Steve Ornstein – Tikva-Hope is what we are made of
The elections are over and every pundit is sharing their appraisal of what a future government will look like. After all the disgusting personal attacks from ALL sides of the political spectrum is it any wonder why so many people are exhausted and disappointed by our political leaders.
Israeli-Arab party leadership taunts the Zionist parties and the right-wing belittles the Israeli-Arab party. The left trashes the religious and the religious parties rear their ugly head and display a lack of Torah understanding calling Jews on the left “not” Jewish. So the endless disgusting display of the lowest forms of human interaction is witnessed by the entire nation.
Why is it as a nation we can innovate, not fear failure, pick-up and begin a new, value our family and friends like no other people that I have experienced and yet eat each other alive at the drop of a hat?
Yet It feels amazing and blessed to experience the warmth and true love that we share for each other. We witness the willingness to help strangers in the street at a moment’s notice as if they were family. Yet we can be so mean as the hatred of the other flows from our mouths in conversation.
This country is a blessing and a miracle with so many Jews coming from so many different cultures having so many different native languages working together because of our common Jewish connection.
The blessings of many of our non-Jewish brothers and sisters that have fought hard to participate in this adventure together despite the prejudice and often times fear by the rest of the population.
The anti-Israel crowd globally has called us apartheid, including some living in our own country with a very radical agenda to disrupt and divide. But if one spends time here it is clear that our public spaces are fully Integrated and enjoy a spirit of cooperation and openness that defies all the labels and names we are called by the hate-crowd of the left and right through-out the world.
To sit in a café and watch as the world moves through our consciousness, one can experience HOPE-Tikva that makes living in our homeland worth every inconvenience. I often experience living here as a deep meditation of the soul. We are in a constant state of becoming. I hope-Tikva that it never stops!
