There’s an old joke about how a waiter at a restaurant goes up to a table of Jewish people and asks, “Is anything alright?” The essence of that joke might be the reason why we look so highly to Jewish figures who are always able to look at the positive, no matter the circumstances.
One man in the Gemara was so optimistic, he was literally called Nachum Ish Gamzu (after gam zu l’tovah). Another is Rebbe Akiva, who always looked at the bright side, even in the most dire of circumstances. When the Rabbis are crying while looking at the Temple ruins, he laughs, having faith that even if we can’t see the positive, it’s there. The same man is ecstatic while being tortured to death because of the opportunity to perform a unique mitzvah.
It’s why I can’t stand the negativity of the custom to not eat nuts on Rosh Hashana because the gematria of the word egoz (walnut), which is 17, is the same gematria as the word chet (sin) without the letter aleph. Who came up with that, the guy at the fish head store? Why do we have to infuse negativity into everything? You know what’s also the gematria of 17? The word tov.
