The Torah portion that we read this week, just days before the 9th of Av commands that we not fear the future. The secret to Jewish survival has been our ability to survive persecution and the horrors of hatred and bigotry with the hope that we can make tomorrow better for us than was today.
If you think about it, you will notice that the ability to survive with but a hope is not very much. It is not money; it has no value. It cannot be bartered or traded. It only has worth to the people who have that gift of hope.
Yet it is that very gift that our culture makes light of. A BMW now is of greater importance than hope. A big house now is of greater importance than hope. A ticket to the Yankees or the Mets is of greater importance than hope. Having something today is more important than the hope of having something tomorrow. So we strive to satisfy our present day yearnings. We work tirelessly for the modern equivalent of hope, the commodity that we call money and wealth.
Yet the hope that every Jew and perhaps every person can carry is not a physical commodity. It is rather the belief that there is purpose to our lives and to the world. It is the belief that ‘the jangling discord of society can turn into a symphony of brotherhood.” It is the understanding that all people on planet earth are brothers and sisters.
With that hope we work to make a life where all people are equal before God; where all humanity has food to eat; where all the earth is unblemished from the destruction of man. That hope, in the face of all the evil that surrounds us, is our belief in utopia, the End of Days, the Messianic Era.