The claim that the Black Sabbath (a secular nickname for the Simchat Torah, Oct. 7th Massacre) was a Divine Punishment settled in quite a few hearts and led to attempts to atone for the sin. Separation of challah events – mass, community and private – were held across the country, and people began to post on social media about their individual spiritual corrections. One of the prominent voices that came up in this context was that of a young woman named Adi, who escaped from the hellish killing ground and wrote on Instagram: “Looking for skirts and modest dresses. I am a survivor of the Nova, G-d willing, I keep all the Shabbats (Sabbaths) since that Shabbat (Sabbath) and feel that it is time to go up a level.”
Adi is part of a phenomenon that flooded the networks in recent weeks, with an emphasis on Tiktok. Alongside posts and stories about miracles that happened to Shabbat keepers on October 7, dozens of young women began sharing videos in which they tear off their immodest clothes, document their new head coverings, and say goodbye to secular life. Armed with relevant Hebrew hashtags (the Holy One Blessed Be He, Tzniut, Doing Teshuva) the young women told about the light they saw, the understandings they understood, the answers they received and the relief for the great pain of the Black Sabbath.
“Creator of the world, as I cut off these clothes, you will cut off the harsh and bad decrees on the people of Israel,” summed up the Tiktoker Miriam the logic of the trend of tearing the clothes. “And before you ask why I didn’t hand over the clothes – it’s forbidden to hand over immodest clothes, because then I’m causing someone else to stumble,” Miriam concluded.
“I’m not here to preach morals to anyone, but this whole thing about the war really opened up the matter of religion to me,” said the Tiktoker and business consultant Lial Hulderov in a video in which she described several cases of people who were saved from the massacre thanks to observing Shabbat, making challah or hosting guests – a video which has accumulated hundreds of thousands of views. “It doesn’t feel like a coincidence to me. Another situation and another situation. I don’t know, it strengthens me like crazy.”
In the most viral video of its kind, the social media influencer Sapir Michaeli cut off her clothes one by one and finally burst into tears. More than 100 thousand people watched it.