All Is Not Lost. There’s Still Hope.

I’m watching Love On The Spectrum (second season) on Netflix and loving it.

I have fallen for this non-scripted reality show.

I have fallen for this cast, a bunch of young Australians—who are on the autistic spectrum—as they go on a quest for dates and love.

I wonder, “Will the Israelis produce a similar program using young orthodox Jews who are on the autistic spectrum? Kinda like Shtisel, turned into a dating game for autistic people.

Holy smokes!

I just learned that the Israeli’s already have produced a similar program (seculars not orthodox) on autism called, On The Spectrum.

But from what I read, it’s not nearly as good as the Aussie show.

Of course, these young Aussies are high on the spectrum—so there’s a better chance that Cupid’s arrows will pierce the heart of a potential mate.

I’m hooked on this mating/dating game. So much so, that I can’t wait to see, who will find love and who will go home empty-handed”

I want to reach into my TV and grab the rejected and yell into their ears, “All is not lost. There’s still hope.”

So I sit and watch as one young man (Michael) who in his twenties visits his girlfriend’s (Heather) home for the first time to meet her parents and siblings.

The whole group sits around the dining room table making small talk.

They discuss where they have travelled to and where in the whole wide world they’d like to visit.

My ears perk up when Heather says, “I want to go to Poland to see Auschwitz and I want to visit the Anne Frank House.”

Remember this is a young, Christian, woman who was born and raised in Australia.

Remember that she’s three generations removed from the Shoah.

Yet, she announces her desire to see a concentration camp.

And she wants visit the room in the attic, where Anne Frank hid behind a bookcase from 1942 to 1944 in fear that Nazi’s would find her and her family and send them to a death camp.

She wants to see where Anne wrote her diary before she died in Bergen-Belsen.

She wants to see the concentration camp where Anne was interned.

I am not surprised that Heather’s parents quickly change the subject.

No surprise that Heather’s parents, nor Michael, ask any follow-up questions about: Why Poland? Why Auschwitz? Why Anne Frank?

But I still ponder, what I have just witnessed.

I recall the media and some social activist groups stressing how a large portion of the latest generation claims to have never heard of the Holocaust.

Therefore, the goal of these social activists is to put Holocaust educational programs in all schools.

An admirable goal.

But these stories make me pessimistic. For I fear, one day the word ‘Auschwitz’ will no longer have meaning.

I fear the loss of six million Jewish lives will be forgotten.

But now I think, “All is not lost. There’s still hope that in 100 years or longer the Holocaust will still be remembered.”

Thanks Heather, for reminding me that the “Never Again and the Never Forget” messages live in hearts and minds of people across this whole wide world.

Heather, you have made me realize:

All is not lost and there is still hope.