A Reason For Hope

Ever since I was a child, I always dreamed of the moment in which I would return to the Land of Israel. Day after day, I would pray for the day when Jerusalem would cease to be just an idea and a dream, but rather a real and physical place. Week after week, I would consistently pray for the day to arrive in which I would merit to step into the land that my forefathers shed so many tears awaiting. Year after year, the traditionally recited sentence “Next year in Jerusalem” rolled off my tongue not as an empty prayer, but rather as a promise to myself and to our nation’s two-thousand-year-old dream.

For years I have dreamed a dream. A dream of unity and hope, a dream of return and longing, a dream where I as a Jew would finally have a place to call home. A dream where in this place, I as a Jew would finally be able to become one with my God. A dream where although success and progress would be bought only through blood and tears, the sweet taste of eternal truth would make any struggle close to insignificant. I have dreamed all of this and more.

However, when the day I dreamed about for so many years finally arrived, I was quite surprised when I could ultimately do nothing to escape the bitterness and apathy that would consume me. For there are no ideals while standing in mud, and no comfort to be sought while hardship still awaits. I could not help but glance back at all I had to give up; at all the difficulties I would soon have to experience. After all, in pursuit of my ideals and dreams, I left my family and home behind, any previous connections and networks I established, and embraced the suffering that awaited me. I had to start every aspect of my life from scratch, learn a new language, and delay my life by multiple years due to my compulsory national service. 

Yet despite my bitterness, I still moved to Israel, I still delayed and endangered my life in favor of my national service, and I still sacrificed all that I have sacrificed. However, I did all this lacking not only the passion I once possessed but also with a profound sense of bitterness deep within my soul. The fact that at times I may not have always felt positive emotions when pursuing my ideals, to me, became largely irrelevant. Through hardship, I came to an understanding that emotions come and go and that therefore only rational truths can be used as a basis for decisions. As a result, I came to view my bitterness and my overwhelming sudden lack of passion as an unreliable medium, since after all, only “Those who sow with tears shall reap with joy” (Psalms 136:5). 

I tell my story now not because I believe it carries any significance in itself, but rather because it can be used as a larger metaphor for the Jewish experience. Throughout the ages, Jews have given up their very lives time and time again in the name of their ideals. After all, following thirty-five hundred years of persecution in which the Jewish people have been subjected to all of the Kishnevs, Babi Yars, and Auschwitzs of all the nations of the earth, the Jewish people have become quite the experts at dying for their ideals. However, when it comes to living for their ideals, the Jewish people have largely failed to establish any form of consistency. 

Today, so many Jews worldwide continue to live abroad despite acknowledging the crucial importance and obligation of living in Israel. Today, so many Israelis avoid the draft or refuse combat roles despite being unable to deny the necessity of occupying such positions. Today, so many Jews abandon the traditions of their forefathers not out of a lack of faith, but rather due to their unwillingness to face constraints and obligations.

The reason for all of this is quite obvious. The inability of the Jewish people to endure suffering in the name of their ideals is merely another tragic consequence of the nation’s two-thousand-year-old exile. In exile, dying for one’s Judaism was the ultimate sacrifice and test of faith. After all, in the diaspora, the Jewish people to a large extent lived as individuals, not as members of an active nation. Therefore, the sacrifices one could make rarely extended to a national level, but rather were limited to individual sacrifices. There was no Jewish land and country that could be moved to; there was no Jewish army that could be joined; there was not always a more attractive alternative within Judaism to Orthodoxy.

Presently, when national ideals require a greater degree of self-sacrifice than in the past, many fail to undergo the painful struggle when no clear reward awaits at the end. At times, a certain sense of obligation and a partial spurt of idealism may propel individuals to attempt to sacrifice for the Jewish collective; however, many ultimately fold when they experience the hardships that their sacrifice entails. It is only natural that the emotional feeling of reward falters in response to suffering, but to continue in pursuit of one’s ideals even in such a condition is the single greatest test of consistency.

It is important to note, however, that a real and genuine change is unfolding within our nation’s youth. Over the past year, the youth which has so often been criticized for their apathy, smartphone addiction, and lack of idealism, have been the ones to bear the burden of the events of the past eleven months. They have been the ones to fight our wars. They have been behind the great increase in aliyah applications. They have been the ones to embrace their Judaism in times of hardship; to find comfort in the traditions of their forefathers, especially in the most difficult of times. Even now, almost a year into the current war, despite the difficulties and exhaustion, our nation’s youth does not falter. Draftees to combat positions are at a higher number than ever, aliyah applications have increased dramatically, and out on the streets the high spirit of the nation can be seen by all.

It seems that now, after two thousand years of exile, the words of our prophets are finally ringing true. As our prophet Ezekiel promised our forefathers, at the conclusion of the Jewish people’s exile, God “will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26). Here in our current times, the Jewish people have finally begun rediscovering within themselves a heart and spirit of bravery and accomplishment, of idealism and community. Most importantly, the Jewish people have finally come to terms with the fact that only “Those who sow with tears shall reap with joy” (Psalms 136:5). Now, our nation readily sows with blood and tears so that our children will be able to forever reap with joy the fruits of our labor.