From The Bimah: Jewish Lessons For Life

In his final podcast of 'For Heaven’s Sake' for the year 5783, entitled “Farewell 5783,” Donniel Hartman said something that really stuck with me. He said: “I don’t do pessimism.” Despite all the drama and tension in Israel, the many articles and voices talking about how the country is deeply divided, how this is the greatest domestic crisis in Israel’s 75 years, a cold civil war, Donniel does not do pessimism. He goes to demonstrations every week; learns; teaches; advocates; gives public speeches; does podcasts. But he will not surrender to pessimism. Donniel here channels the spirit of the late Shimon Peres who famously observed: “Optimists and pessimists die the exact same death, but they live very different lives!” Do Jewish texts have a position about pessimism? Are there circumstances when pessimism is not only okay, but even called for? On the one hand, there is no shortage of texts in the Donniel/Shimon Peres tradition of eschewing pessimism. Hagar crying at the well when she and Ish