By Rabbi Gail Fisher
Good YomTov. In the Talmud (Menachot 53b), we’re told that despite their sins, God will remember the Jewish people and save them from all the evils that are being done to them at the end of time – that is, when the Messiah comes. Raise your hand if that’s enough assurance of hope for you in these troubled times that we live in.
I want to talk to you today about hope – not to give you false assurances, but to offer a genuine foundation for hope in a better future. Yes, even in today’s world. Viktor Frankl, who endured four concentration camps, observed that those who survived were most often those with a purpose, who had hope for a future worth waiting for and rebuilding in.
But we don’t need to go back to the Holocaust to see what we can endure. We sit here today, having gotten through the pandemic. Not unscathed, not without fear and loss, but we are here. We adapted to extreme circumstances, redefining how we did everyday things like go to school or work, buy groceries, or even join together in prayer. We human beings have remarkable resilience. We can hunker down and get through the darkest of moments while we’re waiting for things to get better.
Resilience is nothing new for us. Almost 2000 years ago, the Second Temple, which was the center of our religious life. was destroyed. Sacrifice ended. That was the way we had been interacting with God for 1300 years. Now what? Our Sages transformed sacrifice into prayer, offerings into study. Since then, the Jewish people have endured the Crusades, expulsion from one country after another, pogroms, the Holocaust, and increasing antisemitism in our own time. And yet, here we are. We have been flexible. We have adapted and changed as needed in order to survive. What we have done through the ages is a remarkable foundation on which to build a certainty that we can do it again.
Resilience is oriented to the present, to enduring. Hope looks to the future – it is a belief in a tomorrow that is better than today. Notice also that hope differs from optimism. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks put it like this: “Optimism is the belief that things will get better. Hope is the belief that, together, we can make things better. Optimism is passive, while hope is active.”
Rebecca Solnit adds, “Hope is a very Jewish trait. We have rebuilt over and over again … We are resilient. We are still here because we never abandon hope but just start over again.”
A second foundation for holding fast to hope is our sacred texts. In the book of Genesis, God repeatedly promises Abraham the land as far as he can see it. But land never just comes to Abraham in his lifetime. The way he finally acquired a small piece of the Promised Land was to buy a burial plot for Sarah from the Hittites. He didn’t just wait, he took action, a small step to make the promised future start to come true.
The central text teaching us hope is the story of the Exodus from Egypt. Again and again, our liturgy refers to God not as the Creator of the world, but as the One who brought us out of Egypt. We repeat this to keep alive our expectation that, just as God redeemed us at the start of our existence as the Jewish people, so will God rescue us from every dire circumstance.
Traditionally, we read Psalm 27 every day during this season. Its last verse says, “Hope for the Lord, be strong and He will give your heart courage, and hope for the Lord.”
Jeremiah witnessed the destruction of the First Temple and the resulting exile. He wrote in chapter 31, “And there is hope for your future, says the Lord, and the children shall return to their own border.”
Isaiah chapter 41 tells us, “Do not fear for I am with you; be not discouraged for I am your God: I encouraged you, I also helped you, I also supported you with My right hand. … For I, the Lord your God, grasp your right hand; Who says to you, ‘Fear not, I help you.’”
Finally, we read in Psalm 130, “Israel, hope to the Lord, for kindness is with the Lord and much redemption is with Him.”
So am I trying to tell you that you just need to sit with your hands folded and wait for God to make everything okay? In a world torn apart by polarization, by war and hunger, by our very climate being poisoned and turned against us, I’m counseling you to be passive? Has that strategy ever worked in the past? As one counseling center put it: “Optimism is a positive thought pattern. Hope involves setting goals and following through on them.” So by talking about hope, I am definitely not telling you to sit back and wait for God to make all the changes you want.
Let’s look at one more text. In the book of Esther, chapter 4, we read, “Mordecai had this message delivered to Esther: ‘Do not imagine that you, of all the Jews, will escape with your life by being in the king’s palace. On the contrary, if you keep silent in this crisis … you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a crisis.’”
Who knows? Maybe that’s why we’re all here in this time and place. Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld wrote, “Consider the possibility, says Mordechai, that you are here for a reason, that there is something bigger and more important than your fear, that you have more power than you imagine. Consider the possibility that it is up to us to act out of love and responsibility for each other in order to make room for God’s presence in this world.”
Where do we start? I invite you to close your eyes if that’s comfortable for you. Imagine a better future. Imagine a world that is the way you wish it could be. Think about it in detail – what would your family dinners look like? Your neighborhood? Our country? [pause for a minute] NOW how do we get from here to there? Ask yourself what is one small step that you can take to make this future real? Pirke Avot reminds us that, while we are not expected to complete this Herculean task, we cannot avoid getting started on it. We have been commanded to hope, to play an active role in making this world a better place. So let us begin – together.