Three years later, Israel’s best TV show offers new lessons of Oct. 7

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(RNS) — This year, the autumn “Jewish” event that I awaited with the most excitement had little to do with the Days of Awe. It had everything to do with the fifth season of “Fauda,” the Israeli television series that arrived on Netflix in September.

You can spiritually prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I found no way to spiritually prepare for “Fauda,” except to treat it as preparation for the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.

The show’s creators, Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff, have said they threw out their scripts after the massacre and rewrote the latest season.

Watching it taught me several lessons. (Spoilers are ahead.)

Vengeance is tempting, and it has its limits. With season five set two years after Oct. 7, the show reveals that Hamas terrorists murdered Israeli operative Eli’s family in the attacks. Consumed by grief, he follows a tip to Marseille, France, in search of a Nukhba fighter and drags his comrades into something far larger and more dangerous than personal revenge.

Every incident from Oct. 7 that the show depicts is based on…