Dear TBZ Community,
This Shabbat we begin the Seven Weeks of Consolation, a period that follows Tisha B’Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, and ends with Rosh Hashanah. During these seven weeks, we read Haftarah readings from the prophet Isaiah, with themes of comfort, consolation, and redemption. We start this week with Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort, named for the first words of this week’s Haftarah:
נַחֲמוּ נַחֲמוּ עַמִּי
Nachamu, nachamu ami
“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God.
I want to begin by asking:
What does comfort look like in a world that continues to be broken? How do we comfort one another when we see so much suffering and fear, and no clear path to justice in our country and so many places around the world? When war continues to rage, when 50 hostages are still held in captivity in Gaza, when the images from Gaza are still filled with devastation, hunger, rubble, and despair? How can we be comforted when the world feels increasingly chaotic, when fear and polarization dominate our public discourse?
How do we offer comfort in the face of personal pain, political uncertainty, or loss? And more challengingly, why should we keep trying?
When the world so often seems to offer only grief and pain, why should we open our hearts to love, to joy, to Torah?
The weeks following Tisha B’Av offer a radical spiritual roadmap for these questions.
Only six days separate the devastation of Tisha B’Av – when we mourn the destruction of the Temple, the exile, and countless tragedies throughout Jewish history, in addition to creating space for our own personal and collective pain – and the celebration of a little-known but deeply joyful holiday, Tu B’Av. The Mishnah describes it as one of the happiest days of the year, a day of dancing, love, and possibility.
This emotional and spiritual whiplash might seem disorienting, even jarring. But it is intentional. Our tradition insists that the day of our greatest destruction is also the day on which Mashiach (Messiah) is born. Redemption is not just possible: it is already stirring, already seeded within the pain.
That might sound like naive hope. Like cheap comfort. But I hope it is not.
Instead, it is the hard, slow, sacred work of rising from the floor after Tisha B’Av, brushing off the ashes, and beginning again.
Of building from rubble. Of choosing life. Of daring to love, even while sitting on the rubble.
In this week’s Haftarah, there is a messenger of Jerusalem who lifts up the voice of possibility:
עַל הַר־גָּבֹהַּ עֲלִי־לָךְ מְבַשֶּׂרֶת צִיּוֹן הָרִימִי בַכֹּחַ קוֹלֵךְ מְבַשֶּׂרֶת יְרוּשָׁלַ͏ִם הָרִימִי אַל־תִּירָאִי אִמְרִי לְעָרֵי יְהוּדָה: הִנֵּה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם
Ascend a lofty mountain, O herald of joy to Zion;
Raise your voice with power, O herald of joy to Jerusalem—
Raise it, have no fear;
Announce to the cities of Judah: Behold your God!
Rabbi Sheryl Nosan-Blank, in her reflections in The Women’s Haftarah Commentary, reflects on this m’vaseret (one who heralds or brings good news). becoming a partner with God, following the mitzvah (commandment) of the Compassionate One to bring comfort:
“God’s message shapes her words, God’s direction guides her feet, and perhaps God’s help is delivered through her hands. As God comforts Rachel weeping for her children (Jeremiah 31:15–19), and Ruth comforts Naomi, bitter from her losses (Ruth 1:16–17), so does the m’vaseret comfort woeful-woman Jerusalem. So too can we comfort those who weep, who live in bitterness, or who are overcome with woe. When we do so, we too become God’s messengers.”
But as we hear these words, the question still lingers:
How?
How do we do this work?
How do we hear these words of consolation and truly believe they are coming?
How do we not give up?
This week, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was kidnapped by Hamas from the Nova music festival and later killed in captivity, published an extraordinary piece titled, “The Appeal of a Mother, Who Buried Her Only Son.” From the depths of grief and strength, she writes – not so much a message of consolation, but a cry of humanity. Perhaps as a m’vaseret in her own right, she speaks truth in a world that too often turns away.
She writes:
“We are waiting for people with power to decide it is enough. We are waiting for people across borders, political lines, and religious views to decide to stop blaming and to start aspiring to be the best that humans can be.
I confess I am not sure what that is anymore.
Enough of the hostage families trying to convince the world that stealing our children is not an option. Enough of innocent people suffering from lack of resources: water, food, clothing, medical care. Enough of leaders who use their people as props.
It’s time for this excruciation to end.
I appeal simply to you as a nobody. My name is Rachel, and I am an absolute nobody. And therefore, I am everybody.”
Rachel’s voice doesn’t bring comfort in the traditional sense, but it brings clarity. It pierces the fog of complacency. It insists we see each other. That we not give up. That we stay human and that we call and demand humanity from our leaders.
And this week, in Parshat Va’etchanan, we read the giving of Torah, the giving of the Aseret HaDibrot, the Ten Commandments. It is always a powerful reminder that Torah was not given to the people of Israel once they arrived in the Promised Land; instead, it was given to them in the desert, in the middle of the journey, in the wilderness, in a place of uncertainty, in a place of not knowing. That is when Torah is given. That is when Torah is received.
That is also a model of nechama—of comfort. We don’t need to have arrived to receive Torah.
God comforts us by embracing us with Torah, by embracing us with God’s love.
נַחֲמוּ נַחֲמוּ עַמִּי
Nachamu, nachamu ami
“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God.
God is reaching toward us with love.
What if we allowed ourselves to feel that? To imagine that in the midst of uncertainty, grief, and fear that we are being held in God’s embrace? That even when we sit in darkness and fear for the future, we are not alone?
It is not always easy to feel embraced by Divine love. But if we can imagine it, if we can let it in – even briefly – perhaps that can give us the strength to keep going.
Perhaps it can give us the vision and courage to imagine and act for a better world, a world infused with that same compassion and love. Because if we know that we are held, we might just find the strength to hold others.
And so I ask again: What does comfort look like?
Perhaps it looks like showing up. Like lighting a candle, singing a niggun (wordless song), crying with others. Perhaps it is standing up to injustice, building relationships, listening with compassion. Perhaps comfort is not a destination, but a practice. A softening of the heart, a widening of perspective, a deepening of connection.
May this Shabbat Nachamu offer the comfort we need, not comfort that erases pain, but comfort that holds it, and slowly, gently, helps us rise.
May we have the courage to keep fighting and believing that we human beings can do better. That the world can be better – for every human being.
May we be bold enough to comfort others.
May we allow ourselves to receive comfort, too.
May this Shabbat bring moments of stillness, clarity, and connection.
May we reach for one another gently, lovingly.
May all who are in pain or danger find safety and comfort.
May the remaining hostages in Gaza come home.
May no one, anywhere, lack food or water – the most basic essentials of life.
May those working for peace be granted strength and courage.
May our leaders choose life.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rav Claudia