A few weeks ago, I was talking to my rabbi about the High Holiday readings (because I spell check/copy edit every year), and he told me that the clergy team at our synagogue has decided to focus on hope and comfort for this year’s high holiday services (in late September), rather than the usual emphasis on what we could be doing better, or what’s going on in the world that we need to pay more attention to. The decision was made a few months ago, when it had already become clear that people had hit their limit on pain and suffering and couldn’t take much more, and the news has only gotten worse since then.
There’s some relief in knowing that I am not alone in needing more hope, but that conversation made me realize that, actually, I still have a pretty big reservoir of hope to rely on. I’ve spent a lifetime learning how to find hope where it shouldn’t exist, and to build it up out of almost nothing. It’s like strengthening any other muscle, just that this one creates a spiritual ache from the effort, rather than a physical one. But even before I began the daily work of lifting myself up out of despair, I had a foundation of hope that came from years of being taught to think in terms of millennia, rather than centuries or decades. From lessons in Jewish history and the Hebrew Bible, I was taught to see people who lived 3,000 years ago as my family, and to see their life experiences as my own, and the lesson I learned from all of those family stories is that there is always a way forward, even if it’s difficult and messy and confusing, there is always a next step.
The Hebrew Bible is not full of success stories, where the heroes are perfect and everything goes their way, not at all, these are people who try, and make mistakes, and suffer from their own bad choices, and suffer from other people’s bad choices, but find a way to keep going anyway. In fact, they are always doing Teshuva (repentance or return), making amends for the stupid or selfish decisions of the past, because they believe it is possible to repair the damage you’ve done, and the damage that has been done to you.
The ancient Israelites became slaves, and spent generations in slavery, and even resisted freedom out of fear of the unknown; and they fought wars and lost a lot of them; and they worshiped other gods and got punished for it over, and over again. They lived on their own land, and lived in exile; they survived by devotion to the old traditions and by seeking out new ones. There has been no generation of Jews that got everything right, or that got to live in a world full of only light and love, and the lesson I’ve learned from all of this, is that you need hope in order to take those next steps out of despair. You need hope to continue going through the knee-deep swampy water, or to drag yourself through the desert in the blazing heat. It’s not about certainty. My ancestors rarely knew the right thing to do at every moment and never followed the recipe (or the Torah) to the letter, but they held onto the hope that if they made the wrong choice or did the wrong thing, they could always try again.
Even though my ancient ancestors taught me all of this, my more recent ones, like my father, believed that there was a right way to do everything, and that if I was smart enough, and worthy enough, I’d just figure it out on my own. My teachers also held onto this one-right-answer idea, writing every test with the assumption that there was only one right answer to every question, and that most of my ideas were wrong. Having faith that there is one-right-answer, and that you already know what it is, meant that they didn’t need hope. They had certainty. But for me, who never seemed to know what that one right thing might be, I had to rely on the hope that something I would do, anything I would do, would turn out to be right.
At times, I’ve had to build my hope muscle out of magical thinking and imagination, and out of whatever leaves and twigs and feathers I could find; and along the way, I’ve discovered that it doesn’t matter where the hope comes from, or what it’s made of, as long as it’s there when you need it. But pick a day, for example a day when there are pictures everywhere of starving children in Gaza and it feels like everyone is lying about the situation on the ground – Hamas, Israel, the UN, the journalists – and the despair makes it hard to breathe. And even in these impossible moments, the only way I know to keep moving forward is to rely on hope, even unreasonable and unfounded hope, that somewhere up ahead there will be an oasis of peace. I just have to keep going and I will get there, someday.
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Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
rachelmankowitz 
Wonderful post. We often think of the men and women of the Bible as being superheroes, but in reading through the Old Testament this year, I’m reminded they were human, just like us. As you’ve said, they failed again and again. Thank God for His mercy!
Thank you!
For me, the magical thinking type of hope has a poor track record. Meanwhile, hope that is coupled with intent and action go a bit further. Regarding the international/national scenarios, a bit of peaceful activism that is paired with hope seems to work wonders.
Fingers crossed!
💜
For me, faith is like a protein supplement for hope “muscle.”
Whatever works!
Oh my goodness, Rachel, what a powerful and wise post. You have inspired me to try harder to hang onto hope in mankind. It’s not always easy these days.
It’s almost impossible, but it’s all we have.
You gave us an amazing thought we all need to adopt – when you think of hope, see it through the eyes of people over millennia. Your thought to “see people who lived 3,000 years ago as my family, and to see their life experiences as my own, and the lesson I learned from all of those family stories is that there is always a way forward, even if it’s difficult and messy and confusing, there is always a next step.” That gives us hope. We can despair over the last 7 months or look forward a thousand years and know we can take the steps we must take, and it will be okay.
I wish our leaders, and journalists, could figure out how to give us the current news without panic. The panic itself creates so many bad decisions.
It does. Panic also causes a sense of urgency and panic, something I think our current “leaders” are counting on to continue forcing through his personal agenda in the guise of governing. And its good for ratings and views for traditional and social media outlets.
Definitely something to think about. Although my grandfather was a rabbi, I haven’t kept up with anything Jewish in decades, no temple, no observing holidays except for Hanukkah of course. Everything seems pretty hopeless right now, and it’s hard to find any hope for the future for our kids and grandkids. It’s going to take some divine magic, I think.
There are so many different ways to be Jewish and to connect to family and culture; we all find the ways that fit us best, eventually.
That’s true if you’re the type of person who craves connection, but other than my son/DIL/grandkids, I’ve had enough of inauthentic people in my life, whether it’s a tribe of my Jewish cohorts or people in general. Everyone seems to have an agenda and I stay away from all drama.
It was a new concept to me, to think that maybe hope wasn’t needed because people were relying on certainty. My life has always been built on hope… I sometimes think I am way out on an invisible bridge and if I turn around and look back, it will all collapse but if I just move forward there will always be a way.
I envy people who feel certain, about anything, but when they find out that their certainty was unfounded they tend to crumble. I feel safer with my flexible hope.
it’s amazing, the amount (infinite) of strength and resilience hope gave you, while all along those with ‘right’ answers continually splinter and break. Thank God for hope.
Hope is a powerful feeling!
Here’s hoping. Thanks for sharing your wise observations.
Thank you!
You yourself have to conjure that bit of peace for yourself, because I don’t think that oasis will ever exist unfortunately. With war still actively happening in Israel, are you still venturing over ?
Yes. No matter what, there will be some peace with friends.
Someone mentioned faith. What you wrote is the definition of faith.
Faith in any particular force or outcome is hard for me, but hope, that renews itself and redirects, that I can do.
My daughter sings at High Holiday services and loves it.
It can be a wonderful communal experience!
Yes to heading to Israel ?, You’rexa brave soul Rachel.
I’ve just waited a long time to go.
Hope is necessary to life, I believe. This was a very good post!
Thank you!
It’s such a freeing day when you realize that there is not just one answer!
Absolutely!
Without hope, we could give up, and wither. Having hope helps us to move through the hours, and days.
Absolutely!
Uplifting. ❤
Thank you!
I’m glad you’ve still got hope. I know how hard being in a place with no hope at all is.
I’ve gotten to that no hope place and I hope I never go back there.
As we approach the High Holy Days there certainly is much to do. The idea of a focus on self care makes a ton of sense right now. Our Rabbi loved to remind us that everywhere is Jerusalem. Next year!
I definitely prefer self care over the usual self flagellation.
I love the idea of hope as a muscle that must be trained, used consistently, or it will wither. Hope is a choice, not a given.
It’s also a pathway in the brain that needs to be carefully maintained, or it won’t be available when you need it.
As I live in hope, your words resonate with me. I think your observation that the “only one right answer” approach to life is a hope disrupter, if not destroyer, is absolutely correct. Once again, Rachel, you’ve tapped into your personal thoughts and journey to reach and describe what I believe is a much larger truth.
Thank you so much!
This disturbance seems to be worldwide in all religions and cultures, a good time to rest in hope and the source of all that is good. After that, act in kindness.
We do seem to be going through something Internationally destabilizing, and everyone is looking for something solid to hold onto, and often choosing the wrong things. I understand the impulse. But you’re right, kindness is better, even when it’s hard.
Great post, and I really like what you said about hope. Sometimes we get frustrated with everything happening around us, but we just need to keep moving forward in faith.
It’s all about acknowledging the difficulties and still believing that things can get better.
Absolutely!
Meaningful post – “only way I know to keep moving forward is to rely on hope, even unreasonable and unfounded hope, that somewhere up ahead there will be an oasis of peace. I just have to keep going and I will get there, someday.”
That sentence says it all ! Full of hope!
Thank you ❤️
Thank you so much!
I wake up feeling positive, another good day ahead and for a blissful moment I have forgotten Gaza and Ukraine and the other places that don’t get much mention in the news. Then reality hits me. Thanks for your post, yes we have to cling to hope; people in desperate situations are perhaps still clinging to hope. And those of us leading a pleasant life know that good times always exist somewhere.
I got a Tanakh for an anniversary gift from my wife, still read it today. Think you will enjoy this post https://wearingtwogowns.blog/2025/08/11/chernobyl-miracle/
Very moving post!
Thank you dear Rachel for this great post.
Thank you so much!
Thank you for sharing that.
“I’ve spent a lifetime learning how to find hope where it shouldn’t exist, and to build it up out of almost nothing. It’s like strengthening any other muscle”- !!!