Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow. Langston Hughes
I write this column immediately following the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America. It is a moment of national hope unparalleled in my lifetime. Already, even before the inauguration, the questions began as to when President Obama’s honeymoon would end, when all these hopes would be dashed against the rocks of reality. Yet, at this moment, there is an island of hope, a moment when all of us feel the pull of national duty; when we see a glimpse of how things might be, if we can move beyond the way things have always been.
This weekend, I will be traveling with three of our high school students to participate in a L’takein seminar in Washington, DC at our movement’s Religious Action Center. We are scheduled to arrive a few days after the inauguration and I have naïve hopes to see a new Washington DC replacing the mythological bureaucratic swamp.
When you read these words, I hope that we have been able to maintain not only the hope, but the commitment to working together to making not just this nation, but this world a better place. Candidate Obama was derided for being a “hope-monger” – focusing too much on what might be done, rather than on what could be done. Thinking back on this cynicism at the moment of inauguration, I was reminded of a song that we often sang in my youth group days – which comes from the poem quoted above. Dreams and hopes can be synonymous. If we only focus on the barren field before us, we cannot hope to fly. It would be sad if the only thing that keeps our country from taking off is a failure to lift our eyes to the horizon.
Langston Hughes’ words are a caution. Combined with the words of the Zionist leader, Theodor Herzl, they can give us a confidence that hope can influence reality. Herzl said, “Im tirtzu, ein zo aggadah – If you will it, it is no dream.”
Let us commit ourselves to the will that can transform our hopes and dreams into reality.
Rabbi Abraham
