I recently had the privilege (yes, I know it was a privilege) to attend the opera at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, sitting in a gilded box for the performance of Verdi’s Nabucco, a retelling the story of the destruction of the First Temple. The music, the voices, and the staging were overwhelming – in the best way. Beauty on a scale that feels almost impossible. And yet, it was created by human hands, human minds, human souls.

Earlier that day, while touring La Scala, my husband and I visited an exhibit about the first performance held there when the opera house was rebuilt after heavy damage during World War II. On May 11, 1946, Arturo Toscanini returned to Italy to conduct that historic reopening concert, having lived in exile in the United States since the 1930s, in protest of Italy’s fascist regime. 

For that evening, Toscanini chose a program entirely of Italian composers, including the “Va, pensiero” chorus from Verdi’s Nabucco. The piece, also known as the “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves,” uses words inspired by Psalms 137 (“By the waters of Babylon”) to present the perspective of the exiled Israelites in Babylon, expressing their sorrow, nostalgia for their homeland, and their yearning for freedom. The night of that concert, the streets of Milan were closed to traffic, and loudspeakers out in public broadcast from the stage so that even those outside the opera house could share in the performance. Remembering that the people of Milan were only recently emerging from the travails of fascism, war, and destruction, I find myself imagining what they must have felt hearing the chorus sing:

Oh mia patria sì bella e perduta! O membranza sì cara e fatal!
O my homeland, so beautiful and lost! O memories, so dear and yet so deadly!

As I looked around the box I shared with my husband, David, and four strangers, who, for a few hours, became companions in awe, I found myself reflecting on why art matters so much. And especially now.

It feels as though we have spent the past few years since October 7th witnessing the worst of humanity. As much as that is true on the communal plane, this past year has also carried its own private difficulties and pain for me personally. What I’ve learned is that war narrows our vision until fear, grief, and the challenge of survival dominate everything else. It becomes easy to forget that we humans are capable of far more than destruction.

The opportunity to cross “opera at La Scala” off my bucket list was therefore a welcome interlude. And the opera Giuseppe Verdi composed nearly two centuries ago, performed anew with vitality and imagination, is a powerful reminder that we humans are also creators.

This Shabbat, in Israel, we read Parshat Beha’alotcha (the Diaspora will do so next week). At its opening, Moses is given the instructions about lighting the menorah, a structure that was to be hammered out of a single piece of gold. Not assembled, not constructed in parts, but shaped, carved, and formed through an act of artistry and creativity that was divinely required. This divine creativity is described in Exodus 31:3:

 וָאֲמַלֵּא אֹתוֹ רוּחַ אֱלֹקִים בְּחָכְמָה וּבִתְבוּנָה וּבְדַעַת וּבְכָל־מְלָאכָה

And I filled him with the spirit of God, with wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and every craft.

The menorah is a source of light, of course, but it is much more than that. It is a testament to the human ability to direct our creativity toward something beyond the materials in our hands. The very gold that was used to craft the menorah, for example, is inert in its raw form. It takes vision, skill, patience, and, perhaps most critically, imagination to transform that gold into something that illuminates.

It is what art does.

Art can seem frivolous. A distraction. Unnecessary. The realm of entertainment. But among the deepest powers of art is that, beyond mere entertaining, it helps people endure. Shared art, like experiencing an opera among strangers in a theater box, standing silently beside others before a painting in a museum, hearing music fill a city street… These encounters can soothe our souls and anchor us in our shared humanity. In moments when words fail, art reminds us that we suffer together, hope together, and remain human together.

In a world that feels very fractured, the image of the menorah offers a counterpoint: something whole and unified, shaped with intention. 

Sitting in that opera house, listening to the chorus of the Hebrew slaves, I was struck by the closing lines:

T’ispiri il Signore un concento
che ne infonda al patire virtù!

Permit the Lord to inspire us
To endure our suffering!

Verdi’s words are not just a prayer, but also a mandate to continue to inspire and create, despite whatever we have endured. To take the raw sentiments of our lives – the fear, the grief, and the uncertainty we have all been suffering – and hammer them into something that gives light, like the gold of the menorah.

The many forms of art are proof that humans are created with the capacity to bring forth beauty, to elevate, and to express longing in ways that transcend time. We need that reminder now.

Go back to art. To music. To something that is not urgent, but essential. Listen to something unfamiliar. Stand in front of something that moves you without fully understanding why. Let it interrupt the heaviness, even briefly. Art does not erase pain, but it can transform suffering into meaning and purpose. Like the menorah, we are meant not only to endure but also to illuminate.

Yardaena Osband, MD, is a pediatrician and a teacher. She hails from Boston and now lives in Israel with her family. She studied for two years in Midreshet Lindenbaum, received her BA in Jewish Studies and Music at Stern College for Women, and earned her medical degree at the Sackler School for Medicine. She has taught in many schools and synagogues and is the co-host of the Daf Yomi podcast, Talking Talmud. She serves on the board of several Jewish communal organizations. Yardaena also recently completed the International Halakha Scholars Program at Ohr Torah Stone.