This Week: A Hope Collage
Because if there's something we could use, it's hope.
Dear fam,
May was a month of conflicting emotions. Honestly, so far June is, too — Pride month always brings up a lot of feelings. But May… what a whirlwind. Here’s a quick recap:
My folks came to visit from Israel; I turned 39; I officiated a Bat Mitzvah service; my wife and I performed two Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day) concerts/study sessions; I flew to Montreal for 36 hours to officiate a wedding; my wife and I helped organize a major day of political action in support of the People’s Peace Conference; we officiated an aufruf service; we did all our regular work things — meetings, sessions, rehearsals, and and and…
…and the world kept happening. One depressing disaster after another pouring into our ears and eyes and hearts. Also, my kids kept being kids, with wacky ideas for craft projects and strange food requests.
Also, probably other stuff I’m forgetting.
It was a blur. And a lot to process. This week, I’d like to try to work through it all with you, starting with a consistent thread I found to make sense of the madness. And that thread was hope.
These days, it feels as though even mentioning the word hope is Pollyannish. The idea that one could be hopeful in the face of mass starvation, ongoing rocket fire, widespread devastation, obstinate and callous leaders — most folks think it’s absurd.
That’s the thing, though — I think that not hoping for a better future is absurd.
I identify as a hopeful cynic. I am clear-eyed about the obstacles to a bright future and understand how insurmountable they seem. From within that clarity of vision, though, I choose hope.
Indeed, many of the obstacles don’t just seem insurmountable — they are. There is no reason to hope, for example, that Bibi Netanyahu will suddenly care for anyone but himself. Donald Trump will not begin to be swayed by anything but his whims and ego. Hamas leaders (whoever they are at this point) will not be moved to a collaborative future with an Israeli government.
Even if they did, the trauma of these long months will not suddenly resolve itself. Neither will the long shadow of starvation, of fear, of indoctrination.
So, many say, we resolve ourselves to a life of fear and anger and danger. What choice do we have? We can’t climb this mountain. We are forced to live in the shadowy glen beneath it.
This Sunday, my wife and I will take our kids to celebrate Pride month in a nearby town. We went last year, too, and it was incredible. Rainbow cupcakes, face paint, balloons, music, joy joy JOY.
By contrast, I never met a gay person (knowingly) until my early 20s. I certainly never celebrated Pride. Or imagined I’d get to live my life with a woman. Heck, I thought even kissing a woman might end my life as I knew it1.
My kids know queer folks. They know we have a love flag outside our house, and they know what it means — that people get to be who they are love who they are.
Still, last week someone I respect asked me if I think it’s ok for “boys to play girl’s sports in schools” and, when I suggested it might be more complicated, and that we should believe people when they tell us who they are, replied, “Should we, though?”
Oof.
Change happens, in its wiggly-line, serpentine kind of way.
When we agreed to sing and teach for Yom HaAtzmaut, my wife and I knew it would be complicated. How could we sing the traditional songs of celebration, like with everything going on? Could we really sing words of overcoming, or of might, or of unity?
In the end, we decided to focus both evenings on the idea of hope. The national anthem is called Hatikvah, literally The Hope, and it talks about the hope of being free in our land. I don’t know what other folks think about when they hear it, but I always pray for a day when we are truly free — of the pain and destruction inflicted by extremism in all its forms. When we realize the root of the name Jerusalem: Peace.
The setlist was varied, and so was the audience. We sang about love being a force that will win out, and about the power of many voices calling together for a better future. We sang Hatikvah, and I shared my thoughts on what its words mean to me. We encouraged the audience to remember their oneness with everything in the world — from rocks to trees to someone who cuts you off in traffic. We are all imbued with Divine Presence, or so I believe.
After, a congregant came up to share a thought about that last part. “I’m not sure you’re right about the oneness,” he said, “what’s important is connection. Because we are not one with those who would destroy us — but we are connected to them. Inherently. Because we’re all created in G-d’s image.” Yes, I thought, because I knew this man was, shall we say, not a lefty like myself. But he saw what I was saying. And I saw him. For that moment, the connection was vibrant.
On May 9th, 2025, at the second annual People’s Peace Conference, many thousands of Jewish Israelis and Palestinians gathered in Jerusalem to talk about a practical solution to the entrenched conflict. They were religious and secular, moderates and left-wing radicals, Muslim and Jewish and Christian. They were Professor Yuval Noah Harari, Member of Knesset Ayman Odeh, and Maoz Inon, Manar Kaadan, Dr. Yael Admi, and Dr. Rula Hardal.
They did not agree on everything, but they shared a conviction I know well — change happens, in its serpentine, wiggly-line way. And we have to choose hope. We have to.
In the quote above, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks outlines the difference between hope and optimism. I am not naïve in the way he describes optimists (at least, I hope not!), but I am hopeful. I fuel my hope with action.
Every time I try to change how the school district supports queer families, I’m hopeful. Every time folks show up to an event I helped organize to say they refuse violence of all kinds, I’m hopeful. Because I know that, as long as I and others are working, even a little bit, there’s still a chance the future can get better.
Wishing you a Shabbat shalom, a Sabbath of peace,
Mikhal
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It did, but in a good way.