As a young man, I assumed that the world would only come into sharper, crisper focus with every passing year. It seemed logical that the older I got, the more eternal verities would emerge, like watermarks on fancy stationery. Truths about life and death, beginnings and endings, war and peace would fill my soul. That when asked, “Does life have ultimate meaning?”, I would answer in the affirmative before the interviewer even finished asking the question.
Alas. That grand assumption of obtaining clarity like putting on a new pair of glasses has not come to pass. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I feel like I’m walking around in a foggy forest with next to no accurate, dependable signposts. The version of the world that I had hoped for in the 60s, filled with peace, love, and harmony, is now derided like a punch line. Some of my most valued ethical standards of freedom and equality and social justice are now mocked with a mean, derisive backhanded sarcasm. The Reform movement’s embrace of an open tent for all Jews and our Jewish-adjacent partners and children and friends, and our upholding tikkun olam (repairing the world) for all people, are seen as naïve and counter-productive ideologies.
I am less sure now than I was 20 years ago. The gap grows all over the world between those with a progressive agenda, and those who see change and evolution with contempt. The emergence of fascism and the selective vision of some on the Left all over the world today clouds everything. It blurs natural alliances and encourages name-calling and racism and antisemitism and Islamophobia.
The other day during an adult learning session, someone wondered out loud if maybe it was time to leave America for a safer haven. I never imagined that was a question to take even half-seriously. And where are we supposed to go? Israel? That’s the most dangerous place on the world right now for Jews. Europe? I’m not sure there are many nations that are happy about the Jews right now. New Zealand? The citizenship process can take years.
With all the darkness and the clouds on the horizon, I wonder what the world will look like in these next years. It sure doesn’t look like I thought it would. I can’t afford a luxury underground bunker or a private island or whatever the top 1% of the world’s wealthiest have in mind for the stormy weather. I don’t have a gun or a generator. All I have is a lot of toilet paper and paper towels and Kleenex stored in my basement since Covid.
And yet, I do have something else. Call it crazy naivete. Despite it all, I have hope. “Hope… is the ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more propitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper the hope is. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” (From Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace, 1986)
What makes sense right now is a collaborative partnership between people of good will who can stretch beyond internecine rivalries to a vision of a better world. How can it be that we can’t share a common goal of keeping our children safe and then commit to spending time and money to pursue that goal?
I’m not sure what’s going to happen next. I don’t see things clearly right now. This period may be an inflection point, a transformation of enormous consequence. It could be a stunning sunrise or a crushing flood. In Israel right now, I see no light, only shades of grey and darkness. I have absolutely no idea how the story evolves or devolves. I can’t even find a place to insert hope. But I know that here in our community, despite so many incidents of anti-Jewish vandalism, I hope. I don’t know how it will turn out. But I do know that dialogue is the only way. Common truths. Common dreams. It’s the only thing that makes sense. And that hope remains, clear, in focus, alive.
Before Shabbat 