Apnea of Hope
I don’t know about you… but for me, my regular, peaceful breathing hasn’t returned yet. A hostage’s mother said today that she needs to learn how to breathe again. I can identify with that. It takes time.
Time to feel danger is over when danger has become so present.
Present in our daily lives, in our history, in the memories passed down from past generations.
How many parts of us, buried deep or not so deep, do we need to convince that everything is truly okay?
Time to learn to sleep again, without waking to terrible news.
Sirens. Missiles. The dead, the wounded. Stories of trauma, and even stories of heroism (and we have so many), do not bring peaceful sleep.
It’s time for our bodies and nervous systems to rediscover a sense of hakol beseder. Hakol tov.
This Shabbat feels like an in-between time. We have a bit more oxygen, maybe a light at the end of the tunnel, and yet, we are still holding our breath.
An apnea of hope.
For the Jewish people, a sacred central value is Hope: Tikvah.
Hope in Jewish tradition is not mere optimism; it is a steadfast orientation toward life, a moral and existential compass that persists even when evidence is scarce.
Tikvah fueled our ancient exiles, our return to the Land of Israel, and the songs and prayers that sustained countless generations.
Because Tikvah is woven into our collective soul, we also know that the capacity to heal, what we call post-traumatic growth in mental health is not optional. It is essential.
Post-traumatic growth becomes a space of awareness and an intention to carry:
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in caring for our returning hostages,
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in learning lessons of hope from them, as we do from Eli Sharabi, whose courage and life force inspire us these days,
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in remembering Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who helped so many find meaning by concentrating on the why to discover the how even in the depth of captivity,
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in supporting those who grieve,
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in using our creativity, spirit, and belief that trauma can be healed,
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in uniting as a global mental-health community to develop new ways to help the many who suffer, especially our soldiers.
Let us carry the intention of Tikvah and post-traumatic growth
• in every project we undertake,
• in every prayer we say,
• in every breath,
• every morning as we rise,
• and every night as we lie down.
Let Tikvah become our new prayer, our new song, our North Star, the emblem of resilience.
