MAZON Blog

At our October 2024 board meeting, Len David delivered the following D’var Torah to the MAZON board and staff. His message deeply resonated and we wanted to share his words about hope, action, and the work we can accomplish together with our broader community. We hope his words will stay with you, as they have with the team at MAZON.

In a typical year, MAZON Board Chair Carolyn Schwarz Tisdale’s ask of me to deliver a d’var torah, just days after the end of the fall season Jewish holidays, and the reading of the Bereshit (Genesis) Torah portion in synagogues around the world, would have been a relative softball request. There are a host of sources of inspiration and insight — Jewish and secular — filled with content on new beginnings, hope, rededication, and the possibility of transformation and renewal associated with this time; not to mention the relatable common thread of each of our lived experiences in grappling with the end of one life cycle, and the beginning of another.  

As Rabbi Cheryl Peretz of the American Jewish University notes, our tradition teaches us that “Kol Hatchalot Kashot” — all beginnings are hard. Even in a typical year, powerful internal and external forces often impede our ability to move forward and face our future. Yet, in a typical year, most of us usually find a path to call upon the emotional and intellectual arrows in our quiver to overcome inertia, complacency, resistance to change and fear, in order to take those first steps toward a fresh start with hope, strength, purpose, and resolve.  

But, of course, this is not a typical year. 

The instability, devastation, and heartbreak roiling so many corners of our world, and particularly the profound existential crises facing the U.S. and Israel, as Rabbi Shai Held, President and Dean of the Hadar Institute has written, make this year a time when transformative hope is almost totally inaccessible. So many of us, he writes, are “bewildered and exhausted. Hope? Renewal? Transformation? The words fall flat.”

But Rabbi Held still manages to salvage a sliver of hope. Evoking teachings from our midrashic traditions surrounding the creation of the world in Bereshit, he relates that our sages suggest that God created and destroyed multiple worlds before creating the one we inhabit, setting an example and imperative for God’s human partners. Re-creation and re-building after destruction is even more difficult than creation from the get-go. So it’s our task to hope for, and actively affirm, that even if much of what we care about most is hanging by a thin thread, growth, change, and renewal can yet come. And as the philosopher Terry Eagleton teaches us, the concept of hope is not mere cockeyed optimism which doesn’t take into account how dire things truly are. Hope requires commitment and active, challenging, and granular work to overcome the despair that often paralyzes us.

So what’s the practical application, the takeaway from all of this, in a world where everything seems to be falling apart? Well, for starters, I invite you to do what I’ve encouraged for myself: somehow overcome that powerful urge to remain in bed, under the covers, in a fetal position, avoiding the daunting issues confronting us each day, and drag your sorry ass out of bed every morning to face those forces which threaten to overwhelm us. And once we are up and about, then, in ways both prosaic and grand, bravely take those incremental baby steps to do the little things that will make our lives, and the lives of the people and organizations that have meaning for us and make positive changes to our world, move ever so slightly forward.

And note, at least from my perspective, we can only do this together. For us to continue the sacred work and pursue the mission of MAZON, we can only get it done with a  unity of purpose, and within the solidarity of our community working together. The Hope of Rabbi Held and of Prof. Eagleton, comprising a future-embracing spirit, coupled with a willingness to get our hands dirty with critically vital work, and employ our heads and hearts, passionately and full-on engaged, toward achieving the goal of making a life-altering difference, are the keys to keeping true hope alive and a shot at reversing a crisis of anguish and hopelessness. As we face these crises, we can’t afford for any of us to be on the sidelines — we must confront our demons and push forward as a mutually supportive team. 

Wishing you all a healthy, hopeful, and impactful new year, with as much ease, peace, and joy as we can muster.