Hope: The eternal bird that sings inside the soul without words

Source: The thing with feathers: Emily Dickinson's poem

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

(Emily Dickinson, Complete Poems, Poem No. 254).

Explanation: A tune without words: Hope as a primal instinct

The 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson defines hope not as an intellectual idea, but as a rustle ("the thing with feathers"). The most important quality of this bird is that it sings "without the words." Hope is a primal, nonverbal instinct. It requires no logical explanations, political analyses, or convincing arguments. It is simply there, it "perches in the soul," and continues to sing its tune even when a storm rages outside, regardless of circumstance.

Perspective: The audacity of hope: When life is stronger than logic

There is something "audacious" about Dickinson's hope; it does not ask permission to be grounded in common sense. In the modern world, we are used to looking for rational reasons to hope (economic data, diplomatic agreements). Dickinson argues that hope is a biological, stubborn, and tireless force that exists in us simply by virtue of being alive. It is the very attempt to "explain" why hope exists that weakens it, because it drags it onto the playing field of words and logic, where it might lose. The strongest hope is the one that has no words. Perhaps that is why Israel's happiness index is among the highest in the world, regardless of the reality of our lives here.

Going Deeper: Methuselah: A two-thousand-year-old seed that refused to die

In the 1960s, during excavations at Masada, ancient date seeds were found dating back to the Great Revolt (about 2,000 years ago). For decades they lay in a museum drawer, looking dead and dried up. In 2005, an Israeli researcher (Dr. Sarah Sallon) decided to try planting one of them. Against all scientific odds, the seed sprouted. The tree, dubbed "Methuselah," grows today at Kibbutz Ketura, though it is male and bears no fruit. Since then, other ancient date seeds have been found, germinated, and produced fruit. The story of Methuselah is scientific proof of Dickinson's "bird" that never stops: the life force (hope) is capable of entering a two-thousand-year dormancy, and with just a little water—it bursts forth anew.

Culture: The Shawshank Redemption: The dialogue between illusion and freedom

The central dialogue in the film The Shawshank Redemption (1994) is between Andy Dufresne, the prisoner, and his friend Red. Andy insists: "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." Red, the cynic, argues that hope is "a dangerous thing" that can drive a man in prison insane. The film is a struggle between the perception that hope is a dangerous illusion, and the view that it is the only tool that can chisel a path through stone walls (literally). In the end—spoiler alert!!—both manage to reach freedom, one through his own hope, and the other through the hope of the first.