Choosing Hope: The Heritage of Judaism (David Arnow) - Review
CHOOSING HOPE: The Heritage of Judaism. (JPS Essential Judaism Series). By David Arnow. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2022. Xxv + 320 pages.
As a
Christian, I believe it's important that I regularly acknowledge my tradition's
origins in ancient Judaism. While Judaism has evolved/changed/developed greatly
over the centuries, sometimes in reaction/response to developments within
Christianity, there is still much for Christians to learn from our spiritual
ancestors and their contemporary descendants. There are, after all, many
similarities and points of contact between the two traditions that can enrich
the Christian faith if we're willing to consider and acknowledge them. That has
been my personal experience over the years. My Jewish friends and colleagues
have taught me much that has enriched my own faith experience.
I offer this personal preface to this
review of David Arnow's book Choosing Hope: The Heritage of Judaism,
which forms a part of the Jewish Publication Society's Essential Judaism
Series because I found Arnow's book to be theologically enriching and
hope-producing. In writing this book, Arnow wants the reader to know and understand
that hope stands at the center of Jewish theology. That's understandable since
Judaism, historically, has had to navigate tremendous challenges when it comes
to its survival. Unfortunately, one of the biggest impediments to the survival
of the Jewish community has been people/communities/nations that claim to be Christian.
As a Christian, I know this to be one of the biggest stains on Christian
history.
The author of this Choosing Hope,
David Arnow, is by training a psychologist. He is also a scholar who has
focused his attention on the Passover celebration. As such he has written
widely on the Passover and how it might be celebrated along with exploring other
elements of Jewish life, some of which have been directed at an interfaith
audience. In this book, the focus is on Jewish understandings of hope and why hope
matters to being Jewish.
In his introduction, Arnow sets the
tone of the book by defining hope as that which “reflects our embrace of the
possibility of a particular, deeply desired future, and hope fuels our actions
to help bring it about" (p. xiv). He suggests that hope is not the same
thing as faith. While faith is an unshakeable belief, perhaps belief in God or
the goodness of humanity. That faith serves as the foundation for hope. With
that in mind, Arnow suggests his faith in the "fundamental goodness of
human beings as bearers of the divine image" serves as the foundation of
his hope or desired goal that the world will reflect his belief in the goodness
of humanity. In his view, hope is not just faith/belief but is evidenced by
actions based on that faith such that hope "finds expression in my efforts
to build that world despite all the obstacles and setbacks along the way"
(p. xiv). This view of hope rooted in faith evidenced by human action is the
central theme of the book. While Arnow reflects on biblical texts (the
Christian Old Testament), he also draws heavily on Jewish history and tradition,
including contemporary ideas and concepts. As we move along with this
discussion of hope he reminds us that it’s important to distinguish between false
and real hopes. That’s because hope matters. Thus, he writes: “even without the
science to prove it, Jews know in their kishkas that if their ancestors
had responded to their circumstances with despair instead of hope, the Jewish
people would have vanished from the earth long ago” (p. xvi). As for God, God
is the reservoir of hope. As such, God “is not static but rather dynamic,
changing, evolving. Like God, in whose image we are created, we are not defined
by the past or the present. I take this to mean that together with God, we
inhabit an open future, the place where hope resides” (p. xvii).
Arnow’s Choosing Hope could
easily function as a reference book, especially for preachers, who wish to draw
upon Jewish wisdom in teaching about hope, but it is also readable and thus
worthy of spending time simply reading it cover to cover. Whether one uses it
as a reference book or not, Choosing Hope focuses on nine core Jewish
teachings. The first teaching is Teshuvah or repentance. It serves as
the gateway to hope because it involves self-examination. This core teaching
invites us to engage in prayer and seasonal rituals that enable such
reflection. With Teshuvah serving as the gateway or starting point of
hope, we can then move to the second core teaching, that of Tikkun Olam
or repairing the world. I found his discussion of this term, which is widely
used well beyond Judaism to be very helpful. In his discussion of this term, he
draws on Ecclesiastes and Rabbinic discussions. While Ecclesiastes offers a
rather cynical view of the possibility of repairing the world, the Rabbis coined
this term to counter that pessimism. The belief here is that what is crooked
can be made straight and it's our job to make that happen. We can discover that
this is possible by starting with a small piece of the world and fixing it.
This chapter should prove very helpful to anyone wishing to understand what
this term means with Judaism and how it translates outside of Judaism.
The third core teaching that
expresses this vision of hope is found in the story of Abraham and Sarah and
the role they play in Jewish self-understanding. Their faithfulness provides
models of living in hope. From Abraham and Sarah, we move in chapter 4 to a discussion
of the Exodus. He writes of the Exodus and its remembrance in the Passover,
serving as a “beacon of hope for Jews wherever and whenever they have lived” … “and
will live” (p. 61) As such the Exodus has become “Judaism’s master story of
hope, coloring practically every aspect of Judaism” (p. 81). This discussion of
Judaism’s master story turns to the concept of covenant. He explores this idea
of covenant, which is central to Jewish self-understanding, in the context of
Jewish morning prayer and Jewish sufferings in history, ancient and modern.
This includes a discussion of the post-holocaust reality. Here the question
raised is one of theodicy—why do the innocent suffer? In that regard, he
invites us to engage with the question: “what kind of covenantal relationship
allows one partner to sit in silence while the other is annihilated? (pp.
96-97). These realities have put the covenant to a test that modern Jews
struggle with. In this context, he writes that “we cannot hope that God will
act to send redemption to the shattered world—but we can hope that God will
strengthen our will to redeem it” (p. 102). This sense of covenant will
challenge many who may not like the idea that fulfillment of this hope rests on
our actions. Again, for Christians, this can be enlightening since many of our traditions
make use of covenant language.
The next core teaching speaks of “hope
for vindication” in the context of a discussion of the Book of Job. While it is
usually understood to be a rather pessimistic book, it offers some two dozen
references to hope. Job suggests that hope is not a piece of armor that offers
unfailing protection against despair, but rather “hope is a thin thread that
can tear or escape our grip, but there is no weaving, or living, without it.” In
fact, despair and hope may live with us simultaneously (p. 126). But, it
inspires the search for vindication. The conversation about vindication is
followed by a discussion of Jewish eschatology in chapter seven. This is
another chapter that should prove helpful to Christian reflection as Arnow explores
eschatological concepts including the resurrection, messianic hopes, and Jewish
understandings of the afterlife. It is
good to remember that Jewish understandings of eschatology are not monolithic. Any
conversation about Jewish understandings of hope will take into consideration
the role of Israel in the Jewish vision of a homeland. In this chapter (chapter
8) he speaks to the development of Zionism and its implementation. Since this
is such a challenging topic in Christian-Jewish and Jewish-Muslim
conversations, this discussion will prove very helpful. The hope of finding a
homeland has been a central component of Jewish life for millennia, and for
Jews, the assumption is that fulfilling this hope depends on the Jewish people
themselves. What the future holds is unknown, but as Arnow writes, “trying to build
a better future is not” a waste of time. Change is possible, and thus this
hope must be acted upon.
The final core teaching focuses on
the role humor plays in Jewish life. It shouldn’t be surprising, Arnow acknowledges,
that comedians are often Jewish. It is humor that has enabled Jews to survive through out
difficult times. Arnow writes that “humor does more than make us laugh. It
keeps us going, keeps us human” (p. 211). We might not expect to find a
discussion of humor in a book like this, but it is central to Jewish
understandings of hope.
As Arnow draws to a close, he
reminds us that hope requires something of us. It involves work on our part. It
is also rooted in, according to Arnow in Choosing Hope a belief in the fundamental
goodness of humanity. That doesn’t mean Arnow believes that nothing evil or bad
exists within the human family, only that there is the possibility inherent in
our existence as humans to pursue that which is good. It is, he believes rooted
in our creation in God’s image. That is something we can build upon. Therefore,
hope is not mere optimism. It requires human action, though God serves as the
reservoir of hope. While I might want to temper this foundation with a bit of
Niebuhrian realism, I appreciate Arnow’s reflections on hope and our ability to
choose to hope (through actions). With that in mind, he offers two principles
when it comes to a Jewish theology of hope. First, "Human beings are
created in the divine image." With that comes the second principle:
"God has put the responsibility for fulfilling our hopes in our hands"
(p. 212). This may sound like "works righteousness" to many Christians, but if we
listen closely to our Jewish cousins, we might discover that committing
ourselves to repairing the world by doing what is right does not earn us God’s love
but is a reflection of our being created in God’s image. As Arnow makes very
clear in Choosing Hope, Jewish theology affirms the goodness of humanity
despite the many trials and tribulations Jews have faced throughout history.
There is wisdom here that is worth exploring. Thus, as a Christian, I receive
this wisdom with gratitude.
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