Tag: deliver

I feel G-d’s love whenever I’m with animals, particularly out in nature. For example, I’ve done a lot of work with rescue animals or animals that have experienced hardship, and I’m always amazed at how forgiving they are and how they are able to experience and share joy. When I really stop to engage with them, I can see so clearly how obvious it is that G-d loves them so much and by extension, us. It reminds me how every living being is special and full of potential.
–Jess

This may be stretching things a bit, but I’ve always felt that at it’s core, Phoebe Gilman’s wonderful children’s book “Something from Nothing” is a story of hope.

While I’d encourage you to rent or buy the hard-copy of the book, you can experience this gem instantly by watching this video:

Learn More at: https://pjlibrary.org/books/something-from-nothing/if309
–Ben Simon

Here’s a story that inspired a sense of hope that’s related to the recent eclipse:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/04/09/solar-eclipse-new-york-teacher/

“”When he started teaching in 1978, Patrick Moriarty passed out worksheets to his science class, showing the trajectories of upcoming eclipses. Only one was expected to pass near their hometown in Upstate New York, but watching it as a class was going to be difficult — it wouldn’t occur for nearly five decades.

“Hey, circle that one on April 8, 2024,” Moriarty recalled telling his students. “We’re going to get together on that one.”
…”

What I love about this story is that it highlights that amazing things are possible through simply having the audicity to hope.
–Ben Simon

Proposed title: Current president and two future presidents

Captured at our morning minyan. We hold morning minyan at 7:30am on Thursday morning. Services are held in person and are available to join via Zoom.

Learn More at: https://www.etzhayim.net/worship/hybrid-services/

–Omer Bot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3richcoCUI

I’m not entirely sure why this video evokes a sense of hope for me, but when I thought of this project, this video immediately popped into my head. And so in the spirit of the advice I’ve given repeatedly about this year’s topic, I’m not overthinking this and I’m just sharing what came to mind.

With that said, I think what I find so powerful about this video is the model it elegantly suggests: nobody is just one thing. We’re just people. What may be easy to you, may be hard to me, and vice versa.

And that gives me hope.
–Ben Simon

I have always been awestruck that mathematics accurately describes the physical world. Why should Einstein’s equations of general relativity map precisely to gravity and curved spacetime? Why should Maxwell’s equations map precisely to electricity and magnetism? There’s a grand plan, and I believe that God is its source.
–Milt Hess

https://omer.etzhayim.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/seq.5.1.jpg

I paint – not especially well, but enough to be an outlet, to help me process. In January, when I was finding it particularly hard to sleep, I started working on small illustrations of the names of women and girls murdered on 10/7 and killed in the bombings in Gaza in the months since.

Looking up translations, working on these little memorials, I kept thinking: What florid, gorgeous names we give our daughters. How poetic we all become when we name a baby girl in honor of G-d’s creation: Evening sky. Damask rose. Desert plant.

And specifically (at least in my amateur effort at researching name origins) how similar, the meanings of these Arabic names and Hebrew. Of course they are: The words describe the same natural beauty of the same land. I think about how generations of parents Israeli and Palestinian, Jews and Muslims, have felt G-d’s presence looking at the same water, the same palms, the same light, and blessed their daughters in its image.

It reminds me that our respective claims and attachment to this same land, arguably the cause of the violence that ended these beautiful lives, is also the wellspring of our connection to each other. Honestly, I don’t know how we get from where we are now to a future of coexistence on that land – war is so insidious in how it makes hope seem naive. But memorializing these evocative names reminded me of experiencing G-d’s presence in Israel, and it reminds me, too, to be hopeful. To nurture a vision where my son (who radiates light like his own Hebrew name) experiences it, too, watching the sunrise break over Masada and the glitter path undulating on the Dead Sea, in a version of the future where, out of all this loss and retribution, grows a peace worthy of the beauty of the land.
–Anonymous

On the 16th day of the Omer we talked about Hatikvah (‘The Hope’), Israel’s national anthem. Here is a moving recording, captured on April 15th, 1945 of Jews singing Hatkivah at the recently liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWOkML4A8sU
–Omer Bot

Given our topic includes hope, it seems appropriate to explore Hatikvah. This is Israel’s National Anthem and the title translates to ‘The Hope’.

This article explores Hatikvah:

https://jewishunpacked.com/hatikvah-the-story-behind-the-anthem/

A few highlights include:

The words for Hatikvah come from a 9 stanza poem written in 1886 by Naftali Hertz Imber.

The words were put to music in 1888 by Samuel Cohen. The tune is very strongly inspired by by Moldavian song, “Carol cu boi.”

Over the years, Hatikvah has truly been a source of hope. There are documented cases of Jews singing the song at concentration camps during World War II.

Hatikvah only became the official national anthem of Israel in 2004(!).

If you’re critical of Hatikvah, you’re in good company. Orthodox Jews are unhappy it doesn’t mention G-d or the Torah. Some liberal Israeli’s are offended that Hatikvah talks about the hope of a homeland when one already exists. And Arab Israeli’s feel excluded by the lyrics. Theodor Herzl disliked it so much, he launched a number of international contests to find a better anthem.

Learn More at: https://jewishunpacked.com/hatikvah-the-story-behind-the-anthem/
–Omer Bot