I Can See Clearly Now – But Only After the Storm

Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” is one of the most recognizable songs of hope in pop music. Its optimism is disarming. But it’s not a shallow kind of hope. It’s not the hope of someone who’s been untouched by hardship. It’s the hope of someone who’s walked through the storm—and only now sees clearly.

“I can see clearly now, the rain is gone… gone are the dark clouds that had me blind.”

That’s not just a catchy lyric. That’s a spiritual truth. We rarely see clearly until we’ve been forced to. Until we’ve gone through something that demands honesty, demands change. And that’s the truth of Parashat Ha’azinu, and it’s the truth of Sukkot.

In Ha’azinu, Moses speaks to the people in the form of a warning. He tells them what will happen when they grow comfortable and forget God. He tells them they will be blinded—not physically, but spiritually. They’ll chase idols, forget their purpose, and fall apart. But there’s a way back. The way back is through recognition, through memory, through return. That return doesn’t happen in a moment of luxury. It happens after the storm.

And then comes Sukkot. The festival that demands we step outside of what’s secure. We leave our homes and enter a sukkah—a structure designed to be temporary, fragile, exposed. Why? Because clarity doesn’t come through comfort. It comes through exposure. We see clearly when the walls are thin and the sky is visible. We understand only after we step out of our illusions of permanence.

This is exactly what Na’aseh V’nishma is about. We act first. We walk into the sukkah. We perform the mitzvah. We commit to the covenant. We do—not because we have perfect clarity, but because we trust that clarity will follow. Na’aseh comes first. Nishma follows.

Johnny Nash’s song is not a lullaby. It’s a declaration. It’s the voice of someone who’s come through Yom Kippur. Someone who has stood in the storm, fasted, prayed, reflected, repented—and is now ready to rejoice. “It’s gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiny day.” Yes, it is. But only because we walked through the rain.