“The very purpose of our life is happiness, which is sustained by hope.
We have no guarantee about the future, but we exist in the hope of something better.
Hope means keeping going, thinking, ‘I can do this.’ It brings inner strength, self-confidence, the ability to do what you do honestly, truthfully and transparently.”
– Dalai Lama
ה֥וֹי מֹרְאָ֖ה וְנִגְאָלָ֑ה הָעִ֖יר הַיּוֹנָֽה׃ לֹ֤א שָֽׁמְעָה֙ בְּק֔וֹל לֹ֥א לָקְחָ֖ה מוּסָ֑ר בַּֽה' לֹ֣א בָטָ֔חָה אֶל־אֱלֹקֶ֖יהָ לֹ֥א קָרֵֽבָה׃ שָׂרֶ֣יהָ בְקִרְבָּ֔הּ אֲרָי֖וֹת שֹֽׁאֲגִ֑ים שֹׁפְטֶ֙יהָ֙ זְאֵ֣בֵי עֶ֔רֶב לֹ֥א גָרְמ֖וּ לַבֹּֽקֶר׃ נְבִיאֶ֙יהָ֙ פֹּֽחֲזִ֔ים אַנְשֵׁ֖י בֹּֽגְד֑וֹת כֹּהֲנֶ֙יהָ֙ חִלְּלוּ־קֹ֔דֶשׁ חָמְס֖וּ תּוֹרָֽה׃ ה' צַדִּיק֙ בְּקִרְבָּ֔הּ לֹ֥א יַעֲשֶׂ֖ה עַוְלָ֑ה בַּבֹּ֨קֶר בַּבֹּ֜קֶר מִשְׁפָּט֨וֹ יִתֵּ֤ן לָאוֹר֙ לֹ֣א נֶעְדָּ֔ר וְלֹֽא־יוֹדֵ֥עַ עַוָּ֖ל בֹּֽשֶׁת׃ הִכְרַ֣תִּי גוֹיִ֗ם נָשַׁ֙מּוּ֙ פִּנּוֹתָ֔ם הֶחֱרַ֥בְתִּי חֽוּצוֹתָ֖ם מִבְּלִ֣י עוֹבֵ֑ר נִצְדּ֧וּ עָרֵיהֶ֛ם מִבְּלִי־אִ֖ישׁ מֵאֵ֥ין יוֹשֵֽׁב׃ אָמַ֜רְתִּי אַךְ־תִּירְאִ֤י אוֹתִי֙ תִּקְחִ֣י מוּסָ֔ר וְלֹֽא־יִכָּרֵ֣ת מְעוֹנָ֔הּ כֹּ֥ל אֲשֶׁר־פָּקַ֖דְתִּי עָלֶ֑יהָ אָכֵן֙ הִשְׁכִּ֣ימוּ הִשְׁחִ֔יתוּ כֹּ֖ל עֲלִילוֹתָֽם׃ לָכֵ֤ן חַכּוּ־לִי֙ נְאֻם־ה' לְי֖וֹם קוּמִ֣י לְעַ֑ד כִּ֣י מִשְׁפָּטִי֩ לֶאֱסֹ֨ף גּוֹיִ֜ם לְקָבְצִ֣י מַמְלָכ֗וֹת לִשְׁפֹּ֨ךְ עֲלֵיהֶ֤ם זַעְמִי֙ כֹּ֚ל חֲר֣וֹן אַפִּ֔י כִּ֚י בְּאֵ֣שׁ קִנְאָתִ֔י תֵּאָכֵ֖ל כָּל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ כִּֽי־אָ֛ז אֶהְפֹּ֥ךְ אֶל־עַמִּ֖ים שָׂפָ֣ה בְרוּרָ֑ה לִקְרֹ֤א כֻלָּם֙ בְּשֵׁ֣ם ה' לְעָבְד֖וֹ שְׁכֶ֥ם אֶחָֽד׃ מֵעֵ֖בֶר לְנַֽהֲרֵי־כ֑וּשׁ עֲתָרַי֙ בַּת־פוּצַ֔י יוֹבִל֖וּן מִנְחָתִֽי׃ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַה֗וּא לֹ֤א תֵב֙וֹשִׁי֙ מִכֹּ֣ל עֲלִילֹתַ֔יִךְ אֲשֶׁ֥ר פָּשַׁ֖עַתְּ בִּ֑י כִּי־אָ֣ז ׀ אָסִ֣יר מִקִּרְבֵּ֗ךְ עַלִּיזֵי֙ גַּאֲוָתֵ֔ךְ וְלֹֽא־תוֹסִ֧פִי לְגָבְהָ֛ה ע֖וֹד בְּהַ֥ר קָדְשִֽׁי׃ וְהִשְׁאַרְתִּ֣י בְקִרְבֵּ֔ךְ עַ֥ם עָנִ֖י וָדָ֑ל וְחָס֖וּ בְּשֵׁ֥ם ה'׃ שְׁאֵרִ֨ית יִשְׂרָאֵ֜ל לֹֽא־יַעֲשׂ֤וּ עַוְלָה֙ וְלֹא־יְדַבְּר֣וּ כָזָ֔ב וְלֹֽא־יִמָּצֵ֥א בְּפִיהֶ֖ם לְשׁ֣וֹן תַּרְמִ֑ית כִּֽי־הֵ֛מָּה יִרְע֥וּ וְרָבְצ֖וּ וְאֵ֥ין מַחֲרִֽיד׃ (ס) רָנִּי֙ בַּת־צִיּ֔וֹן הָרִ֖יעוּ יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל שִׂמְחִ֤י וְעָלְזִי֙ בְּכָל־לֵ֔ב בַּ֖ת יְרוּשָׁלִָֽם׃ הֵסִ֤יר ה' מִשְׁפָּטַ֔יִךְ פִּנָּ֖ה אֹֽיְבֵ֑ךְ מֶ֣לֶךְ יִשְׂרָאֵ֤ל ׀ ה' בְּקִרְבֵּ֔ךְ לֹא־תִֽירְאִ֥י רָ֖ע עֽוֹד׃ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַה֔וּא יֵאָמֵ֥ר לִירֽוּשָׁלִַ֖ם אַל־תִּירָ֑אִי צִיּ֖וֹן אַל־יִרְפּ֥וּ יָדָֽיִךְ׃ ה' אֱלֹקַ֛יִךְ בְּקִרְבֵּ֖ך גִּבּ֣וֹר יוֹשִׁ֑יעַ יָשִׂ֨ישׂ עָלַ֜יִךְ בְּשִׂמְחָ֗ה יַחֲרִישׁ֙ בְּאַ֣הֲבָת֔וֹ יָגִ֥יל עָלַ֖יִךְ בְּרִנָּֽה׃ נוּגֵ֧י מִמּוֹעֵ֛ד אָסַ֖פְתִּי מִמֵּ֣ךְ הָי֑וּ מַשְׂאֵ֥ת עָלֶ֖יהָ חֶרְפָּֽה׃ הִנְנִ֥י עֹשֶׂ֛ה אֶת־כָּל־מְעַנַּ֖יִךְ בָּעֵ֣ת הַהִ֑יא וְהוֹשַׁעְתִּ֣י אֶת־הַצֹּלֵעָ֗ה וְהַנִּדָּחָה֙ אֲקַבֵּ֔ץ וְשַׂמְתִּים֙ לִתְהִלָּ֣ה וּלְשֵׁ֔ם בְּכָל־הָאָ֖רֶץ בָּשְׁתָּֽם׃ בָּעֵ֤ת הַהִיא֙ אָבִ֣יא אֶתְכֶ֔ם וּבָעֵ֖ת קַבְּצִ֣י אֶתְכֶ֑ם כִּֽי־אֶתֵּ֨ן אֶתְכֶ֜ם לְשֵׁ֣ם וְלִתְהִלָּ֗ה בְּכֹל֙ עַמֵּ֣י הָאָ֔רֶץ בְּשׁוּבִ֧י אֶת־שְׁבוּתֵיכֶ֛ם לְעֵינֵיכֶ֖ם אָמַ֥ר ה'׃
What is She'erit Yisrael?
GEMARA: Rav Ḥisda said: What is the reason of the ruling of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel? The landowner has apparently suffered no loss from the cultivator’s actions. His reasoning is as it is written: “The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies, neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth” (Zephaniah 3:13). In other words, one may not retract from an obligation accepted upon oneself, even if no one suffers as a result.
שׁומֵר גּוי אֶחָד. שְׁמר שְׁאֵרִית עַם אֶחָד. וְאַל יאבַד גּוי אֶחָד. הַמְיַחֲדִים שִׁמְךָ ה' אֱלקֵינוּ ה' אֶחָד:
שׁומֵר גּוי קָדושׁ. שְׁמר שְׁאֵרִית עַם קָדושׁ. וְאַל יאבַד גּוי קָדושׁ. הַמְשַׁלְּשִׁים בְּשָׁלשׁ קְדֻשּׁות לְקָדושׁ:
REMNANT OF ISRAEL (Heb. שְׁאֵרִית יִשְׂרָאֵל), a term denoting the belief that the future of Israel would be assured by the faithful remnant surviving the calamities that would befall the people as a result of their departing from the way of God. On the one hand the prophets foretold the forthcoming exile and destruction of Israel, and on the other they held forth the hope and promise of its survival and eternity. The doctrine of the Surviving Remnant resolved this contradiction. The doctrine is referred to by most of the prophets. Thus Micah (2:12) states, "I will surely gather the remnant of Israel"; Jeremiah (23:3) "and I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries whither I have driven them and will bring them back to their folds, and they shall be fruitful and multiply." Joel promises, "For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape and among the remnant those whom the Lord shall call" (3:5), and the first half of the verse is repeated almost literally by Obadiah (v. 17).
It is in Isaiah, however, that the doctrine is found in its most developed form which greatly affected Israel's thoughts about the future. He gives his son the symbolic name Shear-Jashub ("a remnant shall return," 7:3) and in 10:22 the phrase is repeated as a statement of fact "a remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob." The most detailed description of the doctrine appears in 6:13. The land shall be utterly destroyed, the children of Israel will be "removed far away," only a tenth will remain – even that tenth "shall again be eaten up" but "the holy seed" shall remain. Isaiah's concept of the remnant may have included both the faithful minority and those who would accept God's message, under the impact of the forthcoming disaster. Paul applied Isaiah's teaching to the Church (Rom. 9:27).
In the daily prayers there are included the prayers "Guardian of Israel, Guard the Remnant of Israel, and suffer not Israel to perish."
After World War II the phrase the "remnant which survives" (she'erit ha-peletah) was applied to the survivors of the Holocaust.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/remnant-of-israel
Between Hope and Humanity
Rabbi Sacks
That, it seems to me, is what happened to the Jewish people after the Holocaust. There were, and are, no words to silence the grief or end the tears. We may say - as Moses said to Aaron - that the victims were innocent, holy, that they died al kiddush Hashem, "in sanctification of God's name." Surely that is true. Yet nonetheless, "Aaron remained silent." When all the explanations and consolations have been given, grief remains, unassuaged. We would not be human were it otherwise. That, surely, is the message of the book of Job. Job's comforters were pious in their intentions, but God preferred Job's grief to their vindication of tragedy.
Yet, like Moses, the Jewish people found the strength to continue, to reaffirm hope in the face of despair, life in the presence of death. A mere three years after coming eye to eye with the Angel of Death, the Jewish people, by establishing the State of Israel, made the single most powerful affirmation in two thousand years that Am Yisrael Chai, the Jewish people lives.
Moses and Aaron were like the two hemispheres of the Jewish brain: human emotion on the one hand, faith in God, the covenant, and the future on the other. Without the second, we would have lost our hope. Without the first, we would have lost our humanity. It is not easy to keep that balance, that tension. Yet it is essential. Faith does not render us invulnerable to tragedy but it gives us the strength to mourn and then, despite everything, to carry on.
https://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/507586851.html
Future Tense – How The Jews Invented Hope
Rabbi Sacks
[Why are we here? Why are we Jews? Why does the world need – if indeed it does – a Jewish presence, a Jewish voice?
Consider the structure of biblical narrative. In literature there are many kinds of narrative but they all have one thing in common, what Frank Kermode called ‘the sense of an ending’. They reach closure. Some end with ‘they all lived happily ever after’. We call these fairy tales. Others end in death and defeat. We call them tragedies. There are other types, but they all have a beginning and an end. That’s what makes them stories.
Now consider Genesis. The Jewish story begins with God’s call to Abraham to leave his land, his birthplace and his father’s house to travel ‘to the land that I will show you.’ Seven times God promises Abraham the land, yet he has to haggle with the Hittites to buy one small plot in which to bury Sarah. Jacob and his family are forced into exile in Egypt. Genesis ends with the promise unfulfilled.
Then Exodus begins. God calls Moses to lead the Israelites back to freedom and the promised land. Now, we feel, the story is about to reach closure. But it doesn’t come. Instead, a journey that should have taken days lasts forty years. In the final scene of Deuteronomy, we see Moses, still on the far side of the Jordan, granted only a distant vision of the land. Again, the natural ending is deferred.
Tanakh as a whole ends, in II Chronicles 36, with the Israelites in exile again, this time in Babylonia, and Cyrus giving them permission to return. We are almost back where we began, in the same region from which Abraham and his family first set out.
I know of no other stories that have the same form, namely a beginning but no end. We would not think of them as stories at all, were it not that we know the ending. It has been there since the beginning: God’s three promises to Abraham, of children, a land, and an influence on humanity such that ‘through you all the families of the earth will be blessed’. So there is an ending, but it is always beyond the visible horizon. The Jewish story ends, as Moses’ life ended, with a glimpse of the land not yet reached, a future not yet realized.
The same is true of Jewish belief. Judaism is the only civilization whose golden age is in the future: the messianic age, the age of peace when ‘nation will not lift up sword against nation’ and ‘the Lord shall be one and His name One’. This ultimately was the dividing line between Judaism and Christianity. To be a Jew is to reply to the question ‘Has the messiah come?’ with the words ‘Not yet.’ In the fine phrase of Harold Fisch, the Jewish narrative is ‘the unappeased memory of a future still to be fulfilled’. Why? What does this tell us about Judaism?
At the heart of Judaism is a belief so fundamental to Western civilization that we take it for granted, yet it is anything but self-evident. It has been challenged many times, rarely more so than today. It is the belief in human freedom. We are what we choose to be. Society is what we choose to make it. The future is open. There is nothing inevitable in the affairs of humankind.]
The ancients believed that human destiny lay in the stars, or blind fate, what the Greeks called ananke. Spinoza argued that our lives are governed by natural necessity. Marx claimed that history was determined by economic interests. Freud held that human behavior was shaped by unconscious drives. Neo-Darwinians argue that we are governed by genetic codes hardwired into our brains. Freedom, in all these theories, is an illusion.
This view is challenged in the opening chapters of the Bible. For the first time, God is seen as beyond nature, creating nature by a free, uncoerced act of will. By creating human beings in His image, He bestowed something of that freedom on us. Alone among created life forms, we too are capable of being creative. Biblical narrative is the ongoing drama of human freedom.
The first four narratives are tragic. First Adam and Eve, then Cain, abuse their freedom. That is then repeated on a global scale by the generation of the Flood and the builders of Babel. People use their freedom to transgress boundaries or deprive others of their freedom. So a new beginning becomes necessary.
Abraham is told to leave all the things that constrain freedom – our land, birthplace and father’s house – and begin a new kind of life in covenant with God. Genesis is about that covenant as it affects individuals and families. The rest of Tanakh is about the covenant as it applies to the life of a nation. The Jewish story, still unfinished, is about the journey from multiple forms of slavery to what Levinas called ‘difficult freedom’. Torah is the template of responsible freedom, our constitution of liberty.
Freedom, implies Genesis, is intimately related to language. God creates the world with words, and His first gift to humanity is the gift of speech. We know that other life forms – primates, dolphins, even bees – have rudimentary forms of language. But there is one form unique to human beings. The Torah signals this by making it the first word God speaks: Yehi, ‘Let there be’.
Human beings are the only life form capable of using the future tense. Only beings who can imagine the world other than it is, are capable of freedom. And if we are free, the future is open, dependent on us. We can know the beginning of our story but not the end. That is why, as He is about to take the Israelites from slavery to freedom, God tells Moses that His name is ‘I will be what I will be.’ Judaism, the religion of freedom, is faith in the future tense.
[Western civilization is the product of two cultures: ancient Greece and ancient Israel. The Greeks believed in fate: the future is determined by the past. Jews believed in freedom: there is no ‘evil decree’ that cannot be averted. The Greeks gave the world the concept of tragedy. Jews gave it the idea of hope. The whole of Judaism – though it would take a book to show it – is a set of laws and narratives designed to create in people, families, communities and a nation, habits that defeat despair. Judaism is the voice of hope in the conversation of mankind.
It is no accident that so many Jews are economists fighting poverty, or doctors fighting disease, or lawyers fighting injustice, in all cases refusing to see these things as inevitable. It is no accident that after the Holocaust Jews did not call it Al-Naqba, nursing resentment and revenge, but instead turned to the future, building a nation whose national anthem is Hatikvah, ‘the hope’. It is no accident that Judaism has been opposed by every empire that sought to deny people the freedom to be equal-but-different. It is no accident that Israel is still today the only free society in the Middle East.
Judaism is a religion of details, but we miss the point if we do not sometimes step back and see the larger picture. To be a Jew is to be an agent of hope in a world serially threatened by despair. Every ritual, every mitzvah, every syllable of the Jewish story, every element of Jewish law, is a protest against escapism, resignation or the blind acceptance of fate. Judaism is a sustained struggle, the greatest ever known, against the world that is, in the name of the world that could be, should be, but is not yet. There is no more challenging vocation. Throughout history, when human beings have sought hope they have found it in the Jewish story. Judaism is the religion, and Israel the home, of hope.]
http://rabbisacks.org/future-tense-how-the-jews-invented-hope-published-in-the-jewish-chronicle/
כִּי֩ אָנֹכִ֨י יָדַ֜עְתִּי אֶת־הַמַּחֲשָׁבֹ֗ת אֲשֶׁ֧ר אָנֹכִ֛י חֹשֵׁ֥ב עֲלֵיכֶ֖ם נְאֻם־ה' מַחְשְׁב֤וֹת שָׁלוֹם֙ וְלֹ֣א לְרָעָ֔ה לָתֵ֥ת לָכֶ֖ם אַחֲרִ֥ית וְתִקְוָֽה׃
Rav Kook
Composed in (c.1900 - c.1920 CE). Seminal work of thought by Rav Kook, containing a poetic vision of grandeur of the Nation of Israel reborn in its ancient
אורות, אורות מאופל, ארץ ישראל א׳:ד׳
(ד) צפית ישועה היא כח המעמיד של היהדות הגלותית, והיהדות של ארץ ישראל היא הישועה עצמה.
Orot, Lights from Darkness, Land of Israel 1:4
(4) Anticipating of redemption is the force which maintains Jewry in exile, and the Judaism of the Land of Israel is the redemption itself…
שהיה יעקב אבינו רואה אותו וסבור בו, שהוא מלך המשיח, כיון שראה אותו שמת, אמר: אף זה מת, לישועתך קויתי ה'. אמר רבי יצחק: הכל בקווי - יסורין, בקווי; קדושת השם, בקווי; זכות אבות, בקווי; תאותו של עוה"ב, בקווי.
For Yaakov saw [Shimshon] and understood him to be the Messiah. When he saw him die, he said "Even he dies?! I hope for Thy salvation, O Lord". Rabbi Yitzchak said everything through hope: [healing from] suffering, through hope; sanctity of God, through hope; merit of the forefathers, through hope; desire of the World to Come, through hope.
Lo! this is as the bread of affliction, which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt; let all those who are hungry, enter, and eat thereof; and all who are necessitous, come, and celebrate the Passover. At the present time we are here, but the next year we hope to be in the land of Israel. at the present we are servants, but the next year we hope to be free.
וכבר היה ר"ג ורבי אלעזר בן עזריה ורבי יהושע ורבי עקיבא מהלכין בדרך... שוב פעם אחת היו עולין לירושלים כיון שהגיעו להר הצופים קרעו בגדיהם כיון שהגיעו להר הבית ראו שועל שיצא מבית קדשי הקדשים התחילו הן בוכין ור"ע מצחק אמרו לו מפני מה אתה מצחק אמר להם מפני מה אתם בוכים אמרו לו מקום שכתוב בו (במדבר א, נא) והזר הקרב יומת ועכשיו שועלים הלכו בו ולא נבכה אמר להן לכך אני מצחק דכתיב (ישעיהו ח, ב) ואעידה לי עדים נאמנים את אוריה הכהן ואת זכריה בן יברכיהו וכי מה ענין אוריה אצל זכריה אוריה במקדש ראשון וזכריה במקדש שני אלא תלה הכתוב נבואתו של זכריה בנבואתו של אוריה באוריה כתיב (מיכה ג, יב) לכן בגללכם ציון שדה תחרש [וגו'] בזכריה כתיב (זכריה ח, ד) עוד ישבו זקנים וזקנות ברחובות ירושלם עד שלא נתקיימה נבואתו של אוריה הייתי מתיירא שלא תתקיים נבואתו של זכריה עכשיו שנתקיימה נבואתו של אוריה בידוע שנבואתו של זכריה מתקיימת בלשון הזה אמרו לו עקיבא ניחמתנו עקיבא ניחמתנו:
הדרן עלך אלו הן הלוקין וסליקא לה מסכת מכות
§ Apropos tribulations of exile and hope for redemption, the Gemara relates: And it once was that Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya, Rabbi Yehoshua, and Rabbi Akiva were walking along the road....On another occasion they were ascending to Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple. When they arrived at Mount Scopus and saw the site of the Temple, they rent their garments in mourning, in keeping with halakhic practice. When they arrived at the Temple Mount, they saw a fox that emerged from the site of the Holy of Holies. They began weeping, and Rabbi Akiva was laughing. They said to him: For what reason are you laughing? Rabbi Akiva said to them: For what reason are you weeping? They said to him: This is the place concerning which it is written: “And the non-priest who approaches shall die” (Numbers 1:51), and now foxes walk in it; and shall we not weep? Rabbi Akiva said to them: That is why I am laughing, as it is written, when God revealed the future to the prophet Isaiah: “And I will take to Me faithful witnesses to attest: Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah” (Isaiah 8:2). Now what is the connection between Uriah and Zechariah? He clarifies the difficulty: Uriah prophesied during the First Temple period, and Zechariah prophesied during the Second Temple period, as he was among those who returned to Zion from Babylonia. Rather, the verse established that fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah is dependent on fulfillment of the prophecy of Uriah. In the prophecy of Uriah it is written: “Therefore, for your sake Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become rubble, and the Temple Mount as the high places of a forest” (Micah 3:12), where foxes are found. There is a rabbinic tradition that this was prophesied by Uriah. In the prophecy of Zechariah it is written: “There shall yet be elderly men and elderly women sitting in the streets of Jerusalem” (Zechariah 8:4). Until the prophecy of Uriah with regard to the destruction of the city was fulfilled I was afraid that the prophecy of Zechariah would not be fulfilled, as the two prophecies are linked. Now that the prophecy of Uriah was fulfilled, it is evident that the prophecy of Zechariah remains valid. The Gemara adds: The Sages said to him, employing this formulation: Akiva, you have comforted us; Akiva, you have comforted us. We will return to you and we have acquired Tractate Makkos.
מאמרי ראי"ה - קודש וחול בתחית ישראל (מן עתון 'ההד', תרצ"א)
ביחס לתקוה המפעמת בלב כל יהודי מדור דור לישועה ולגאולה השתמשו חז"ל בביטוי 'צפיה'. שואלים לאדם 'צפית לישועה', ולא 'קוית'. צפיה היא מגזירת 'צפה'[1]. תפקיד הצופה להשתמש בכל מאורע שהוא להזהיר על תקלה ולעורר למפעל של ישועה. וכך עלינו להשתמש בכל המאורעות שבעולם, שעל ידם תוכל לבוא או לצמוח תשועה לישראל...
Regarding the hope for salvation and redemption that beats in every Jew's heart from generation to generation, our rabbis used the term "צפיה--Man is asked "did you hearken for salvation?" and not "did you hope". צפיה comes from the word scout. The role of the scout is to use every occurrence to warn against faults and to awaken the undertaking of salvation. So it is upon us to make use of every occurrence in the world, for through them salvation for Israel can arrive or spring up.
Footnote 4 of Halachic Man
Rabbi Soloveitchik
Religion is not, at the outset, a refuge of grace and mercy for the despondent and desperate, an enchanted stream for crushed spirits, but a raging clamorous torrent of man’s consciousness with all its crises, pangs, and torments. Yes, it is true that during the third Sabbath meal at dusk, as the day of rest declines and man’s soul yearns for its Creator and is afraid to depart from that realm of holiness whose name is Sabbath, into the dark and frightening, secular workaday week, we sing the psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters” (Ps. 23), etc., etc., and we believe with our entire hearts in the ultimate destination of homo religiosis, not the path leading to that destination. For the path that eventually will lead to the “green pastures” and to the “still waters” is not the royal road, but a narrow, twisting footway that threads its course along the steep mountain slope, as the terrible abyss yawns at the traveler’s feet. Many see “the Lord passing by; and a great and strong wind rending mountains and shattering rocks . . . and after the wind an earthquake . . . and after the earthquake a fire” but only a few prove worthy of hearing “the still small voice” (1 Kings 19:11-12). Out of the straits of inner oppositions and incongruities, spiritual doubts and uncertainties, out of the depths of a psyche rent with antinomies and contradictions, out of the bottomless pit of a soul that struggles with its own torments I have called, I have called unto Thee, O Lord.
The Dignity of Difference p. 206
Rabbi Sacks
“One of the most important distinctions I have learned in the course of reflection on Jewish history is the difference between optimism and hope. Optimism is the belief that things will get better. Hope is the belief that, together, we can make things better. Optimism is a passive virtue, hope an active one. It takes no courage to be an optimist, but it takes a great deal of courage to have hope. Knowing what we do of our past, no Jew can be an optimist. But Jews have never – despite a history of sometimes awesome suffering – given up hope”
Rabbi Sacks
התקוה
כֹּל עוֹד בַּלֵּבָב פְּנִימָה
נֶפֶשׁ יְהוּדִי הוֹמִיָּה,
וּלְפַאֲתֵי מִזְרָח קָדִימָה,
עַיִן לְצִיּוֹן צוֹפִיָּה;
עוֹד לֹא אָבְדָה תִּקְוָתֵנוּ,
הַתִּקְוָה בַּת שְׁנוֹת אַלְפַּיִם,
לִהְיוֹת עַם חָפְשִׁי בְּאַרְצֵנוּ,
אֶרֶץ צִיּוֹן וִירוּשָׁלַיִם.