‘Help me find hope!’ I’ve heard those words over and again across this cruel year. Like most of us, I too have sometimes struggled.
That’s why it’s so important that we give each other hope.
Hope is not a vague belief that somehow the future will be better. Hope is what we create together when we commit to making that better future happen.
Worry and fear may be all around us, for the hostages and their families, for Israel, for innocent people trapped in Gaza, for the future, for nature and the viability of the planet itself. Anguish is sometimes lodged, too, deep within our hearts. We can’t make it disappear.
But we can respond and, by responding, find strength and inspiration. Judaism has a millennia-long history of resilience, founded on Torah and the communal life we have created in countless places, rooted in its teachings. Our Judaism is indeed ‘a tree of life’ and trees are strong and sustaining.
We have seen such strength in the swift creativity with which civil society in Israel and the Jewish world has responded since October 7. We see it in the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel’s work in establishing programmes of healing for traumatised people in woodlands, wetlands and desert. We feel it when students on UK campuses, far from allowing themselves to be intimidated by antisemitism, deepen their commitment to their Jewish identity. We witness it when, despite all the distrust that divides us, people reach out and, rejecting every form of racism, maintain friendships across our different faiths.
This doesn’t take away the grief, threats and suffering around us. But every initiative which brings people together in humanity and compassion creates light and hope in the midst of these grim times. However small that light may seem, we must trust that it will guide us through this darkness.
Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle
