David Arnow - Choosing Hope: The Heritage of Judaism

David Arnow guides us gently, engagingly, and insightfully to see hope where we never noticed it before.

Rabbi Judith Hauptman, E. Billi Ivry Professor Emerita of Talmud and Rabbinic Culture, Jewish Theological Seminary

This vital book challenges us to think about hope in a new wayas a response to life in which we are partners in the ongoing work of imagining and creating a better world. Through its nuanced readings of biblical, classical, and mystical texts, Choosing Hope offers a deep and refreshing understanding of the centrality of hope not only in Jewish theology, prayer, and ritual; Jewish values; and even contemporary Israel but also in our own lives. So dive inand choose hope.

Rabbi Laura Geller, Rabbi Emerita of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills

This careful, thorough examination of hope in Jewish sources and thought will lift the spirits of all who read it.

Rabbi Steven Bob, author of Jonah and the Meaning of Our Lives

Choosing Hope is not only a profound exploration of the meaning and claim of hope but a wonderfully inspiring interpretation of the Jewish tradition. Drawing on meticulous reading of vast sources and teachings, this extraordinary book bears witness to the core idea of Jewish faith itself: as an awakening to confront our sorrows and despair with the personal and communal ongoing task of tikkun.

Moshe Halbertal, John and Golda Cohen Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy at the Hebrew University

Serious, well-reasoned, literate, and uplifting, Choosing Hope should be in a great many hands and hearts.

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, scholar-in-residence, Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco

This book is a blessing, a sublime meditation on hope, an erudite feast of Jewish wisdom, and a wellspring of surprising, subversive, deeply satisfying epiphanies about the relationship between hope and all the emotions and experiences that comprise a life of meaning. Doubt, despair, anger, activism, memory, humor, love, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, the Holocaust, and the State of Israel are among the topics explored by David Arnow in his masterful illumination of the purpose and power of hope.

Letty Cottin Pogrebin, author of Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America

David Arnow

The Jewish Publication Society | Philadelphia

University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln

2022 by David Arnow

Cover designed by University of Nebraska Press; cover image: 2021 Wolf Kahn / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society ( ARS ), NY . Photograph courtesy the Miles McEnery Gallery.

Author photo Madeleine Arnow.

Portions of chapter 1 first appeared as Reflections on Jonah and Yom Kippur, Conservative Judaism 54, no. 4 (Summer 2002): 3348.

All rights reserved. Published by the University of Nebraska Press as a Jewish Publication Society book.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Arnow, David, author.

Title: Choosing hope: the heritage of Judaism / David Arnow.

Description: Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [2022] | Series: JPS essential Judaism series | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021042973

ISBN 9780827615205 (paperback)

ISBN 9780827618893 (epub)

ISBN 9780827618909 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH : HopeReligious aspectsJudaism. | Hope in the Bible. | Bible. Old TestamentCriticism and interpretation. | Rabbinical literatureHistory and criticism.

Classification: LCC BM 645. H 64 A 76 2022 | DDC 234/.25dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042973

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

To Madeleine,

My partner in hope and everything else,

You have captured my heart.

Song of Songs 4:9

Writing a book about hope has certainly heightened my awareness of the social matrixes that sustain it. My wife of forty-six short years, Madeleine, has been the greatest imaginable support, listening with unending patience to virtually every idea and piece of minutiae associated with this project. Her patience and advice have been great gifts to me. My parents, Joan and Robert Arnow (zl), did not live to see the publication of Choosing Hope, but they encouraged me to write it. More than that, they taught me what hope looks like: about the work and the persistence it takes to transform dreams into reality.

I owe special thanks to Jeffrey Hoffman and Matthew Goldstone, with whom Ive studied, discussed many of the ideas in this book, and worked on translations of Hebrew texts about hope. A number of individuals were kind enough to read parts of the manuscript and provide me with important suggestions. I am extremely grateful to Noah Arnow and Andrew Weiner for reviewing the entire manuscript and to Joshua Arnow, Madeleine Arnow, Peter Arnow, David Ellenson, Elliott Malki, Steve Shaw (zl), and Moshe Sokol for reading parts of it.

Many people helped me by answering particular questions that arose in the course of my research or sharing insights or texts about hope: Lina Alatawna, Amran Armani, Adam Arnow, Ruth Arnow, Tamara Arnow, Mordechai Bar-On, Menachem Bombach, Miles B. Cohen, Steven M. Lev Cohen, Kher Elbaz, Michael Ben-Eli, Tamar Eldad-Appelbaum, Robert Friedland, Sheila Friedland, Marc Gellman, Alexander Gordin, Sally Gottesman, Moshe Halbertal, Eran Halperin, Robert Harris, Judith Hauptman, Shai Held, Aron Hirt-Manheimer, Itzak Galnoor, Gloria Jackel, Jill Jacobs, Alon Lee Green, Yoaz Hendel, Lawrence A. Hoffman, Jonathan Jacoby, Sigal Kanotopsky, Michael Kaplan, Rachel Libeskind, Alon Liel, Rachel Liel, Barbara Lowenfels, Ruth Messinger, Robert Norris, Shir Nosatzki, Ilay Ofran, Paul Ohana, Jonah Pesner, Yehuda Rapaport, Gilbert Rosenthal, Mindy Rubin, John Ruskay, Chaim Seidler-Feller, Nahid Abu Shareb, Nachum Shargel, Shmuel Shatach, Eilon Schwartz, Alice Shalvi, Abigail Dauber Sterne, Alon Tal, Annie Tucker, Gordon Tucker, Burton L. Visotzky, Peter Weintraub, Eleanor Yadin, Adina Yoffie, Adir Yolkut, Brenda Zlatin, and the members of the daily minyan at Temple Israel Center of White Plains, New York.

Finally, I am extremely grateful to Barry L. Schwartz, director of The Jewish Publication Society, for encouraging me through the process that led to the books acceptance for publication; and to Joy Weinberg, managing director of JPS and editor extraordinaire. Her sharp eye, good sense, and deft pen improved the manuscript immeasurably and resulted in what we both hope is a more reader-friendly volume. I give thanks as well to Elizabeth Zaleski and the wonderful editorial and production staff at the University of Nebraska Press for co-publishing this volume.

Rabbi Yitzchak said, Everything depends on hoping...

Genesis Rabbah 98:14 (fifth- or sixth-century midrash)

When I was seven, my mother survived what were thought to be fatal complications when giving birth to her third child. Doctors told my father to prepare himself to tell his two sons that their mother had died. My father prayed. Later, I remember him saying, I prayed to my God and He answered me. He responded with a lifelong devotion to God and Judaism, which changed his life and ours as well.