Inspiration Of Change

With so much unraveling before our eyes, hope is often the only thing that keeps us going. It is something deep inside us that tells us to look for the better times around the corner.

What is the source of this hope?

Some would argue that it's just another tool in the survival kit of Homo sapiens, packed into our genetic code along with the instructions for fear and adrenalin. When, in his Essay on Man, Alexander Pope wrote that hope springs eternal in the human breast, he was merely poeticizing a function of blind genetic material.

Yet, as many of us know from personal experience, sometimes when everything looks bleak and hope a foolish naiveté, the whole situation unexpectedly reverses itself and hope is vindicated. As the saying goes, it is darkest before the dawn.

In the macrocosm, too, the ups and downs of history itself would seem to support the contention that hope is not just an involuntary response of the human organism, but that there is indeed reason to hope for a better future. Ancient idolatry was superseded by monotheism; the Dark Ages was eventually followed by the Renaissance; Nazism was vanquished by the Allies. The light may often be slow in coming, but darkness has never been a permanent decree.

It makes sense, then, to hope, for we know from experience that things do have a way of getting better -- at least sometimes.

Of course, history is not over yet, and why should anyone believe that the final outcome will see a triumph of light over darkness? Perhaps it will turn out the other way?

Jewish thought recognizes two kinds of hope. One is a hope that things will get better, even when we know it may not come to pass as we wish. This is called in Hebrew tikvah