By Rachel Lee Garofolo, Freelance Contributor with the Halina Wind Preston Holocaust Education Committee
In my darkest moments I thought I would never climb out of the bottomless chasm of grief and addiction into which I tumbled. Lost in my own echoes in a sunless pit of despair, I blindly felt around me for tools I could not or would not grasp that I so desperately needed to fight my way back to life.
Yet, there was always something within me that told me not all was lost. One day, a flicker of light showed like a beacon, and I took hold, clawing my way out of my well of sorrow. As I trudged uphill, the flicker became a flame of desire that became a firestorm of purpose.
Hope is at the core of Jewish identity. Judaism inspires me for its “abundant reservoir of hope” (David Arnow, Choosing Hope: The Heritage of Judaism); the belief that G-d will not abandon Jews
is what I know in my soul to be true when I struggle. Tikvah, hope, is faith in the unseen, is an unwavering quiet in suffering’s noise, is a strong cord when the Nazis sought to unravel the world.
The Nazis weaponized hope, turning trust into a tool of manipulation. Through their innumerable lies, they deceived Jews and engaged in psychological warfare, suppressed resistance, and facilitated genocide. The Nazis system was to crush the human spirit and make prisoners believe there was no future where they were free, thereby exterminating their will to live.
In the concentration camps, hope was both a danger and a necessity. Prisoners held onto hope: they would live one more day, the Allies would eventually arrive, and they would see their family again. Prisoners lived day to day hoping the next would bring freedom. Hope was human interaction—sharing the meager scraps they had, comforting each other, and praying together. Despite the atrocious and unthinkable horrors they lived through while in the camps, the prisoner’s hope wasn’t gone, only hidden. “Hope doesn’t obscure or whitewash reality. Hope tells us that life is full of darkness and suffering—and yet if we survive today, tomorrow we’ll be free.” (Holocaust survivor Edith Eger, PhD).
Hope means having trust in yourself, in others, and in a power greater than yourself. “To be a Jew is to be an agent of hope in a world serially threatened by despair.” (Rabbi Jonathan Sacks). In recovery from addiction, the phrase “sunlight of the spirit” describes reconnection or the awakening of the soul after despair; it’s also the experience of that hope realized—when light dispels the shadows that gripped you and your true self shines again. Jewish hope isn’t fragile; it has survived Egypt, the Holocaust, and ongoing antisemitism—and still speaks.
While the Nazis sought to destroy Jews’ hope, they couldn’t kill it. Their exploitation of it became the reason the Jewish people still live—and remember.
“The flicker doesn’t erase the night, but it gives you enough vision to take the next step. And sometimes, that’s all hope really is—a fragile spark that survives long enough to become a flame.”
