C6: Hope

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Jewish history

Incredibly, Jewish history is a wonderful
example of how all this can work. What
were the Jewish people between 70 and
1948? There were a civil society! For the
nearly two thousand years between the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and subsequent exile of our people, until the declaration of the modern State of Israel, the Jewish people lived without a state. We had no country with an organised government. We lived in communities in many different countries. The factors that bonded us together as a people were family traditions and Jewish customs. Of course there were religious and community obligations, but they were voluntarily kept. They were not enforced by the state, they were taught by the community on a day to day local level. So the point is this: if Judaism could have survived and developed for nearly two centuries based on the values and ideals of a civil society, then maybe there is something lasting and special about it!

Living with hope

This has been a lightening look at societies and how we live in them, but hopefully it has also been enlightening. The Jewish way of life, besides being our own, gives some guidance as to how best to run societies in general. The key approach that underpins many of the issues that have been described is hope. Now there is a big difference between hope and optimism. Optimism is about believing in progress which is the belief that through science, reason and logic, open-ended advance can be achieved in the control of nature. Optimism is about stretching the limits of human power and freedom. But it is limited because human power and freedom are limited. Loss of optimism can all too easily lead to despair and worries about breakdown in society's growth and expansion.

Hope is a different story. Hope implies a deeply felt trust that somehow seems absurd to those who lack it. It rests on confidence not so much in the future as in the past. It derives from our young experiences in which our memory of stability, warmth and contentment was so strong that facing new problems is not as frightening. Hope leads to an unshakable conviction, not that the past is better than the present, but that trust is always worthwhile.

Hope is about courage. For though it does not make us immuned to hardships, we know that if they strike we will not be alone. If our social environment is healthy, we are surrounded by family and friends, colleagues and neighbours. We know that they will be there for us as we would be for them. They will give us the strength to grieve, to endure, to recover our confidence and to reaffirm life. It is hope and not optimism that encourages us to take risks. With hope we can offer friendship, give love, show we care, comfort others, take on new challenges, handle crises, and live by our ideals. Hope is found in families, community centres, religious buildings, and always, in the human heart. Jews should know, because hope is the national anthem of our people: Hatikvah.

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