Sometimes it feels as though the walls are closing in. Sometimes, looking at the world around us, it is difficult to see much reason for hope.

The latest election cycle in America has been sobering. Candidates willing to make hostility toward Israel central to their campaigns have found an audience and, in some cases, political power. Public accusations against Israel, including the charge of genocide, are deployed with a confidence that would once have been difficult to imagine a short time ago. Unabashed haters of Israel have been brought into power on campaigns built on anti Israel rhetoric.

Equally troubling are voices on the political right, reflecting on this election cycle and suggest that support for Israel has become an electoral liability and might have been the cause for this election swing. If that conclusion takes hold, what will happen to those alliances when the next election comes?

Across the Atlantic, Israel faces its own uncertainty. The recent election has left the country without a clear governing majority, with sharply divided political blocs and difficult coalition negotiations ahead. From both shores, it is easy to look at the landscape and feel that the future is narrowing.

But there are two things we must remember.

Perspective

First, perspective matters. The individuals who give us cause for concern do not represent all of America. This country has a long history as a haven for Jewish life, with deep cultural and political ties to Jews and Israel. Those realities should not be dismissed, even as we acknowledge the warning signs. And despite Israel’s political divisions, its military and society have demonstrated extraordinary resilience through years of war. We should not confuse a frightening moment with a predetermined future.

Beyond Prediction

Second, and more fundamentally, we need to remember who we are.

This takes me back to a very difficult conversation. In Lech Lecha, Avraham Avinu turned to Hashem with an agonizing question. He had been promised a future, but he has no child to carry it forward. “You have given me no offspring.” How, then, can the promise be fulfilled?

Hashem answers by taking Avraham outside: “Look toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then comes the promise: “Ko yihyeh zarecha.” So shall your descendants be.

Why does the Torah tell us that Hashem took Avraham outside? On the simplest level, he needed to leave the tent to see the night sky. But the Gemara sees a deeper meaning.

In Nedarim 32a, Chazal explain that Avraham saw a future constrained by his mazal, the constellation under which he believed his life was governed. Avraham knew he was not physically destined to have children. Hashem told him, “Tzei me’itztagninus shelcha.” Leave the limits of your astrological calculations. “Ein mazal l’Yisrael.” The destiny of Israel cannot be reduced to those calculations. Hashem was not merely taking Avraham outside a physical tent. He was inviting him outside the framework through which he had learned to measure what was possible.

Taking the first step

Rav Meir Shapiro of Lublin takes this point further. Why command Avraham to count the stars when no human being could possibly complete the task? Because Avraham was being asked to begin anyway. He could look up at that vast sky, know that the task was impossible, and still start counting.

“Ko yihyeh zarecha.” That, too, would be the nature of his descendants. They would attempt the impossible and yet take the first step. They would begin the work, even when its completion seemed beyond reach.

That has been the story of the Jewish people. We have outlived empires that appeared immovable. We have insisted on moral purpose in ages that seemed to have abandoned it. Again and again, Jewish history has defied the expectations of those who thought they could calculate its end.

David Ben Gurion is often quoted as saying that in Israel, to be a realist, one must believe in miracles. It is a memorable formulation of something Avraham learned beneath the stars: reality is not exhausted by what our present circumstances allow us to predict.

Not losing hope

There is a story told of the Klausenberger Rebbe after the Holocaust. Having survived the war while losing so much of his family, he spoke to fellow survivors during the first days of repentance after the war in the DP camp. He ruminated: what could people who had endured such suffering possibly be confessing when doing viduy? They had endured so much. What was left to cleanse? He then confided in those present that he was confessing for those moments when he himself had feared that escape was impossible. His confession was momentary loss of hope.

We have lived through dark chapters before, some far darker than our own. Our task has never been to pretend that the darkness is not real. It is to remember that the darkness does not possess the final word.

Avraham was not asked to finish counting the stars. He was asked to look up and begin.

Picture credit: Sharon Manuel joy from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/view-of-a-nebula-and-stars-on-a-night-sky-20446121/