From Tohu VaVohu to Tikvah

In the beginning— before beginnings had breath— there was tohu vavohu, not just chaos, but collapse. Not just void, but the violence of everything coming undone.

And the darkness— it was devastating. Dense, drowning, a weight so complete it unstitched the soul. A darkness where nothing moved, and even memory was too frightened to speak.

And the hovering— yes, God hovered— but in the hovering, hope hadn’t happened. No light. No language. Only the breathless weight of waiting.

We know that place. We’ve sat in its silent space. We’ve prayed in the rubble with mouths full of ash. Through nights when the stars would not flash, and mornings that failed to rise - In lightless hours beneath heavy skies.

Still, some in the long line of our people have dared— not to dream, but to imagine something other than despair.

One, long ago, let the holy fall, let the center collapse, and asked not for what was, but for what might be made anew. Ben Zakkai saw what could not be saved, and still chose to shape a future from the ashes.

Not of stone, but of story. Not of sacrifice, but of study. Not of certainty, but of courage to begin again without knowing what would come.

This is not hope as sunlight. Not hope as anthem. This is the trembling trace of a path drawn in dust— a whisper that there might be a way forward even when forward is still formless.

So we sit. In the tohu. In the devastation. Not rushing resurrection. Not forcing the light.

But listening— for the breath, for the break, for the moment when imagination dares to rise.

And maybe, just maybe, that too is a kind of Tikvah.