The Jewish people have walked through a profound darkness for two years. We have witnessed hatred in forms that many of us thought belonged to history books. We have felt the sting of loneliness as old alliances frayed. We have confronted brokenness – between communities, within society, and, yes, even within ourselves. As we head into a new calendar year, we can to turn the page, while not forgetting or forsaking the past. It is time to lead with hope again.
Hope may sound superfluous or opaque, but it is not, nor is it naive. Hope does not pretend the world is whole when it is not. Hope is the belief that the world can be made whole and that Jews have a role in doing just that. For the Jewish people, hope – and the actions that hope catalyzes – is most substantive when it emanates from education.
Jewish education is how our people transmit knowledge and meaning. It is how we cultivate empathy, resilience, imagination, and responsibility. By learning Torah and our other timeless texts, our children understand that they are part of something larger than fear and chaos: We carry values capable of healing a fractured world and are heirs to a tradition that has endured devastation before and emerged not hardened, but softened – open to rebuilding, evolving, committed to living, and determined to bring light to others.
Research shows that hope and having an optimistic orientation positively impact nearly every aspect of a person’s life. Hopeful people have an overall higher quality of life, with both mental and physical health measuring better than in those with pessimistic worldviews.
Moreover, with Jewish education as its foundation, hope can be an antidote to a world that is hurting today. Divisiveness runs deep. Hatred, especially antisemitism, is resurging in ways we could not have imagined. People feel unsafe, unseen, unmoored. And in the face of that, the easiest thing to do is to retreat. To turn inward. To let anger calcify into cynicism.
Yet we are capable of something greater
This has never been clearer to me than when I was privileged to facilitate a conversation with Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin. Over the last 26 months, Rachel and Jon were our people’s moral compass. They endured more than any family should ever have to. Yet they have insisted, again and again, on choosing life and believing in a more positive future for the Jewish people and for the world.
Their hope is not blind. It is driven by their deep beliefs in our faith and our stories, rooted strongly in their individual Jewish knowledge. If they can choose hope, then it is incumbent upon the rest of us to ensure our younger generations are equipped to do the same.
We are experiencing a unique moment in time when it is mandatory to show our youth all that the Jewish community Jewish and education can add to their lives. Lessons gleaned from our teachings help one navigate life’s challenges, make sense of a complex world, and engage rigorously but respectfully with people with whom they disagree. These are powerful skills that can help any person be happier, more open, more successful, and more hopeful.
At The Jewish Education Project, we are committed to supporting teachers in classrooms, youth leaders who sit with a teenager in crisis, rabbis, camp counselors, curriculum designers, and other Jewish professionals who want to turn the page in the new year.
The recent Hope Study by M² showed that we must do this work in earnest, as only 24% of Jewish communal professionals often feel hopeful about the future, compared to 82% of the US population. It is imperative that we prepare a generation of Jews who will meet the world with courage and conviction. We don’t want our youth to be passive inheritors of a wounded narrative; we want to help shape active creators of a vibrant, joyful, curious Jewish future.
That starts with Jewish education, the key to inspiring hope.
The writer is the CEO of The Jewish Education Project.