I am on the plane flying back from Israel, where my family and I celebrated the wedding of my baby brother Ben and his beloved Liz. My brother smashed the glass under their huppah in the Jerusalem Hills and the shards have been imprinted in my mind since. As the Three Weeks begin, I am slowing down and paying attention to what is broken. We move from the breach of Jerusalem’s walls toward the destruction commemorated on Tisha b’Av. It is a season of mourning, reflection and longing. It is also a period which forbids denial. Hidden within these weeks is a profound truth: before redemption, comes anticipation.
Many of us have experienced an uncanny phenomenon. A restlessness. A heightened awareness. A feeling that something is changing, even when we cannot yet name it. We wake up sensing that life is shifting beneath our feet. Our intuition sharpens. We notice patterns. We feel emotionally closer to the surface. The rational mind has no explanation. Yet something within us knows. These sensations can apply to lifecycles, projects, relationships, community and national trends. Anything, really.
Modern neuroscience offers one explanation. Researchers studying predictive processing suggest that the brain is constantly detecting patterns and anticipating future outcomes before they reach conscious awareness. Our subconscious may recognize emerging realities long before our intellect can explain them. Jewish tradition offers another possibility.
The Babylonian Talmud (Megillah) teaches, “Although he does not see, his mazal sees.” The sages were describing moments when a person senses something before consciously understanding it. The deeper self perceives what the conscious mind cannot yet grasp. Of course, here mazal does not mean luck. It means a spiritual root, a soul.
Perhaps this is why the Three Weeks feel so emotionally charged. Jewish history teaches that destruction and redemption are not separate events. The seeds of redemption are planted in the very moment of loss. The Talmud compares redemption to dawn. The first light appears long before sunrise. Most people would still call it night. Yet something fundamental has already shifted.
We are living through a period that feels uncertain and fractured. The Jewish people have endured immense pain, polarization and anxiety. Yet many also describe an unexpected feeling beneath the surface: a sense that something important is unfolding. A growing connection to Jewish identity. A renewed commitment to community and learning. A deeper search for meaning.
Perhaps that feeling deserves our attention. Not every intuition is prophecy. Not every spark of intuition predicts a specific outcome. But both science and Jewish wisdom suggest that human beings are capable of perceiving movement before they fully understand it. The challenge is to reject pessimism in favor of optimism despite the odds. As Abraham Joshua Heschel famously said “I am an optimist against my better judgment.”
The Three Weeks invite us to sit with that tension. To acknowledge what is broken while remaining sensitive and in tune with what is emerging. Sometimes the soul arrives before the explanation does. And sometimes, just before dawn, the world becomes quiet enough for us to notice the first light. In a world of constant distress, the Three Weeks doesn’t serve to make us more miserable. It reminds me to observe carefully and with wonder as what is unfolding is nothing short of divine.
Danielle Ames Spivak is the Chief Strategy Officer for Eighteen, a media nonprofit education organization.
