Pesach this year took place in what felt like a very dark time – with the war in Iran, antisemitic attacks at home, and the death penalty in Israel introduced the day before the festival began.
Will spring bring renewed hope with the longer days? Well, yes and no. The Jewish cycle of the year is a cycle of renewal and, as such, essentially optimistic.
The seven weeks that we walk between Pesach and Shavuot – the time we spend counting the Omer – is a period of personal spiritual renewal, and of hope and anticipation as the days grow longer.
But the Torah that we receive on Shavuot does not automatically bring renewed hope. What it does do is provide a framework of laws that, if we follow them, will ensure a brighter future and a more just and peaceful world – but only if we follow them.
So, for example, we need to love our neighbour as ourselves; to look after the stranger; to remember that we are all made in the image of God; and to refrain from taking revenge or bearing a grudge. They’re not always easy to follow.
And if we don’t follow them, then as late spring turns to midsummer and Shavuot gives way to the months of Tammuz and Tisha B’Av, we are reminded that there are always consequences to our actions; that the Promised Land is given to us on condition that we keep these laws; and that if we don’t, we can lose it.
Judaism is rooted in the rhythm of the natural year – we celebrate freedom from slavery in spring and we harvest our spiritual lives in the autumn – but there is nothing inevitable about our growth through the seasons. Jewish life is not just a circle – it is a spiral. Linear time, in which one year follows the other, intersects with the cycle of the year.
Hope will come if we use the power of the seasons to take action to repair our broken world. Hope will come if we use our freedom, and this Torah we are given, to make our world a better place.
I very much hope that the longer days will bring renewed hope, but that will only happen if we use the growing light to protest against injustice and support those who are working for a better world.
To paraphrase the philosopher Michael Walzer: wherever we are, it is probably Egypt. We know that there is a better place, a promised land. And the only way to get there is through the wilderness.
- Rabbi Naomi Goldman serves Kol Chai: Hatch End Reform Jewish Community. This article originally appeared in The Jewish News.