Comfort Ye, Comfort Ye: Opening Our Eyes to the Bigger Picture

Sitting in the Warsaw ghetto were a father and son. It was Pesach and they were having a Seder. Both were frail and ill and longing to discover new hope amidst the familiar pages of the Haggadah.

When the time for the Four Questions had come, the boy asked them beautifully. As the father was about to turn the page, the boy suddenly said: “Father, I have one more Question.”

“Go ahead my son,” the father hesitantly replied. The child continued, “Father, my fifth question is the following: Can you promise me that you will be alive next year to answer my Four Questions?” Can you promise me that I will be here next year to ask them?”

As the angels themselves were silent and peering down at this holy feast, the father paused and said, “Mein Tayereh Kihnd (my precious child), I cannot lie to you. While I hope, along with you, that you and I will survive this Hell for another year, a promise I cannot make. But here is a promise that I can make to you: Maybe you will live maybe not, maybe I will live maybe not, but I promise that next year and in all future years there will be a child somewhere asking his father the Four Questions. I promise that we as a Torah nation will never perish.”

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The Tzemach Tzedek, who used to refer to the R’ Yisrael of Ruzhin as “the holy Ruzhiner,” once related: “The holy Ruzhiner Rebbe would not tolerate any melancholy, even if his Chassidim would become somewhat playful as a result.

One Tisha B’Av they occupied themselves for a while tossing burs at each other. They then decided to clamber on to the roof of the study hall and to lower a noose over the entrance. Whoever walked in the door could then be lassoed and promptly hoisted on to the roof.

The prank succeeded until, sure enough, who should walk in but their Rebbe, the Ruzhiner. From up there it was hard to-tell one hat from another and only when the Tzaddik was halfway up did they identify him. When they had lowered him to the ground he exclaimed: “Master of the Universe! If your children do not observe this Yom-Tov of yours, then take it away from them!”

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What a difference a week can make! Last Shabbos was Shabbos Chazon, the height of the Three Week period of mourning. On Shabbos Chazon we read the third of the three Haftorah’s of rebuke, in which the prophet Yishayahu forewarns about the impending disaster that was about to befall the Jewish people as a result of their sins.

It was only a few days ago did we observed the saddest day in the Jewish calendar – Tisha B’av – a day that G-d has ordained as a time of weeping for generations to come, because of the rebellious behavior on the part of the people of the desert in rejecting the Promised Land 3000 years ago on this very day.

Tisha B’av is the day on which, according to our tradition, both the first and second Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed (in 586 BCE and 70 CE respectively), when we lost our independence and we were exiled from our land leading to countless tragedies in Jewish history.

Yet this Shabbos, only one week after Shabbos Chazon and a mere few of days after Tisha B’Av, the mood is drastically altered. Despite the overwhelming sadness of Tisha B’Av, the Shabbos immediately following is called “Shabbos Nachamu,” (Shabbos of consolation).

Shabbos Nachamu takes its name from the Haftorah of the Book of Yishayahu that speaks of “Comforting” the Jewish people for their suffering: “Be consoled, be consoled my people said the Lord,” read the opening words of the prophet Yishayahu, (Isaiah 40:1). On this Shabbos G-d comforts his people over all the Tzaros that have befallen them. As of this Shabbos the three Haftorahs of rebuke are followed by seven Haftorahs of comfort.

The inevitable question is how we can move from the overwhelming sadness and mourning of a day like Tisha B’Av to a Shabbos of happiness and consolation? How can we cry over the countless tragedies of Jewish history on one day and then be consoled the next? What is the source of this consolation? The Beis Hamikdash has, after all, not yet been rebuilt; things have not changed.

Moreover, how can the prophet Yishayahu command Jews in every generation to be comforted; feel optimistic; think up-beat? Especially in light of the difficult times in which they may find themselves and that might lie ahead of them.

What’s more is the notion that the fast of the ninth of Av will, one day, be transformed into a holiday as the prophet Zecharia declares: “So said the Lord of Hosts: The fast of the fourth [month], the fast of the fifth [month], the fast of the seventh [month], and the fast of the tenth [month] shall be for the house of Judah for joy and happiness and for happy holidays-but love truth and peace.” (Zecharia 8:19)

How can Tisha B’Av become a festival? Our Festivals are marked by unique, joyous and even miraculous events. Why would anyone eternalize the day of horrific destruction for our people? What can be the possible justification for endowing such a day with the inherent sanctity of a Jewish Festival?

The answer is that the lines of sadness and joy; of mourning and consolation, within our Jewish ethos, are not as clear-cut as one would think. When you consider the day of Tisha B’Av and you consider our overall Jewish history, you find that both elements of sadness and joy are highly prevalent, significant and intertwined. The sadness of so much of our sorrow and destruction is laced with the joy of seeing our people survive and flourish despite it all. Perhaps that is why the line between mourning and consolation is so thin.

Both the Babylonians and the Romans could easily have wiped out not just our buildings of stone and wood, but a living breathing nation, were it not for the protection of the Almighty. Yes, being exiled from our land, wandering the four corners of the earth, suffering countless pogroms and persecutions is horrifying, but our survival through it all is miraculous! It not only mitigates our sadness, but gives profound meaning and purpose to our long history of trial and misfortune.

The Chasam Sofer interprets the difficult reference to Tisha B’av (in Megillas Eicha) as a “Moed” (festival), to serve not just as a hint to a future time when the day will be transformed into a holiday, but an allusion to the present as well.

He asserts that the fact that after 3000 years from the sin of the spies and two millennia from the destruction of our Temples we are still mourning; still effected, is reason to view this day, to some degree, as a festival.

The fact that we are still willing to see Jewish misfortune not solely as existential problems that arise in a vacuum – to view them exclusively through the cold prism of political and geopolitical studies – but as the continuation of our story as a nation… this is reason to marvel, to perceive the day in a more positive light.

By choosing to utter the word “Nachamu” twice, the prophet, reminds us that while complete comfort is still pending, for some it is already here in the present. We just have to open our  eyes to the positive.

We find this very same idea in this week’s Parsha; Vaeschanan, a part of which is actually read on the day of Tisha B’Av. During Moshe’s extensive farewell monologue to the Israelites, before his passing-on and prior to their entry into the Promised Land, he includes a remarkable prophecy of their future history. In this divination he offers an unwavering declaration of faith in the invincibility and eternity of the children of the Divine Covenant.

Moshe does not hide from them the fact that after several generations in the Promised Land they will act waywardly in the eyes of the Lord and will consequently be exiled. He furthermore prognosticates that, as a minority nation scattered from pillar to post; wandering amongst larger rapacious idolaters and immoral Gentile nations, they will naturally assimilate into the majority culture and descend into idolatry and impurity (Deuteronomy 4:25-28).

But what is most remarkable and important about Moshe’s legendary farewell speech is the fact that he declares and affirms that the Israelites would never disappear as a separate nation with a unique mission, despite the improbability of such endurance. He forecasts their continued existence in defiance of all of world history.

From every logical, historical and sociological perspective, Israel should have ceased to exist as a separate ethnic entity, if not within their first exile of fifty years in Babylon-Persia, then certainly within the first one-hundred, or so, years of the second arduous exile, which lasted almost 20 centuries (and counting) forcing small groups of Jews to seek safe havens from persecution in all four corners of the world, as distant from each other as Ethiopia and Australia.

Indeed, the very Torah, which hardly ever paints a very rosy picture of its “Chosen people – who all too often debase and disregard its birthright – does unequivocally promise our continued survival and ultimate redemption: “And you shall seek out the Lord your G-d from the (depths of your exile) and you shall find Him … When you are in narrow straits of tragedy, all of these (Divine) words will find you at the end of the days, and you shall return to the Lord your G-d and listen to His voice” (Deuteronomy 4:29, 30).

Two merchants from a small town set off on a long business trip. They were traveling together, but their reasons for taking the trip were different. Solomon was a well-to-do merchant who decided to travel to get a break from his wife’s bad temper and constant bickering. His friend Jacob, on the other hand, was not well off. Jacob worked hard to eke out a living, and took the trip to investigate new markets and possible job opportunities.

Several months passed, with no word from the two men. Finally a visitor arrived in town bearing a letter from each one. Their two wives were very eager to read the letters, but the visitor was exhausted from his travels. He pleaded with the women to let him settle down and organize his things. First thing in the morning, he promised, he would find the letters and deliver them.

Despite the messenger’s protests, the wife of Jacob (the poor merchant) insisted on getting her letter right away. “Why can’t you wait until tomorrow, like Solomon’s wife?” asked the visitor. “Our situations are completely different,” Jacob’s wife explained. “I am living from hand-to-mouth, and I need to know how my husband is doing and whether he has found a decent job.”

“Solomon’s wife, on the other – she has all her needs taken care of. Her only concern is that maybe her husband has decided never to return because he is fed up with her behavior. For my neighbor, it was enough that her husband took the trouble to write her a letter. The contents of the letter, how his business deals are faring – that is of secondary importance.”

The Jewish people are like the wife of the wealthy merchant. We are not concerned whether G-d can provide for us. Our only worry is that perhaps due to our actions, He has exiled us forever. Therefore it is enough just to hear the word “Ami” – “My people.” The very fact that the prophet has brought God’s message to us, and God still calls us “My people” – that is already a tremendous consolation for us.

Perhaps this was the idea of Moshe, while having his prayers to enter the Land rejected, being commanded (3:27) to view Israel from the crest of a mountain. For Moshe, like for Solomon’s wife, (in our story) that was enough.

The question we are left with on this Shabbat of Consolation is now that we have seen the tragedy and the consolation, now that we have seen ourselves survive, what will we do with the chance we have been given? Will we laugh or cry? Will we move past survival and see things in a cosmic light?

Will we dream, thrive, grow, and look forward to the day that is filled with everlasting peace and tranquility, or will we (heaven forbid) focus on the immediate narrow picture; the particular pain of the present moment and take it out of context – allowing it drag us down and miss the whole point?

Let us merit Nachama in its truest sense and suffer no more tragedy.  May we merit to celebrate Tisha B’av next year in Jerusalem with the coming of the righteous Moshiach BBA.