OCTOBER 31 • 2024 | 43
Re-Discovering Hope
A
t a time of endless
adversity and anxiety
about the future, it is
helpful to reflect on the thread of
hope that has pervaded the Jewish
Weltanschauung (worldview) since
its inception millennia ago.
Noting the maxim schver
tzu zein a yid / it is hard
to be a Jew, one finds an
ever-present current of hope
that tenaciously refuses to
succumb to the challenges
of being Jewish. Simply put,
Judaism is inherently and
emphatically hopeful.
The story of Noah is
no exception. Beyond the
moral failure, not only of
humanity but even the
animal kingdom, emerges
a new possibility for life to
get better and living beings
to be better. This possibility is
built into the ark itself; the specs
of the ark include the instruction
to fashion a tzohar in the roof
of the ark, which the Midrash
understands to be either a window
or a prism. As commentator
Abraham Ibn Ezra explains, it is a
“passage through which light can
enter [the ark].” The ark includes
a ray of light, in other words, a ray
of hope when things have hit rock
bottom.
Later, after living in the ark day
after day, submerged in an endless
rain and ubiquitous darkness,
Noah opens the window as the ark
comes to rest on Mount Ararat.
The late 12th-century
commentator David Kimchi
asks why Noah waited until the
ark settled rather than when the
rain stopped months earlier. His
answer: Noah was still fearful
lest the current of the water enter
through the window.
Finally, Noah rediscovers a sense
of hope — a turning point in the
story. He opens the window and
sends out a raven and a dove. Once
the latter returns with the olive
branch, hope has returned fully;
and he and everyone else in the ark
return to and reengage with the
world.
The Torah’s choice of words
here is telling: The dove
returns not with an olive
branch that has passively
come to be in its teeth, but
taraf be-piha, that is, a branch
that the dove has actively
seized captured in its teeth.
Regaining hope in the face
of adversity is not something
that just happens; rather,
it requires a person to be
willing to fight for and seize it
when the possibility arises.
God’s new offer of
a hopeful future with
possibilities is as vast as the
rainbow itself. To be sure, this
new offer is conditioned on a new
sense of moral responsibility. God
agrees not to annihilate the world;
humanity agrees to act with respect
for all creatures.
From this point on, the stories
and teachings of the Tanach follow
this template: Slavery is followed
by redemption from slavery;
the difficulties of wandering in
the desert lead eventually to the
Promised Land, which the Children
of Israel must actively conquer and
build. Even the dour exhortations
of the prophets are followed by a
promise of redemption and a better,
even utopian, future. The path from
adversity to hope is not always
easy; but for Jews it is always there
awaiting our willingness to begin
the journey.
Dr. Howard N. Lupovitch is a professor of
history at Wayne State University and director
of WSU’s Cohn-Haddow Center for Judaic
Studies.
SPIRIT
TORAH PORTION
Howard
Lupovitch
Parshat
Noach:
Genesis
6:9-11:32;
Numbers
28:9-15;
Isaiah 66:1-
24.
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