From the Editor’s Desk

The present issue of Kaveret No. 22, the Journal of the School of Behavioral Sciences, The College of Management, is dedicated to Hope. It advances the journal's investigation into the major concepts affecting human life: Love (No. 1, January 2000), Leadership (No. 2, March 2001), Freedom (No. 3, June 2001), Justice (No. 4, January 2002), Happiness (No. 5, June 2002), Beauty (No. 6, January 2003), Desire (No 7, June 2003), Truth (No. 8, January 2004), Self-sacrifice (No. 9, July 2004), Peace (No. 10, February 2005), Identity (No. 11, August 2005), Evil (No. 12, February 2006), Revolution (No. 13, July 2006), Hypocrisy (No. 14, March 2007), Sexuality (No. 15, July 2007), Disappointment (No. 16, July 2008), Parenting (No. 17, July 2009), Humor (No. 18, July 2010), and Excellence (No 19, July 2011), Love (revisited) (No. 20, July 2012) and Alienation (No. 21, July 2013).

Hope is the desire that events will unfold as we wish them to; it thus differs from faith and contradicts despair. The ancient Greeks saw danger in the fact that only hope remained in Pandora's box. Alternatively, the Jews and the Christians preach the value of hope and view despair as sin.

Hope is an constituent of human life on the level of the individual but also of the collective. Psychologists such as Eric Ericsson maintain that people begin to learn to hope early, during their infancy, and that it is up to their social environment to encourage belief in its presence. Hope has always been, and continues to be, the force driving social-political-economic change among the world's societies and peoples. During the twentieth century context, hope (HaTikva) was chosen for the title of Israel's national anthem upon the State's independence.

Although hope contains the power color human as well as national life with optimism, history has shown that reliance on hope to the exclusion of the actions targeted to achieve desired ends will bear none of hope's anticipated fruit.

The articles in this issue reflect hope's complexity. The two opening articles (1-2) discuss philosophical aspects of hope. The first article explores the relationship between hope and optimism whereas the second discusses the post-modern version of hope for love and intimacy. The third article (3) examines hope as a persistent feeling. Socio-visual images of hope are offered in the next two articles (4-5). The following four articles (6-9) contend with the social implications of hope. Is a person's behavior related to her level of optimism or pessimism (6)? Will the reallocation of tasks between women and men within the family raise hope for narrowing the gender gap (7)? What factors may link hope, humanity and femininity (8)? And what does hope mean for the elderly (9)? The issue concludes with two poems (10-11) and three short stories (12).

Our presentation of hope's features adheres to the four principles comprising the Kaveret credo:

1. Consideration of the focal concept (one per issue) from several perspectives: philosophical, psychological, sociological, and creative (short stories, verse and art).

2. Discussions ranging from the general to the particular, from comprehensive macro-level issues to detailed microlevel issues relating to individuals, their thoughts, feelings, disappointments and aspirations.

3. Contributors can be students, graduates, teaching assistants and lecturers from the Academic Studies Division as well as other institutions.

4. The format is to be concise, focused and aimed at as broad an audience as possible.

Kaveret No, 23, to be published in July 2015, will return to the concept Love. As usual, manuscripts and original works are to comply with the four Kaveret principles. They are not to exceed 2000 words in length in addition to a 30-word abstract, and include not more than 6 bibliographical references (author, title, year of publication, city and publisher or journal volume, issue and page numbers). Submissions are subject to review prior to acceptance. We are also happy to receive responses to earlier issues and articles. Manuscripts are to be submitted no later than 6 February 2015.

Dr. Rachel Pasternak

Editor-in-Chief

School of Behavioral Sciences

Academic Studies Division

The College of Management