Know Hope

To say that today is an important day would be an extraordinary understatement.

As you know by now, last night the President announced that the United States had conducted a successful mission to kill Osama Bin Laden.

Celebrations broke out in front of the White House and across the nation. Television screens were filled with the images of joyous New Yorkers at Ground Zero, transforming the somber site into one of delightful justice at long last.

This wonderful image from the New York Times warmed my heart and broke it at the same time, thinking of how much the city has been through, and how good it must feel for them to have some kind of closure almost ten years later.

Today is also an emotional day in Israel, Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. As we Americans remember those innocent people who lost their lives on 9/11, we should also remember those who perished throughout the horrors of the Holocaust.

Life draws interesting parallels for us, and amid the social media frenzy that occurred last night, one arose.

The news of Adolf Hitler’s suicide and Osama Bin Laden’s killing reached the world on the same day: May 1.

There was a Mark Twain quote swirling around the internet last night that seemed very appropriate for the situation:

I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.

For me there is a beauty that emerges from these tragedies. People are able to forget their differences and see only the similarities that bind them together as one.

The victims of 9/11 were not just Republicans or Democrats; they were husbands and wives, they were people.

The victims of the Holocausts were not just Jews, gypsies, or homosexuals; they were mothers and children, they were people.

I took this picture in a Tel Aviv market while we were in Israel earlier this month, and I think that it is the perfect message for a day like today.

Yes, life can be terribly ugly and painful at times. Things can be unbearable and unjust.

But if we know hope, that will carry us through.

XOXO,