There is a saying that misery loves company, and if that statement is true, there must be a lot of love going around these days. It has been estimated that one-third of the world is in some form of isolation due to the COVID-19 virus. I was curious how some of these folks are coping as we are here in the United States. With friends in many parts of the world, I touched base to ask how they were doing. Not surprisingly, the majority are going through much the same as we are — staying at home, watching and waiting, uncertain as we are here in the States.

But the one person whose response truly inspired me came from Israel. When most folks think of Israel, they either focus on the sites associated with the Holy Land, or the never-ceasing Arab-Israeli conflicts. But there is a side of Israel that very few know about, and that is its commercial success. Here is a country of seven million people that has been in an almost constant state of war since its founding in 1949, with no natural resources to speak of, yet has an advanced economy with a well-skilled workforce, a highly developed infrastructure, and a high-technology sector competitively on par with Silicon Valley.

Their secret (which is no secret) is that they use their adversity as an impetus to ingenuity. For example, they cannot maintain a large standing army given their small size, so they integrated mandatory military conscription for both males and females that provides for defense, but also serves as a healthy deterrent to crime. (Not a great idea to break into a home with residents who are packing Uzis in their clothes closets). It is also not coincidental that in a country that has won multiple Nobel prizes in chemistry is also at the forefront of the research for tests and vaccines for COVID-19.

Dr. Andreas Kelling is a colleague of mine who emigrated to Israel some twenty years ago, where he lives in the city of Haifa with his wife and three children. He wrote to me, “Dear Larry, it is unreal. The country has come to a standstill. No loud voices on the streets, people are at home. Normally, you hear a joyful sound on the streets and parks, but now it is all silent. I went out for a walk on Thursday (March 26th). During that one hour, I met three or four people, where normally I would see hundreds. Restaurants closed last week; now, only pizza places are still open. But since there is no one on the street, the pizza shop owners sit, wait and hope for customers that would come. On Friday, we were only allowed to leave after 5 p.m., and then were not to go farther than 300 feet from our home. The schools closed a week ago. For two days, the teachers provided distance education, then they called a vacation for a couple of days, and then all of a sudden online school started again.”

At this point, this certainly sounds a lot like Lycoming County. Yet, here is where the spirit of Israel kicks in. After a crazy week of on-again, off-again schooling for the kids and the business shutdown, Andreas and his wife Angelina took a walk — and suddenly had a different outlook:

“Even though the news is not great, we are hopeful. On Sunday, when we were allowed to move around a bit again, Angelina and I discovered this tree in the picture. Look at how rotten and dead it is. It is the victim of a forest fire that went over Mount Carmel a few years ago. Yet, lo and behold, if you look closely, you will discover some fresh greens in the middle of the tree. Life, coming out of something that looks dead. This is how we look at the situation. It might be depressing for the time being, but God is good. He will not let us down. We decided to look for the opportunities in this crisis and rejoice the Lord is in the midst of it.”

Yes, the day will come when we are looking at the COVID-19 Crisis in our rearview mirror, but right now, we can be fortified with hope. We may wonder how our economy and society are going to rebound after all this inactivity and distress, but just as a tree that appears dead still has life, so we will find our way to bounce back. In the words of Alexander Pope, hope springs eternal.