HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

Pandora was the first human woman in Greek mythology. She was entrusted with a jar, on condition that it remained closed. When her curiosity got the better of her and she opened it, all the world’s sorrows, plagues, etc. escaped. When she managed to close it - only hope remained.

Pandora was the first human woman in Greek mythology. She was entrusted with a jar on condition that it remained closed. When her curiosity got the better of her and she opened it, all the world’s sorrows, plagues, etc. escaped. When she managed to close it - only hope remained.

Hope is an existential necessity in a life clouded by uncertainty. I believe hope is what enables the survival of the Jewish people. Without hope for a better future, how could a people suffer the unbearable “present” throughout the ages, whether it was programs, exile, persecution, genocide.

The stories comprising the narrative of the Jewish people as written in the Pentateuch, invariably show an unforeseen future. The first story begins with God’s call to Abraham to leave his land, birthplace and his father’s house to travel “to the land that I will show you.” Genesis ends with Jacob and his family forced into exile, with the future promise unfulfilled.

In Exodus, comes the encounter in the burning bush between God and Moses. God calls Moses to lead the Israelites back to freedom and the promised land. When Moses asks God what name he should use when people ask him He literally answers “I will be what I will be”, in the future tense. But closure doesn’t come. In the final scene in Deuteronomy Moses is still on the far side of the Jordan.

The bible ends in Chronicles II with the Israelites in exile, this time in Babylon,  Cyrus gives them permission to return to Israel but the promise again remains unfulfilled. Unlike other narratives the Jewish one has a beginning but no end.

In the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: “to be a Jew is to be an agent of hope in a world serially threatened by despair. Every ritual, every commandment, every syllable of the Jewish story, is a protest against escapism, resignation or the blind acceptance of fate” - unlike Greek mythology which claimed that human destiny lay in the stars, or blind faith.

The fundamental belief in the Jewish future still to be realized  is ultimately a belief in freedom. Society is how human beings shape it - there is nothing inevitable in it. It is not surprising that Jews have strived to be in the forefront in fighting poverty, injustice, natural disasters, etc. Israel is still today the only free society in the Middle East.

Human beings are the only form of life capable of using the future tense. Only humans can envisage a better future and the freedom to implement change. After the Holocaust, Jews did not seek revenge or harbor resentment. Instead they turned to the future and built up a land with a national anthem called “Hatikvah”  (“the hope”).

After more than 2,000 years of exile, Jews of today have been given the extraordinary privilege, and responsibility, to make a new beginning for their people. Let us hope and pray that this time the Jewish narrative will also have a happy end - for all.

As Rabbi Sacks wrote: “Judaism is the only civilization whose Golden Age is in the future: the messianic age, the age of peace when ‘nation will not lift up sword against nation….’ “.