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Hope and good sense: A Jewish recipe for survival
By Rabbi Berel Wein
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
IT'S HARD TO BUILD a Jewish state and society
without hope for a better tomorrow, but we must temper
hope with good sense.
The saying is that hope springs eternal. It is part of the
human makeup to hope always for better times and more
positive results.
It's hard to live in our world of difficulties, violence, and
pettiness without the strength that hope provides. We are
willing to suffer pain and sacrifice in the hope that these will
lead to improved health, greater wealth, a stronger national
compact, and a more harmonious society.
These types of hope have always been part of the mental
makeup of the Jew. Without such hope, it is impossible to
imagine how the Jewish people could have survived the
long millennia of turmoil, exile, and persecution.
Often, Jewish hope has proven unfounded and unrealistic
(Hitler doesn't really mean what he says; our situation will
be better under the Communists than under the Czar, and
so on). But it has never been extinguished. Judaism teaches
that we must hope and strive for a better tomorrow, for a
glorious "end of days."
When I was in the United States recently, I met an old
friend from Chicago. As loyal Chicagoans, our conversation
eventually drifted to that most important of all Chicago
topics, the status of the Chicago Bulls basketball team in the
National Basketball Association standings.
The Bulls are perfectly awful this year. They're the worst
team in the league, having won only two of nearly 30 games
as of this writing. In fact, they might be the worst
professional sports team in the civilized world.
Yet their attendance rating has not flagged even in
comparison with their salad days in the 1990s, when they
won six NBA championships. They still sell out their arena
for every home game, with more than 20,000 fans always in
attendance, suffering loudly and mightily over the ineptitude
of their team.
I told my friend I didn't understand why the Chicago fans
would continue to patronize a bunch of losers. My friend
then revealed that he still had reserved season tickets for all
the Bulls' games and used them himself.
He explained that all the permanent ticket holders were
afraid to relinquish their reserved seats because they were
all hoping the Bulls would soon regain their championship
form and that then their tickets would be at a premium.
"I will suffer through a few lousy seasons because I hope
that they will eventually make the playoffs again and my
reserved seats will then be justifiably valuable," he
explained.
His statement proved the truism that all professional sports
(especially in Chicago) is built on the undying hope of the
average fan that eventually his team will triumph. "Wait till
next year" is the motto of all sports fans. Hope is the
emotion that fuels this multibillion-dollar industry.
Here in Israel we are undergoing a severe attack of
hope. Our negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians are
founded upon this very natural emotion. We desperately
desire peace with our neighbors, even a cold peace. So we
hope that all the tangible and painful sacrifices of territory
and position will somehow be worth the gain that the peace
process dangles before our eyes.
Yet, hope, to be positive, cannot be blind. We cannot
merely hope our way out of health problems or poverty. At
the same time, it is obvious that embarking upon medical
treatment or career training without a sense of hope is also
self-defeating. Thus, hope has to be tempered and
fashioned by the realities of life and common sense.
There are those in Israel who have little or no faith or hope
in peace negotiations with the Arabs. They have a great
deal of history and realism on their side. But it is difficult to
build a Jewish state and society if there is no hope for a
better tomorrow. The absence of hope will lead to social
and economic stagnation, if not to a continuing cycle of
violence and armed combat.
There are others who have too much hope. Shimon Peres's
dream of the "new Middle East" proved to be an obstacle
instead of a force for peace. The "peace" groups and much
of the Israeli media are riding for a fall with their exuberant
statements of hope.
Statements that promote grandiose promises of cooperation
with Saudi Arabia and trade with the Moslem world as a
result of peace treaties with the Palestinians and Syrians
overlook fundamental Moslem beliefs and geopolitical
realities. Too much hope can be a dangerous elixir,
drugging us into dangerous concessions and unrealistic
beliefs regarding our future.
So it's clear that we must achieve the ancient Jewish blend
of hope and good sense. We all certainly hope the peace
process will bring positive results. But our expectations
should not be exaggerated, lest we be sorely disappointed.
Neither can the cost and sacrifice be expected to be
minimal. But we have to pray that this traditional Jewish
combination of hope and realism will influence our leaders
and bring about a situation in which the sacrifice will in the
long run not have been in vain.
The words of the Bible here, as always, stand us in good
stead: "Hope in the L-rd. Strengthen and fortify your hearts
and hope in the
JWR contributor Rabbi Berel Wein is one of Jewry's foremost historians and
founder of the Destiny Foundation. He resides in Jerusalem. You may contact Rabbi
Wein by by clicking here or calling 1-800-499-WEIN (9346).
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