The Shabbat Of Comfort - Shabbat Nachamu

Transcript

Shabbat Nachamu Defined

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Shabbat Shalom. This Shabbat has a name of its own. It's called Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort. It takes its name from the opening words of this week's Haftarah from the book of the major prophet Isaiah, Nachamu Nachamu Ami, Comfort, O comfort my people. This is not just a beautiful phrase. It is the first of what Jewish tradition calls the Shiva de Nahamtah, the seven Haftarot of Consolation that carry us from the sadness and the depths of Tishaba, which commemorates the destructions of the first and second temples in Jerusalem, and which continues each week all the way to Rosh Hashanah. For seven weeks, our prophetic readings will not let us forget that we are being comforted again and again, each week building on the last, until we arrive at the days of awe, ready to stand

From Tisha B’Av To Renewal

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before God, not as a broken people, but as a people who have been held, steadied, and renewed. We approach God on Rosh Hashanah not as broken and miserable people with no chance of forgiveness and healing, but as individuals and a people filled with possibilities and positivity about the future. Think about where we have just come from. Look at the contrast. On Tishba of, Jews sit on the ground reading Echa, the Book of Lamentations, found in the Hebrew scriptures between the books of Ruth and Ecclesiastes. On that day, Jews remembered the destruction of both temples, the exile, the long catalog of Jewish suffering that our tradition insists we not look away from. Many Jews fast, many still mourn our loss. And that mourning was real. It was supposed to be real. Judaism does not ask us to skip past grief or to pretend it isn't there. And even though we may have ascribed new meaning to Tishaba of as modern Jews who do not necessarily mourn the destruction of the temple, the day has come to represent a day of mourning for all the losses and tragedies of the Jewish people. It has become a day of feeling the weight of Jewish loss throughout history. But here's the profound wisdom embedded in our calendar. We do not stay there. We are not a people who languishes in sorrow. Tishabaav is followed immediately by the Shabbat, Shabbat Nachamu. It is exactly like getting up from Shiva. One week after death,

Grief Honored Without Getting Stuck

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those sitting Shiva are supposed to literally stand up, leave the house, and walk around the block. They have reentered life. The same is true right after Tishaba. This Shabbat after Jewish sadness, our comfort arrives. Our sages could not have designed a calendar of extended mourning. They could they they they they didn't. They designed a calendar that says acknowledge the pain fully, sit with it, let it teach let it teach you something. And then comfort comes. Better days are ahead. And notice the word construction that Isaiah uses. He doesn't just say Nachamu once, he says it twice.

Nachamu Twice: Comfort As Rhythm

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I think about this rhythm, grief that is honored, but not eternal sorrow that gives way to resolve, and I cannot help think of what has happened in Israel since October seventh. That day was our Tishuba of in real time, and the added irony and pain is that it happened on Simchatora, literally the joy in the Torah that falls at the end of Sukkot and ends the high holiday season. We all saw it,

October 7 And A People Shaken

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even those who denied it ever happened. It was destruction and loss and horror on a scale that shook the Jewish world once again to its very core. Yet in its aftermath something remarkable emerged from within Israeli society, the Um Yisrael Chai gatherings, the hostage square vigils, and perhaps most strikingly, a movement that took its name from a song, Nirkod Shuv, We Will Dance Again. The phrase comes from the Nova Music Festival where young people were murdered while dancing in a celebration of life and freedom. And rather than let that be the image, the terrible image, the final word, survivors, families, and communities across Israel and the Jewish world took up the phrase as a declaration. We will not be defined only by what was done to us. We will grieve

We Will Dance Again: Defiant Hope

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deeply and honestly, yet we will dance again. Both things are true at once. This is not a contradiction. This is the theology and practice of Shabbat Nachamu. The seven weeks of comfort don't ask us to forget Tishabaav. They ask us to carry it forward, transformed. To me that's Jewish genius. It's not just making lemonade out of lemon, it's planting a whole grove so the next generation can enjoy the fruits of joy even after sadness. Each haftara between now and Rosh Hashanah adds another layer of comfort, and then reassurance, then the promise of rebuilding, until by the time we reach the new year we are not people defined by destruction, but people who know that destruction is never the final chapter. We will dance again is not naive optimism. It is not denial. It is the same move Isaiah makes when he says Nachamu Nachamu, grief acknowledged and then met deliberately and defiantly with hope. The dancing doesn't erase the mourning, it stands right beside it, refusing to let sorrow have the last word. And so on this Shabbat Nachamu, as we begin this seven-week journey toward the new year, let us hold both truths the way our tradition teaches us to. Let us honor what was lost

Holding Both Truths Toward Rosh Hashanah

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without being consumed by it. And let us, like those who returned to dance again, walk forward toward Rosh Hashanah, comforted and ready to build better days. Shabbat Shalom.