrangement of dates. It is a map of our history and a guide to linking that history to our values and our survival. And we do not have to stare at the calendar for long to recall that it is more than a reminder to celebrate or commemorate. It is also a record of the trials, and sometimes horrors, that preceded our emergence from adversity.

Traumatic moments are often highlighted by the routine events that follow, like the first Thanksgiving after 9/11 or the first dinner out with friends after the lockdowns of Covid. October 7, 2023—and the war it unleashed—is one of those watershed dates. We are coming up on the first Purim and Passover since that newest day of infamy. And just as we look at the approaching holidays as occasions for communal bonding, we experience anew the solidarity that is the strongest thread of Jewish continuity.

In Purim, we see Queen Esther as a hero for millennia, the embodiment of Jewish self-defense. A woman who at first hid her Hebrew name before revealing her identity when Jewish lives depended on it.

There is a second female role model from the Purim story—Vashti—whose courageous example has only in recent years gained recognition for her defiance, empowering herself by refusing an order to display herself at a royal banquet.

From its beginning, Hadassah has carried Esther’s Hebrew name as a symbol of empowered Zionist women. Israel would not be what it is today without this organization. We built the Jewish state’s early health care infrastructure, and the Hadassah Medical Organization remains a standard bearer of healing. In the war with Hamas, our hospitals have been treating wounded soldiers and civilians, and our Youth Aliyah villages have housed displaced Israelis.

Hadassah has been outspoken in Israel’s defense, calling out the United Nations and UN Women for months of indefensible silence after Israeli women were mutilated, raped and murdered on October 7, and launching a global campaign, End the Silence, to raise awareness and demand justice. Please help spread the word.

Our work matters. “your support for Israel’s health care and solidarity with the Israeli people is a great strength,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog told us during Hadassah’s Solidarity Mission to Israel in January, a transformative experience. (The next one is set to begin March 17.)

In America, Hadassah not only provides its members, Associates and supporters the opportunity to be involved in sustaining Israel, it also attracts those who are newly motivated to stand up.

Among all the consequential moments of the past few months, there is a fleeting image that stays with me. In November, when a number of hostages were released from Gaza, some of them were ferried into Egypt and then to Israel, as if symbolically retracing the Sinai crossing of our forebears.

Every year during Passover, we are charged to remember the Exodus from Egypt as if we ourselves were part of it. In the same way, it’s as if we all experienced captivity by Hamas. Our empowerment grew out of the experience of slavery and is reinforced by the suffering of our own time.

There is a light-hearted complaint about the Jewish calendar—that it is so overloaded with holidays that it leaves little time to work or go to school. But a crowded agenda with a long list of obligations encourages more than it precludes Jewish overachievement.

Our children learn as much, if not more, from the seder experience as they do in school. Just as our calendar is expansive, so are Jewish tables, normally seating a family of four or five, then suddenly accommodating 25 or more, ensuring that some who would not otherwise experience the Exodus can also symbolically walk to freedom. This year, it seems especially important that we invite others to join us.

We have a lot of work before us. It’s a good thing our calendar is full. A happy, healthy and meaningful holiday season to all.